Today, the Antiques Roadshow has travelled
to the Black Country Living Museum in the West Midlands.
The museum here in Dudley tells stories of the Industrial Revolution
and early 20th century.
Most of the buildings and artefacts are historic structures from across
the Black Country that have been moved, sometimes brick by brick,
and reconstructed on this site.
You see this bridge?
It was built in 1922 and originally stood over a canal in Tipton,
just a couple of miles from here.
Canals were once the lifeblood of the Black Country.
During the 19th and early 20th century,
raw materials were brought in along more than 450 miles of canals.
Hi, there.
Hi, there. Morning.
Back then, the streets were black with smoke from the workings of
thousands of coal seams, iron foundries and forges,
and that's how the Black Country got its name.
Shall we walk on?
Yes. With Charlie? Walk on.
And horses like Charlie were essential.
They pulled anything from trams, fire engines, milk carts,
delivered coal, and of course...
..carriages.
BELL DINGS
Hold tightly!
But their loads were lifted when
trolleybuses first came to Wolverhampton in 1923.
They ran on electricity but they had wheels so they could steer through
the busy streets.
The shops along this street are real shops
that existed in different towns
and villages across the Black Country during the 1930s.
I love the fact that the menswear shop and the chippy here really did
stand next to each other in Hall Street in Dudley.
Stepping back in time is what the Roadshow is all about,
so let's see what treasures emerge from the past with our thousands of
visitors from the Black Country and beyond.
And this is my kind of Roadshow!
Sometimes it's about the jewellery and sometimes it's about the story.
But in this particular instance, I sense that
it's about both, isn't it?
Tell me all about it. I inherited them from my aunt,
who died two days after I was born, so I never knew her.
And my aunt was a spinster.
In fact, she eventually married the love of her life when she was 65,
but she'd had such a good time in the meantime, and she gambled,
but we really don't know whether these are the real thing
or whether she sold them off to enjoy herself.
How marvellous. Well, she sounds exactly my sort of girl.
You know, gambling girl, a goodtime girl, and then marries at 65.
Sounds perfect. And there's every sort of evidence
that she was not only a gambler but a winner,
because they are emeralds and pearls and gold.
She wasn't the original owner of them, interestingly enough,
and this is the great fascination with jewellery,
because there's a sort of architecture to jewellery which is
no more complicated than walking down a suburban street and saying,
that house is Victorian and that one is Elizabethan.
But we are trained to see it.
And in this particular case, they are both 19th century,
seriously 19th century,
so they must predate her by 30 or 40 years
at the very minimum, I imagine.
Yes. And these are probably fragments here of something larger,
maybe a necklace, and they are made of enamelled gold set with emeralds
and I suspect that it was a necklace because the ring, too, is composite.
It wasn't always a ring and they have taken these elements
and used them very sensibly to make earrings.
But this one is very fascinating because that seems to be in almost
completely original condition.
These are real pearls,
they are far-fetched from the depths of the Persian Gulf, very exotic.
And the emerald is from Colombia.
Then they are brought together and this strange alchemy which we call
the jeweller's art makes much of them.
And it's not enough that they should have this brilliant, vivid green,
which is an expression of the natural world,
and these lustrous pearls from the organic world,
they are brought together in a brooch by the jeweller
by almost alchemy and heightened with black and white enamel.
So it's quite artistic jewellery,
not necessarily hugely valuable intrinsically,
but if you were in a spot at the gambling tables,
these would be the first to go, and they haven't.
No. So I think we can just say,
if she was a gambler she was moderate or highly successful.
I suspect the latter.
So, let's give a thought about value.
The brooch here with the oval emerald in the centre,
I think possibly an auction value of £2,000, and I think the others,
because they are fragments, there are more of them,
the stones are smaller, but I think it's just the same,
so £4,000 worth of jewellery lying in front of us
with a family history.
How wonderful. Oh, so she was a good old girl!
Well, if I was a detective,
this piece of furniture is littered with clues as to where it has come
from. Yes. But where did you get it from?
We got it from
my dad's aunt in Manchester about 50 years ago.
Dad had his first car and we took a family trip up there to
his Auntie Minnie and she had this in her hallway
and she insisted that we take it back home with us.
Oh, my goodness, so you were all crammed into the car.
Crammed into the car. I don't think Dad really wanted to take it,
to be honest, but it came back with us
and it has been in the family ever since.
Do you know where it's from?
I did a little bit of research.
I know it's an Irish tourist piece, I believe, Killarney.
Absolutely. Well, the first clue is Muckross Abbey,
which is near Killarney.
The ferns, which grow all over that area, and then the shamrocks.
Right, yeah. Got to be Irish.
There are also references - with the thistles and the roses -
to Ireland's union with England and Scotland.
So it looks great from the outside.
Now, is it just a plain baize-lined interior?
Or... It just looks...
Not quite. ..even better on the inside.
So it's a games table.
Chequerboard, backgammon, cribbage.
Of an evening, do you all gather around and play backgammon and...?
Every night, every night!
No. To me, it doesn't look as if it's ever been used, really,
on the inside. I don't remember it being used.
There's another little oval of marquetry there, Glena Cottage,
and Dunloe Castle, just here.
The men who were making these were able to copy
these well-known landmarks
and replicate them in marquetry.
But what about all the woods that are in here?
There is a lot of yew and it is the most beautiful sort of soft
honey colour. A very tactile wood, actually, isn't it?
Yes. Holly, another native timber,
and I think this is the arbutus wood,
which is from the strawberry tree.
