Today, the Antiques Roadshow has come to Floors Castle in Kelso.
And if you want to know why,
just take a look at that view.
What an incredible spot.
And over there, those are the Cheviot Hills,
the magnificent border between Scotland and England.
But the beauty doesn't just lie outside the house.
Within the castle, treasures from across the world can be found.
Now, this is no novelty for an historic house,
but there's a surprising love story at the heart of it all.
It all started in 1895,
when Henry, the eighth Duke of Roxburghe, attended the New York wedding
of the ninth Duke of Marlborough and American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt.
It was there that Henry fell in love at first sight with one of
the bridesmaids, Mary or May Goelet.
May was not only beautiful,
she was the richest unmarried heiress in America.
She could take her pick of eligible British aristocrats,
and Henry's attentions, his title, his Scottish estate,
didn't impress her much.
But he pursued her for nine years, and eventually she succumbed to his charms.
They married and moved here, to Floors Castle.
They were devoted to each other, and before long May was equally impressed
with her new Scottish home. But there was something missing.
May grew up surrounded by the finest art and antiques, and the moment she
inherited her mother's collection she had it all shipped over here to Floors Castle.
And here in the needle room, where she liked to do tapestry and needlework,
she was surrounded by works by Matisse, Odilon Redon and Augustus John.
Here in the ballroom is the most impressive part of the collection,
and the highlights are the carpets.
This one was owned by none other than the Sun King himself, Louis XIV,
and this one was owned by Louis XV
and comes from the dining room at the Palace of Fontainebleau.
Meanwhile, let's see what our experts are getting excited about
as they meet people from Kelso and beyond.
So, how did this little bird from Venice fly in to Kelso?
Via Edinburgh, because my father's family used to run a newsagent's shop in Edinburgh
and they expanded into, sort of, cards and fancy goods.
And my mother, who met my father through working in the shop,
was sent to a trade fair to buy some fancy goods.
So, she came back to Edinburgh with it
and showed what she bought at this trade fair,
but she's admitted to my dad that she really liked this,
and I think because he was quite smitten with her at the time
he ended up saying, "Well, why don't you keep it?"
So, he's always been at home and I'm just fond of him
cos he reminds me of Edinburgh and my childhood, and he's sort of fun.
Well, he's quite special.
He is what's known as a pulcino, which is a little chick.
And there was an Italian glass factory on Murano called Vistosi
that were having problems in the early '60s,
and they approached an architect called Pianon
to do some designing for them.
Oh, right. And he designed five different little chicks.
Uh-huh. His brother sits in my glass cabinet at home. Oh!
And so I'm very passionate about this little bird, this little chick.
Gosh! And they were all really produced around 1962.
That would make sense. And they were really quite expensive at the time.
It's a very difficult glass-blowing technique, with the copper legs,
it's very intricate.
So, that's the bit that surprised me.
Because it was destined to be sold in the shop,
I imagined it was going to be some sort of
fairly mass-produced thing, and cheap.
Your mum obviously had incredibly good taste, and quite a bit of money
behind her to buy this.
I've asked her if she thought, what she paid for it,
and she couldn't remember.
She said some things were more expensive than others,
was what she said.
So maybe it was one of the more expensive things.
I think she maybe deliberately forgot,
myself, because they were expensive in the day.
And they were only produced for a very short time, so they're actually rare.
But a few years ago you could probably have found one for maybe £1,000.
But today, if you wanted to sell your little chick,
he would make between £6,000 and £7,000.
LAUGHTER What?
I can't believe that! That's...
SHE LAUGHS
Gosh, I feel a bit... I don't know,
I've always worried about breaking him, and now...
I'm completely...
LAUGHTER
You can't get more personal than one of these.
That's true. My name's Ian Grant, and that is the Grant family crest,
that was designed, I don't know, 1600 and something.
And this plate came from China,
and apparently was made about 1730 with the family crest on it.
I want to just take us through this, because it's a wonderful,
wonderful example of exportware.
