There are three things you can rely on in this country: In summer it rains, FC Bayern becomes German champions – and in the afternoon from 3.05 p.m. on TV “Bares for Rares” is shown. It’s been ten years to the day since the junk show with Horst Lichter was first broadcast on ZDF.
At the time, no one saw that this new format would become one of the biggest hits on German television. Because the program had already celebrated its premiere the day before on the specialist channel ZDFneo – very bashfully and hardly noticed. Once a week, more often the broadcast was initially not planned. Who should be interested in how normal people sell their junk from the attic to the highest bidder on TV?
In fact, the show, moderated by the likeable mustachioed Horst Lichter, quickly found fans, and so “Bares für Rares” made it into the main program just a year later and has been running there continuously from Monday to Friday since the end of 2015. Occasionally, ZDF even broadcasts the show during prime time, and so that viewers don’t have to do without their favorite show even on Holy Sunday, there are side series in which dealers’ and collectors’ items are presented.
Around three million people watch the episodes on average. Every afternoon. There are many reasons for the success. One of them is: Anyone who watches this show gets a little bit smarter every day. The viewer learns a lot about art, jewellery, German history and above all German everyday history over the last 150 years.
In addition, the nervous Berlin Republic only finds its center in “Bares für Rares”. The sellers form the perfect cross-section of the German population. Their names are Fruböse, Tellinghusen or Kalupa and they come from Gäufelden, Grünbach or Georgsmarienhütte. Only rarely from Berlin, Hamburg or Munich. The metropolises have little to report here.
And it doesn’t matter who is at the experts’ table at Lichter, whether grandchild or grandma, homo or straight, native of Cologne or newcomer – Horst Lichter loves them all equally. In this he also differs from the presenter of the other big hit on TV. Günther Jauch expressed his antipathy towards certain guests in “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” can’t always hide.
Horst Lichter, on the other hand, knows how to take himself back and make others shine next to him. Not just the guests. The show has produced many celebrities. Experts like Sven Deutschmanek, Colmar Schultze-Goltz, Heide Rezepa-Zabel or Wendela Horz – whose names alone stand for quality. Dealers like Julian Schmitz-Avila, Lisa Nüdling, Susanne Steiger or Wolfgang Pauritsch are familiar to the viewers like family members.
The world may be out of joint, the future less and less predictable, the viewer may be overwhelmed by technological change: with “Bares for Rares” you can expect consistency. The process of each shipment is the same. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Corona, the climate or the economic crisis: when Walter Lehnertz places his starting bid, everyone knows what’s coming: 80 euros – that’s how “Waldi” traditionally enters the auction.
It’s that reliability that audiences out there are finding less and less. Horst Lichter still has them. Which is not to say that the show is boring. Variatio delectat, variety pleases – this old principle of the Latins is also taken to heart with “Bares für Rares”. And so the salespeople sometimes enter the expert room from the right, sometimes from the left.
Every now and then a trader says goodbye or a new expert is introduced. Because even Lichter knows: In order for everything to remain as it is, some things have to change. Just don’t overwhelm the viewer during the change. Politicians can still learn a lot from Horst Lichter.
“Bares for Rares” always runs on weekdays at 3:05 p.m. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary, Horst Lichter will be presenting highlights from a decade on August 13 from 10.15 a.m.