And so, a table like this,
they were made right from the late 18th century
up to the late 19th century. Right.
This one, with its very classical straight leg, is quite unusual,
and I think dates it around sort of 1820-1830.
Really? If you were to commission a table like this now, I mean,
it would be so much money just in man hours alone.
It's such a good example of an early Killarney table
and it's worth £4,000.
Really?
Thank you, Auntie Minnie.
Yes, thank you very much.
When I was a small boy, like all small boys,
I was intrigued by the story of Douglas Bader.
You know, what an extraordinary man.
No legs, fighting ace, all those amazing things
that of course excited small boys.
I knew the story of how he was shot down over France in 1941
and when he got out of his Spitfire, his tin legs were left behind.
He went to a German prisoner of war camp with no legs and I've always
known that, of course, at some point -
I don't know how it was arranged -
a British bomber went over and dropped him a new set of legs,
which always seemed to me an extraordinary thing to do
in the middle of a war, but it happened.
Now, this is part of that story, isn't it?
Yes. Tell me, who are these people?
Well, my dad's brother, Uncle Jack,
actually pushed Douglas Bader's legs through
the escape hatch of the Blenheim bomber.
This is amazing.
Hang on, so these three people are the crew.
That's right. So he's the air gunner, so that's Uncle Jack.
Yes. He's the observer...
..wireless operator.
Yeah. And he's the pilot. That's right.
So, those are the people who flew to Germany
in a rather ancient aeroplane,
a Blenheim, and dropped the legs so Bader could walk again.
That's right.
Now, this is a letter.
Yes. This is from Uncle Jack, isn't it?
That's right. I will read it,
because I think it is the most extraordinary document.
"I have done five raids now and, thank God,
"neither one of my crew have been hit,
"although the plane has been hit every time.
"I can't write about my trips but I can tell you that when Bader's legs
"were dropped, they were not dropped by the fighter boys,
"as the Express said, but were actually dropped
"by your own son Jack.
"Yes, it was me who had to push them out through the escape hatch,
"and what a job it was."
It's amazing. I mean, first-hand account
of an event I've known all my life.
What does it mean to you?
Everything. It was everything to my nan.
Yeah? Yes. She treasured the letter, yes.
And what happened next?
They were shot down on a bombing raid in Holland, September 1941,
only a month after. Yeah, so this is August '41.
Yes, that's right. A very jolly letter about an exciting adventure.
Within a month, they're dead.
Yes.
I mean, I didn't know my Uncle Jack.
No, obviously not. But I'm very passionate to keep his memory alive.
This is a story of huge value, historically and personally.
Financial value, I suppose the photograph to a collector would be
£100, but that's, frankly, irrelevant.
What we've got is something that, in value terms, is priceless.
It's a bit of your history,
it's a bit of our history to be preserved forever.
That's right. Thank you. Thank you.
We're sitting here in front of this magnificent machine,
the Imperial Good Company machine, made in Leicester, England,
by appointment to George V, I see over there,
and it belonged to Enid Blyton.
And on this wonderful machine
she must have typed all her books -
The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, and perhaps even the Noddy books.
Tell me, how have you got it?
Well, my parents worked for Enid Blyton -
started in the early '60s
until she passed away in 1971.
Yes. After then,
my parents had to look after the estate until it was sold.
This is Green Hedges?
This is Green Hedges at Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
Yes. My dad was the gardener
and my mum worked in the house as a domestic and cook.
So she did the domestic AND cook?
Yes, she did. They looked after her.
And so, why the typewriter?
I mean, normally when an author dies,
they want to give the people who worked for them
some money or something like that,
but to give them a typewriter seems a very odd thing to do.
I think that eventually came from one of the daughters.
We have some wonderful pictures here.
These two pictures here in the front are actually of dear Enid Blyton.
Both of them have pictures of this particular typewriter here.
And I like this one really over here particularly, because it's got
a picture of Enid Blyton in front of her masses of books.
She wrote for children's magazines
and all sorts of things and obviously all her famous books,
but they are all here with Enid Blyton in front of them.
And an older one here over on the other side next to you,
which is of Enid Blyton in a lovely sort of woolly fur coat,
clutching her famous creations of Noddy and Big Ears,
which I think is absolutely tremendous.
So, this dates from about 1935,
because the crest here is of George V,
and so from 1935 until the end of her life,
she typed all her famous books on this magnificent machine,
which we're still seeing reprinted today and still being issued,
and the soft toys are still in production, aren't they?
They are indeed. What sort of value do you think we can put on this?
Well, this is what...
We really haven't a clue, to be honest.
And that's why you brought it along today.
Exactly, yes. Oh, splendid.
Well, I'm going to value this...
..at £5,000.
Oh, right!
Fantastic, yes.
Are you going to sell it?
Possibly, we don't know yet.
I've always been interested in cartoons,
particularly the old MGM Tom And Jerry cartoons.
It was The Cat Concerto and The Hollywood Bowl
which got me interested in music.
I've never specifically been a Walt Disney collector as such,
but... But, Helen, you've got three Mickey Mice here.
What happened?
I just saw this little chap at the NEC and I just...
He was quite a lot of money.
I just kept looking at him.
I just thought he was so adorable.
The expression on his face, he looks sort of grumpy.
And I kept...
I thought, "Oh, no, he's too much money," but then I went back and I
bought him.
Mickey, born in 1928. Two years later Walt Disney
decided he needed a dog,
invented Pluto, there here is, and we've got sort of the whole family.