If you were posh in London,
or in Edinburgh for that matter, in the 1730s,
and you wanted to show off to your friends
your recently changed armorial bearings,
you sent out a book plate down to Leadenhall Street in London
and you marked all the colours in and you said,
"I want a whole dinner service with that in the centre."
And it went out on the ship, it took nine months to get there,
the order then went up country in China to a place called Jingdezhen.
They manufactured it there.
If you were lucky, you saw the whole lot coming back through the Indian Ocean,
up through the Atlantic, two years later.
By the time this thing got to you, it could well be that the occasion
for which you had wanted this made had been and gone.
A marriage, or whatever.
And you would look at this and think...
Well, the border is nice but this is a bit lumpy, don't you think?
Well, it's not particularly attractive,
but because it's a family item, then I guess you learn to love it.
Well, of course, and the whole story, the whole romance of,
you know, a commission like that is fantastic.
I want to ask - your motto.
It can't be Stand East.
No, it's Stand Fast,
so I assume the Chinese got it wrong when they copied it.
Well, you're absolutely right, the Chinese did get it wrong.
Quite often they got it wrong.
Sometimes they got the tinctures, the colouring, wrong,
and sometimes they just simply didn't understand what the writing
was about, that's why Stand East,
they just put an extra line on the F which changes it somewhat,
but it adds to the charm of the piece, and I know you're not going to sell it.
Nevertheless, I have to tell you that I think a piece of this calibre,
with that lovely story behind it,
is probably worth somewhere in the region of £2,000.
Mm. Very interesting, thank you.
What a magnificent setting, and pertinent setting for this great piece of furniture.
I'm seeing this for the first time. There's an awful lot to
look at, so while I'm thinking about it,
what can you tell me about it?
Well, it belonged to an old gentleman that I had known for many years
and sadly he passed away last year.
And he was a collector.
A big collector of everything. He never sold nothing.
He just collected and collected and collected.
I'm executor to his estate, one of three executors.
So, you're doing it as part of the team of executors, for official business,
so I've got to get this right, then. Yes.
OK. Well, it's a fantastic piece of furniture.
Where have you come from? I've come from a small village called Insch,
which is just over 30 miles north of Aberdeen.
How long did that take you? Approximately five hours.
Well, thank you, that's wonderful. That's dedication to duty, isn't it?
Fantastic. So, let's look at this piece of furniture.
Well, it's made of oak.
We've got here this wonderful medieval-looking,
almost Teniers, Dutch scene of people eating and drinking and merrymaking,
soldiers by the look of them. So, here we've got salamanders,
they always turn up in this sort of iconography.
You've got a crest which, it says Walter Scott's,
so I assume that's Walter Scott that we know about, the writer.
The other side, Mary Ker.
I think it is a mid-19th-century Victorian mock-up.
What we tend to call in the trade - rather sweetly - Jacobethan,
so a mixture of Jacobean and Elizabethan.
And it's absolutely typical of the sort of furniture you get,
this large-scale, heavily carved very well made furniture,
especially in the ducal areas,
the Midlands of England or Scotland and the Borders, absolutely typical.
And it's a great piece of furniture, very well carved.
It must have cost a fortune to make.
A 17th or 16th century original would never be as heavily carved,
and that's the fundamental difference between the two.
What it would be used for...
Well, the idea is a 17th-century plate charger,
so you put all of the very expensive silver and plate.
This is more likely for your hunting equipment or something like that,
or just put your whips on there, anything you want, really.
Not for the ceremonial use, it would have been used in the 17th-century,
which it's trying to be. OK.
So, you want me to value this for you?
If you can. It's not easy, this sort of furniture.
I mean, it's very hit and miss, especially at auction.
There's not a huge demand for it.
It's a big piece. Where are you going to put it?
Not everybody can house it. So I would say auction value...
Between 500...
Any less than that would be disappointing,
over 1,000 you'd be doing pretty well for it.
That's fine, aye. That's OK. It gives me an idea, anyway.
It's a good job we didn't put it out to the bonfire.
No, don't do that!
Well, now, where do we start?
You have a real assortment, don't you?
It's a compressive range of things.
So, whose are they and where did they come from?
I can't tell you whose they were.