I would have thought we're talking about perhaps
£800 for the little figures.
I love this jacket, it's a very nostalgic item
for me because it takes me right back
to that punk period, late '70s,
and obviously you're a bit of a punk fan yourself, weren't you?
I can tell by the T-shirt you're wearing.
So, listen, tell me a little bit about this top.
I can see that it's got a label on and it says
Kahn & Bell, 72 Hurst St, Birmingham. So a local story.
We will come back to a bit of history in a moment.
Tell me how you acquired this top.
Well, I was aware of the shop from going over to Birmingham to visit
record stores and fashion houses and my friend actually bought it -
I didn't buy it myself.
Right. Then a couple of years later - I think it was 1980 -
he was very fond of a denim jacket I was wearing.
Right. So we did a swap.
You swapped it for a denim jacket!
Yeah. Now, tell me, did you used to pogo around in this?
I did, yes. You did?
You're a tall chap as well,
I bet you used to go right up above everybody else. Yeah!
What's local and great about this, as I say,
is the Kahn & Bell association here.
We're talking about Jane Kahn and Patti Bell.
They were Birmingham designers, they were based in 72 Hurst Street,
Birmingham. I think Boy George said their shop was a bit strange.
He was one of their customers.
But this top is, what? It's circa 1977, around that sort of time.
Around that sort of time, yes.
Their fame preceded them, in a way.
They designed a lot of clothing for people like Duran Duran as well.
You know, there were good customers.
So they've got a great place in design history.
Unlike Vivienne Westwood,
they didn't really get that notoriety that they deserved,
I don't think,
but yet this is a classic thing.
Obviously you wore it a lot.
I can see there is an original punk safety pin down the bottom here.
Is it holding it together?
A bit of DIY repair, yeah.
A bit of DIY repair, which is really good.
It was a good swap for a denim jacket.
It's not in perfect condition but I reckon, in the current market,
with the thirst for this kind of material,
this is worth £400-600 at auction.
Really? Yeah, absolutely.
Wow. I think I owe my mate a drink, don't I?
Yeah, I think you do!
So, we often hear stories about the Second World War
and the regular Army,
but we don't hear about the forgotten heroes.
Here we have a collection of items relating to your father,
who served in the Burma campaign -
British troops fighting the Japanese in the Far East.
Can you tell us about them?
A lot of this, why we're here today,
there was a programme on the telly about Burma
and people who are writing home,
their lost ones and loved ones.
Yeah. And my father was over there
in '45 to '47, and we never really knew
what he actually had done,
but my aunt mentioned it one day that he was
in the burial detail, and that was just shocking.
But since we've realised, we found his book,
his release book, and it actually tells you in that
exactly what he did.
Gosh. Your father served with the 60th Grave Company.
It's quite an unusual company, isn't it?
All that we know is that it was part of the Worcestershire Regiment.
Somebody had to bury all these people,
all these thousands of British and Japanese soldiers.
Absolutely, and not much is known about...
Because of the horrors that were seen, after the war
people just didn't talk about it.
So, what our father went through must've been horrendous.
It's unimaginable...
It is. ..what he would've seen, but...
Yeah. So, these items were sort of collected by your father?
Yeah, it's what he brought back from Burma with him.
We have got a little black-and-white photograph...
Yeah. ..of graves.
We are assuming that was one of the war grave cemeteries that he was
basically looking after and helping the guys to sort out.
We think that that is possibly one of the large graves from
the Hill 60 battle, which there was thousands of, you know,
British as well as Japanese troops that were...
And he would've been there,
obviously with his camera, documenting this.
Documenting it, yeah. And, you know, he was there mainly as a guard.
And here he is, a portrait photograph,
we have his campaign medals.
We've got the 1945 Star, the War Medal and the Burma campaign medal,
which is the all-important one there.
And all these are signified by the colours of the ribbons there.
Many soldiers, they didn't wear their medals all the time
so they would have a medal ribbon on their tunic...
Oh, to represent... A ribbon bar, yeah.
..the medals. So people would know exactly what they were entitled to.
Oh, right. Yeah. Good.
And then you've got a couple of cookery knives here,
little rosewood handle ones with their leather scabbards.
Non-military, so probably would've been, shall we say,
souvenirs of the time?
Yes. 1947, 1948, sort of souvenirs.
Yeah. And this box is interesting.
It has got a label on the front saying it was made by POWs.
Looking at the state of the box, there's no...
Quite probably so, isn't it?
Absolutely. ..MDF or anything on it, it's just real wood.
I mean, it is the case of all these items, when they come together,
it forms a story.
It's a story of your father...
It does, yeah. ..his service and, as you say, the forgotten army,
the men in the aftermath of war who were in the clearing-up operations,
etc. It is wonderful that you have come here
to share these stories with us.
I think if they were in a military sale,
they might make £300-£500,
but it's a sentimental value.
It is, yeah. That's right, yeah. And it's the story of your father
and the men behind it. Yeah. It is, yeah.
With its funny-shaped snout and cartoon face,
you would expect this to have a coin slot in the back as a piggy bank,
but I think this little piggy is rather older than it appears.
Where did it come from? About ten years ago,
my sister found it in a charity shop and she sent it to me and said,
"If you are ever at Antiques Roadshow any time,
"take it along and see what they say."
Oh, right. One finds all sorts of things in charity shops and at
the Roadshow, we are quite used to pieces being hundreds of years old,
even at charity shops.
But this goes back a very long way indeed.
There is a label on the bottom that tells us some provenance.
Tell me what it says. It says,
"A child's rattle found during excavations at Cyprus
"by Count Palomoda, 1800 BC."
Yeah. It goes back thousands... 1800 BC?
I mean, labels saying things are a thousand years old usually have to
be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt.
Yeah. Especially when they are in charity shops.
Yeah. But, in this case, it really is a very ancient pig.
I think the 19th-century antiquarian who found it
and wrote that was being a bit ambitious.
Right. It's not quite that old.
It's probably 1000 BC... Oh, right!
..to 600 BC, maybe.
So, getting on for 3,000 years old.
Long time ago. In a charity shop!
Unreal. Not bad, is it, really?
No, no. And, I mean, it's just a simple little child's toy.
Yeah. I mean, it's got to be the oldest toy I think we have ever had
on the Roadshow. I mean, it's a rattle.
Yeah. So inside you shake it and there are some little stones
which have been put through the hole in the side there.
So, it was a toy,
perhaps buried in the grave of a little child
who died 3,000 years ago.
Jeez. Right.
Dug up a by Victorian adventurer, and here it is.
I guess it would have been 150 years ago when it was found -
that's when people were going and digging things up like this.
How much was it in the charity shop?
I think she paid a fiver for it.
A fiver. I mean, 3,000 years old.
I mean, I suppose it's probably worth £500.
Right, OK!
This is a remarkable and, for me, really exciting collection of work -
drawings, cartoons, original stained-glass, linked, of course,
to the company TW Camm of Smethwick.
One of the last great stained-glass makers of the region.
Yes. And the great Florence Camm who, in herself,
was a pioneering woman at the beginning of the 20th century.
So, where's your connection?
Well, the lady in the photograph there is my great-grandmother and
my great-grandfather also worked for the company for many, many years,
and found this suitcase in my grandfather's loft
and discovered drawings,
this large piece of glass here, the smaller stained-glass pieces.
So your grandmother was...?
My great-grandmother was Florence Evelyn Loach
and my great-grandfather was Albert Fowl and, yes,
they both worked for the company for many years,
both as artists and making the actual windows themselves.
And modelling as well. Florence herself was an incredible artist.
She was. And their work is all over the world,
which is amazing, and I am very proud to be connected in that way to
the company. This, of course, is your great-grandmother.
It is, yes. So, she featured as a model for a lot of Florence Camm's
work, then? Yes, in fact, most of the artists did as well -
including my great-grandfather - would model in various costumes,
in various positions, either to be drawn or photographs to then be
used for the windows. And, of course,
we can see, here she is as the model.
Yes. And also in this original... these photographs
that show the work here.
Yes. And I think this is the Dante and Beatrice works, isn't it?
Which are now held in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Yes, it is. But, of course, there's work by them literally, as you say,
all over the world and all over the region, and if you look,
they were so talented.
They were. Not only was Florence Camm herself
a fabulous draughtswoman,
brilliant glass-maker, wonderful at metalwork,
but also your great-grandmother working alongside her was equally
as talented. She was.
And, together, they produced, you know,
some of the most fantastic work.
It is that exciting time and certainly that very exciting and
ground-breaking time for women as well where, here are these strong,
incredibly talented women who, you know,
a generation before would have just been at home sewing, cooking,
cleaning and doing all the things that were expected of them but here
they are now designing, creating, making the most glorious pieces.
She spent her whole life, Florence Camm, in Smethwick and I'm sure -
was your great-grandmother in the same region?
Yes, Smethwick born and bred, both my great grandparents.
It is a really exciting archive for me because Florence is just starting
to be recognised and it is only now that we are starting to really
investigate and look into them and realise really
how remarkable she was.
So, value. As a collective body,
I have done a quick tot up here and with the glass, with the panels,
with the original cartoons, the drawings, the sketches,
at the moment I think you are looking collectively here somewhere
between £3,000 and £4,000 for that.
Wow. That's amazing.
That is really amazing.
Do you know what? We are at the beginning of something that is only
going to grow, and the more these names get out there,
the more people will learn and know about them and realise quite how
pioneering these women were at the beginning of the 20th century.
Well, from the outside, it looks like a proper antique should.
It's quarter veneered in walnut,
the Rosewood panel on top has a super spray on it, all hand inlaid.
But when we open it, it looks like a DJ's deck!
It does, yes. How far back does your memory of this piece go?
When I was a child, staying with my aunt and uncle,
and I used to stay in the room where this was.
Right, and was it played for you...
Yes. To your delight?
I can remember Uncle Stanley kneeling down and winding the handle
and this beautiful noise coming out.
It is quite unusual because it is a double, it is a dual disc Symhonion,
because, indeed, it's written there loud and clear.
It was the Symphonion company.
Oh! I must say I have never seen one before.
I haven't seen another one.
Oh, right. Only on the Antiques Roadshow.
Yeah. Many years ago.
But I have tried to research it and I've not found another double one.
No. Symphonions were made in Germany.
It was made probably in Leipzig.
Right, OK. Around the year 1905.
These actually only had a very short period of popularity before they
were overtaken by the next thing.
Yes. Just to show how they do actually work,
I'll actually lift up this disc, just thin metal,
and the secret is on the back.
There's hundreds of little punched...
Yes. ..like little... They are called plectra.
They are very sharp. Very, very sharp.
Very sharp. Yeah. And obviously it is punched out to a particular tune
with different tones.
These actually turn little wheels.
Right. And those wheels then actually pluck these little cones,
these little tines.
And then this is just simply the pressure bar
to keep it all in place.
Well, what is it worth?
I would say...
..with what you've got,
it's £8,000 to £10,000.
Wow!
Yeah. Wow!
Smile money!
Without further ado, shall we play out?
Yes, please do. OK, here we go.
OUT-OF-TUNE MELODY PLAYS
Just like a game of snakes and ladders,
the value of antiques can go up and it can go down, and as part of our
Changing Fortunes, we are looking at the last 40 years and which -
in this case, glassware - which of these items has skyrocketed,
which has more or less kept its value
and which has actually lost value.
So, Andy McConnell, this is your glorious collection
of glass for us to look at today.
What should we be looking at?
This obviously looks the oldest but I imagine that's not necessarily
going to be the most, the one that has increased the most
in the last 40 years.
Are you going to say anything at all?
Well, I'm dealing these as categories,
so this is a wine bottle from 1670, sealed.
This is 1980s, this is a Swedish Graal vase,
it's a very complicated piece of glass.
Eva Englund, famous designer, fully signed, there's only of them.
This glass is engraved with the signature of Jacob Sang,
the greatest wheel engraver working in Europe.
It is signed and dated 1750.
Those are the categories that I have set you.
One is up, one has stayed the same and one has gone down.
The ball is in your court, girl.
I don't... And it's been weeks now that you have been teasing me about
this, saying that you were going to...
You were going to beat me and I was going to get them all wrong.
Maybe you could all help me a little bit here.
I mean, I'm inclined to go for the glass
because that is the great period,
the height of Dutch power, the golden age,
I'm thinking East India Company, all that sort of thing.
Spot-on.
Anyone any takers for that?
MURMURS OF AGREEMENT
Yes? What about this here?
This is unique. It's a fabulous thing.
And when did you say it was made?
1980s. 1980s. OK.
And what about this?
Gone down. You think it's gone down?
You think it's gone down. Is there anything more you can tell me about
that? It's attributed to a known individual.
He was Portuguese, as it happens, living in 1665-70.
Who travelled widely and discovered countries?
No. No, he's not famous.
Right, OK. No. Because I was thinking this must be really valuable.
No, that's not a torpedo.
Right, OK. You have the information you need.
There are no further secrets. Right. I've been fair.
OK. All right.
So, in terms of the one that has lost value,
give me a show of hands here.
This one.
No. Because it's so recent.
This one. Yes.
OK. So, more people are going for this has lost value, actually.
This is called floundering, I believe.
Oh!
And we are melting, aren't we, Andy?
D-time, decision time.
OK, all right. I think this will always have been valuable,
because it's so old.
So it might have lost value slightly.
Would I wind you up? This is clearly an extraordinary period in Dutch
history. Yeah. By the best guy.
I think this will have kept value.
And I think simply because this is so modern that you just bowled me
a googly with it and maybe that stuff is kind of getting in now,
coming into fashion? OK.
Lost value, stay the same, gone up a lot in value.
Thank you, Lord.
Lost value.
AUDIENCE GASPS
In the gallery price... Well, I didn't like it anyway!
That's funny, because I heard that this could be your favourite piece.
This, when it was sold originally in a gallery in Stockholm, cost £7,000.
Its value today is two.
Ooh, that's painful!
The owner of this glass, who is standing right behind me...
I really like it.
..paid £25,000 for it.
AUDIENCE GASPS
And it is worth exactly the same today.
Right.
And this bottle, who this lady here's father dug up with a JCB...
No!
..in London in the '80s, when he dug that up it was worth £1,000 -
today that is £7,000-9,000.
Wow.
So, I couldn't have got it more wrong.
Well done. This was the googly.
Thanks for being such a good sport.
APPLAUSE
Well, these beautiful objects represent a time
when chewing tobacco and spitting
were not only socially acceptable
but they were really part of social interaction.
Did you have any idea what these objects were when you came
in today? Before bringing them in today, I had no idea at all.
These were courtly artefacts made in India,
in the late 18th or early 19th century.
How did they come into your hands?
They came from my grandparents' house.
My grandmother was looking for some things to decorate the hearth
next to the woodburner in the farmhouse where they live
and she found them up in the attic. Well,
this drum shape is a spittoon and we have to remember that at the time,
chewing tobacco was the norm both in the West and in the Eastern part of
the world. It continues today, of course, in much of Asia,
in China and in India.
The idea was that when you were chewing tobacco for recreation,
for pleasure - of course at that time it was believed also to have
some health benefits - you had to constantly spit out the saliva
that you had in your mouth.
The way that this was taken to a high art was by
the production of these extremely fine spittoons.
This example here is made in a technique called bidri,
from the Indian town of Bidar.
Basically what we have is a zinc and copper alloy inlaid in silver
and these extremely, extremely fine designs.
These were courtly items for somebody of high rank,
of high wealth and they would have accompanied him
as he sat in his living room,
or sat in his home, interacting with his friends and chatting and
talking. He had his personal spittoon to spit in
every once in a while when he needed to spit.
This tray here would have originally had a container
for the betel nut and the tobacco
and the spices that were mixed together in a formulation that we
call paan - P-A-A-N.
Indeed, you can go to the Indian section of any town in the world
and you will have a paan shop which still makes it.
Of course, what is much less acceptable is spitting.
It was only after 1918 when the Spanish influenza ravaged Europe
that the culture of spitting really ended.
It all changes with the demise of chewing tobacco and the birth of
cigarettes. Because the standard is missing its container,
the value is somewhat diminished.
With the container we would be looking at another level.
But I would say £200 to £300. OK. Excellent.
Now, portraiture is one of those great subjects that has really
endured art history.
Over here we have this beautiful portrait
of a wistful Victorian lady
by Charles Sillem Lidderdale.
It's dated 1893.
Here we have this very different portrayal,
60 years later, by an artist called Maurice Field, from 1953.
It really shows the evolution of artistry over those 60 years
with two world wars in between.
It seems unlikely that we have got them together in one place.
Why have you got them both?
So, both paintings,
my sister and I have inherited from our grandparents.
This painting, the Lidderdale,
used to hang at the top of the stairs in their house.
Not far away on the landing was this picture by Maurice Field,
which is actually a picture of our mother.
Oh, wow!
We think, probably, around seven or eight years old.
That confirms that your grandparents have this eye for collecting.
I can see why they were drawn to the Lidderdale.
In the late 19th century,
the Victorians loved these depictions of women.
She's holding a book.
It feels like a scene from Dickens,
or one of the great narrative writers.
Even in her fashion at the time,
he has really picked out the pattern on her dress in contrast with this
really quite romantic hat.
Having bought something like that
when they wanted to commission someone
to paint their own children,
the style of portraiture in the '50s is entirely different.
Suddenly, this is a much more intimate,
refreshing view of a little girl.
If you compare the brushstrokes in the 1890s,
some much tighter handling of paint
whereas by 1953, after the Second World War,
it's looser, much more spontaneous brushwork.
Which one do you prefer?
I would have to say that one because it's my mother.
Interestingly, in terms of value,
the fashion for Victorian pictures was huge back in the '80s.
It is now not as fashionable as it was, it will come back in.
Today, that is probably worth about £1,500-2,000,
but Lidderdale is a very well-known artist.
But Maurice Field, who is really not as well known,
he was known more as a teacher - he taught at the Slade.
He taught many artists like Kenneth Rowntree and Lawrence Gowing
but he is really not well known that much on the market.
I think this is actually rather a special picture
and if it did come up at auction with an estimate
of maybe 1,000-1,500,
I wonder whether maybe this one might make more
than the grander Royal Academy picture over there.
OK. Thank you.
I almost think there are two sorts of Wedgwood fairyland lustre bowls.
Those that were treasured and looked after and those that were treasured
and used. This was your mother's, I understand?
Yes.
Certainly in recent times, as long as I can remember,
it has been on the sideboard and it was her fruit bowl.
She used to keep apples, bananas and nuts in it.
The more you look at them, the more detail and features you see.
Made by Wedgwood in the 1920s.
The great designer Daisy Makeig-Jones
was responsible for the fairyland range.
In the middle there is the full scene
known as the boys on a bridge.
These little elfin and fairy folk
walking down a bridge but what are these other creatures all about?
They are so stylised it is difficult to know what they are.
Insects and all sorts of things.
Above there looks like a giant bat.
That's sometimes known as a rock,
a monster from the Arabian Nights stories
but then it's combined with all sorts of fairy folk.
The size of it is wonderful.
The design is great.
But condition is everything.
The slight problem here is that she put the fruit in it and it's taken
a bit of the colour off the border.
It has been used.
On the sideboard and people used to throw everything into a bowl on
the sideboard, keys and things, and it's got that crack.
Yes. Which makes such a difference.
Had it been perfect, let's think what it might be worth.
£10,000.
Yeah? Without the crack.
OK. Even with the crack it still going to be
2,500.
That's surprising.
We didn't think anything like that.
It comes from a bottle shop, obviously.
Whereabouts is Sally Grove?
Educate me. You know the back of the new hospital?
Is just the back of there. So it's local?
In its day it would have been a very grand thing.
"Come into my shop, I'm better than everyone else," sort of a symbol.
Some condition issues.
This shard of glass here.
I broke that this morning lifting it off the back of the wagon
this morning to get it here. You broke it this morning?
My knee went into it.
Oh, no.
Never mind, it's only 170 years old!
Fully renovated,
you could expect an auction estimate of something like £1,000 to £1,500.
That's all right.
A little blue and white mug.
Where from?
This was on my great-aunt Alice's mantelpiece.
So I always thought it would be something special.
Brought it along because it's unmarked
and we wanted to know a bit more about it.
A lot of these things are unmarked and one has to know what they are.
It's early Worcester, 1752.
Which is terribly old.
Very old. And in a pattern which is called willow root.
It has the willow root on one side and runs round
into a lovely scene
of a little Chinese fishermen going on his job.
I think it's absolutely beautiful.
It is now quite valuable.
It has a little tiny chip in it but very little.
I would recommend price...
..£800-£1,200.
OK.
So thank you for bringing it in.
Sometimes the Antiques Roadshow can feel a bit like a treasure hunt but
you have brought along an actual treasure hunt that you found,
how many years ago?
When I was about 12 in, well, 1982.
And I know you're intrigued by the story, aren't you...
Definitely. ..James? Let's have a look inside.
What have we got in here? All sorts of photographs.
So how did it start, this treasure hunt?
Tell me the story. My mum, with her friend,
wanted to make a clubhouse den in the shed
and in the back of the shed, lodged in the back was that tin
with the first clue in it.
So, you were trying to create a sort of clubhouse in the shed?
Yes. Clearing it out.
And you were how old then? About 11, 12.
And you found this letter?
Yes. It's dated the 12th of April 1940, and it says,
"My name is Catherine Short and I live at 64 Bullsmoor Lane.
"I am 12 years old and I live with my mother, father and brother.
"I do not go to school because I'm not very well.
"The doctor said that I must stay in bed.
"So I am going to hide all of my things away in this house so that
"someone else can enjoy them. This first clue you have to find
"is in the old trunk up in the attic."
Wow, that must've been so exciting!
It was.
I always wanted to find treasure.
Well, so there you were, 11 or 12, you find this clue,
so then what happened?
So we went up into the loft and there was an old trunk
when we had moved in. And what did you find in the trunk?
The next clue. It was in the lining of the trunk.
Go on, James, do the honours again, what does this one say?
"I hope that you found this clue.
"I would like you to find my second clue.
"It is under the lino under the bottom step in the hall."
Then it says, "This is a picture of my mother, brother and myself."
So here we are. This is the mother.
This is a little boy, so this is her.
This is Catherine. Maybe in her christening dress?
Possibly. Wow.
So you must've been really...
..really excited now.
So then you went to look under the lino, did you?
Yes. So, this was under the stairs, like the under-stairs cupboard,
so we had to pull the hoover out and all the bits out
and crawl in and it was under the bottom step.
I'm loving this.
The next instalment.
It says, "If you have got this far, you have done well.
"Find the next clue and it will tell you where to look for my things.
"My daddy has helped to hide this last clue.
"Stand in the middle of the garage and look up for a cross."
Yeah, and that was in the beams of the garage.
Lodged right up there.
And what did you find there?
That was the next clue.
Is that another piece of paper?
Yes, there's one more. I think that is the final clue.
Isn't this great?
It says, "My things are up the chimney in the sitting room with the French windows."
So you went into the sitting room with the French windows and you found...
We found the treasure. Oh, and the last message as well.
And the last message. Oh, there's another message?
It says, "There are my treasures.
"I hope you get as much enjoyment from them as I have.
"The doctor says I must go away for a time and I'm going to stay with
"my auntie and uncle at the seaside."
So there is excitement and a real poignancy because this little girl clearly was not very well.
No. Maybe if she went to the seaside, TB, possibly?
Possibly didn't come back.
That's what we think, isn't it?
Oh, do you? I think that she never returned from the seaside strip.
Possibly. This is exactly the kind of thing that
a little 12-year-old girl would keep as treasure, isn't it?
So have you tried to find out who Catherine was?
We've tried twice, haven't we?
The first time we didn't find anything, and the second time
we were a bit luckier - we found two potential people,
but I wrote to them and they never got back, so...
So you solved one mystery by finding the treasure,
but you've actually...
In doing that, raised another mystery of who she actually was.
Who is little Catherine?
And whatever happened to her?
Maybe some eagle-eyed viewer here on the Roadshow will be able to solve
it for you. Hopefully.
The last time I went to a Buddhist shrine in China, it was in a cave,
in the cool, in the dark,
and now we're standing here in the blazing heat.
What a fantastic figure of Buddha.
Chinese and bronze.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Wonderfully serene.
Tell me a little about how you got it.
The lady who owned it first died
in 1935, and my aunt had it then
and my aunt died in 1968 and it came to my father.
Yeah, so this has been in the West
certainly since the 1930s and possibly before that.
Before that - I would think at least 100 years.
It is a wonderful figure.
This one is a Chinese figure of Buddha
because Buddhism started in India
and Buddhism moved into China and certainly was in China by
the Han Dynasty, which is about the time of Christ,
and this is a little later.
You see the caves in China are being carved into the hillsides and there
are lots of Buddhist shrines dating from the fourth, fifth,
sixth century throughout China
so there are many shrines, many figures.
This one is in bronze and it's been partially gilded and it's also been
partially painted. There are details
of paint on the lips here,
the hair here would've been painted - probably blue.
There's a little bit of blue just there.
There's a little bit of traces of blue here.
The robes he wears are wonderfully defined.
This one dates from the middle to the late Ming Dynasty.
Ming Dynasty ended in 1644.
This is probably 16th century.
Maybe into the 17th century but it's got great age, great serenity, it's
very, very beautiful. When it was cast,
there are a few firing faults of making and if I turn it round here,
you see there is a line here with dovetails,
just like a carpenter would do. Yeah.
Where there was obviously a problem in the casting and it has been
repaired but that would have been at the time of manufacture.
It's a terrific object, really.
Once upon a time, when it was made, it sat on a throne.
It would've been taller.
It would have had a lotus throne which would've been
about this high so the whole thing would have been
about this high. Yeah. And, yeah, it's a lovely thing to have.
I think you're very lucky indeed.
It is fairly valuable.
I think a figure like this in auction today is
in excess of £60,000.
Yes. Very nice.
Not enough to part with him!
Well, here is a very curious item.
The magical name Laurence Olivier
and Repertory Theatre Birmingham here.
Tell me about it. Well, it's a 1926 script.
Yes. For a part that Laurence Olivier had,
and the part must have been so small that he had to write it out by hand.
They didn't... They didn't have enough copies.
Yes. Or he did it himself to help him learn it.
Oh, absolutely wonderful.
What was the play, what was the play called?
The Road To Ruin. Road To Ruin.
And he obviously had a very small part in it.
I don't know, he's got quite a few pages here.
I open it up and I read the top line here, "And I am 10,000 out,
"I believe I had better avoid your father for the present,
"because of my ruin.
"And I, being in his debt,
"he concedes he may treat me without ceremony."
Well, I wouldn't be surprised, would you?
No, no. 10,000 in those days.
So, he was the juvenile lead, I suppose, at that stage.
Yes, I should imagine so. And of course then he was off to Hollywood.
Yes. Doing Heathcliff and all that sort of things,
and then he became Sir Laurence.
Yes. And then later Lord Olivier.
This is a lovely picture of, what, your mother?
Yes. With a picture of herself.
Yes. Did she play in the Repertory Theatre?
She did, in the '40s.
Sir Barry Jackson started a stage school at the Old Rep
at Station Street. Right.
It was while she was there that she found this.
She found it? Yes.
And she kept it?
Yes. Because she loved him.
Yes, very much.
Oh, yes, he was a great... Heart-throb. A great hero of Mum's.
Here we are, I've got to value it, haven't I?
It's all in his handwriting.
You often see signed photographs of him but you rarely ever see anything
as early as this.
It's a beautiful piece.
I've got to say £500.
Oh, lovely.
Come and join us at one of our valuation days in 2018.
For more information, visit our website.
Well, this is one of the hottest days of the year
and we are all fading
but you have brought me a flower that is never going to wilt.
Tell me all about it.
Well, we call it the Regimental Jewel.
The regiment, the Worcestershire Yeomanry,
later to become the Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars,
was formed in 1794 to protect these shores
against a Napoleonic invasion.
It was agreed that the regiment should serve
only within the United Kingdom.
However, in 1899, when the Boer War was going badly,
it was decided that some of the Yeomanry, as volunteers,
would be mobilised.
And when they left the shores, the Countess of Dudley, whose husband,
the Earl of Dudley, was a member of the regiment -
he was second in command -
she presented each and every soldier that went out with
a sprig of pear blossom,
worked in silk, that they were to wear in their hat
as a reminder of the county that they had left,
ie, the pear blossom emblem of Worcestershire.
How marvellous. When they returned in 1903,
she presented this sprig of pear blossom.
Astonishing. Manufactured by Faberge.
It's a lovely piece.
It certainly is a lovely piece.
This looks for all the world like a glass vase and there's a stratagem
here that it's filled with water, and this is the meniscus,
the top of the water, but in fact, it isn't.
It's a solid block of what is apparently glass,
but it's certainly not - it's stone.
It is rock crystal, it's icy cold even on this hot day,
and it's immensely difficult to carve - it's much,
much harder than glass and then the magic is to make it look as if
the sprig is supported in this,
so it's drilled down to the rock crystal to receive the stalk.
Right. And the stalk is made of gold.
And it's almost as if we can see from time to time that new buds are
going to blossom on here - that would be quite surreal, wouldn't it?
Then the flowers are made of enamelled silver
and tiny silver stamens,
but in the centre there's a dew drop of diamond glinting in the sunshine.
And the leaves are made of Siberian Jade, from the Ural mountains.
Then we have the original fitted box here, made of holly wood -
literally the wood of the holly tree from Siberia.
Then, just to get the message across,
she probably asked Faberge to put a triumphal laurel here in green gold,
tied with a red gold bow.
That of course was the battle honour that was awarded to them -
South Africa. I see.
And that's very good. So, it is recorded there.
That's why we think it was 1904,
because that's when they received the battle honour, South Africa.
Well it's absolutely bang on the date for the object,
because some of the best things from Faberge are made
in the 20th century, in the age of the motor car,
the telephone, even of electricity.
And here we have something that is sort of
redolent of the distant past,
because it is a shrieking pitch of perfection, and luxury.
It's an utterly breathtaking object.
So, give me some impression of what the pear blossom means in
this regiment to you.
I think when it was presented by Lady Dudley,
she did it to recognise the sacrifice of those soldiers
that did not come back from the Boer War, and those that were injured.
I think it's a focal point, almost, for the younger soldiers,
soldiers such as me, that are way past their sell-by date.
I just think it's this focal point, it's the...
From what has happened years ago,
that we still on occasions look back to,
but it's important that we also look forward.
And I just think it provides that link for all
the different ages of soldiers,
that have soldiered with the regiment
and are intending in the future to soldier with the regiment.
It still comes out on dinner nights when the officers of the squadron
and the regiment are assembled.
It's perhaps suffered over the years from being stuffed
under the bed on occasions at the end of the evening,
or missed the odd bread roll.
Yes, exactly. It's making me utterly breathless, this, really.
I find Faberge things on the Antiques Roadshow but nothing of
this scale, and I can tell you the size of the object,
the sophistication of the object,
the provenance of the object brings it very,
very close to only two other flower studies in the United Kingdom which
are in the Royal Collection.
Given what are the qualifications I've already put on this object,
it is a towering masterpiece of the goldsmith's art by the most famous
goldsmith of the 20th century.
I'm going to tell you, in my opinion,
that this is worth £1 million.
Really?
AUDIENCE GASP
Goodness gracious. Wow.
Well, I'm supposed to say now, it's not for sale -
it certainly isn't for sale.
No! Well, that's the... I'm just a custodian.
I know. Well, that is the rub, isn't it?
It's not for sale.
£1 million for that tiny flower?
Wow! Good job it's well protected.
At the end of our day here at the Roadshow,
we're left with a little mystery.
Who was that girl Catherine who wrote those letters and created that
treasure hunt all those years ago?
No-one has been able to find her.
So if you think you know who she is,
we'd love to find out, so do please get in touch.
From the Black Country Living Museum,
and all the team here at the Roadshow, goodbye.