They came from my mother-in-law,
the family have been responsible for lots of house clearances,
and the daughter got the pick of the jewellery, and then the residue was
divvied up between the two daughter-in-laws.
I had no say, this is the box I was given.
Presented. Yes, very much so.
What drew the eye?
Was there one thing you thought, "Oh, I really am glad I got that,"
or does it all just look like an amorphous mass?
I think the second. I wear this ring.
OK. And I've worn this bracelet.
OK. This badge intrigued me because I couldn't figure out what it was.
The regimental brooch.
The regimental brooch. They were very popular in the 1920s and 1930s.
Royal Artillery, the sort of thing that would have been worn by a lady,
a wife of the serving regimental person, you know.
So, they would wear that brooch as an insignia.
Now, going through all of these would take forever.
There's one thing here, however, in this box, that I don't know whether
you've actually spotted, or you know what it is.
Can I show you which one it is? Yeah, please do.
Would you be surprised to learn that that one, that brooch...
The one that looks plastic.
The one that looks plastic. Is that what you think it is?
Do you think it's plastic? I'm guessing not or I wouldn't be here.
LAUGHTER
If you see it by itself, actually it does kind of...
Looks nicer there. Looks nicer on the pad, doesn't it?
Plastic it ain't.
It is platinum.
Art Deco.
OK. You see this oval hoop? That's called frosted rock crystal.
You see these tabs on each side?
Diamonds. OK.
So I've got a diamond.
Good. The middle bead, the pearl, natural pearl.
OK. 1925.
That is quite a serious piece of jewellery.
Oh, really? Yes.
My sister-in-law will be gutted. LAUGHTER
I'm sure she will, I'm sure she will.
All right, moving on to the question of values,
the brooch that you like, that you were asking about, the regimental brooch.
Yeah, it's going to be worth 40 quid, isn't it? Yes.
LAUGHTER
Absolutely right, £30, £40.
We move on to this one here, the piece de resistance in the collection -
£1,500. Oh, OK.
The whole box, the whole lot as a collection,
which you saw and saw just as a mass of biddli-dos, bits and pieces,
beads and brooches...
Do you know that it's probably all worth together something like £4,000 to £5,000?
Gosh, I'll have to be nice to my mother-in-law.
I'm sure she'd welcome it from you. For a change!
So, I'm coulrophobic.
Oh, dear. I'm terribly scared of these little critters here, clowns.
Oh, gosh. My partner's mother went into the room that I was sleeping in
and pulled this from out under the bed.
And I was like, "Oh, that's been under there the whole time, huh?"
SHE LAUGHS
Yeah, that truly is the stuff of nightmares.
Well, let's turn that nightmare into a dream.
I'm just going to pull back the ear here.
That tells us, if you can read the button,
that he's made by a company called Steiff.
Ooh. Now, of course it's teddy bears that they are known for,
we've got to keep that in mind. Yeah. But he's quite a rare piece.
He was only made between about 1911 and 1919.
I'd say he's quite rare. Wow.
My partner's mum found him in the Edinburgh Grassmarket in 1971 or so
and paid six quid for him.
Today, he's a scarce piece, and I would say £800-1,000.
Wow! SHE LAUGHS
I'll be darned!
That's... That is actually unbelievable.
You know exactly what this crazy object's for and where it's from,
don't you? Well, we think we know, yes.
Why don't you tell us?
Well, we use it for crushing wasps, which sounds a little bit fierce,
but it makes a lovely crunch if they are crawling up the window,
it's good. And it came from Australia with my grandmother.
We don't know how old it is, we know nothing about it before then.
She came back from Australia, having been born there,
she came back to this country permanently in about 1930,
which was long before I was born,
so I wasn't able to ask her anything about it and she's been dead for many years.
So, that is what we think it is.
That's what it is. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen,
but it's made with somebody...with a wicked sense of humour.
Actually inlaid into the wood are images of wasps celebrating life,
not realising that the object,
the implement that they are decorated on,
is going to crush one of their fellow brethren.
When you actually do it, the sound is really... You know it's dead.
LAUGHTER Yeah.
And, actually, the little knobbles there are silver.
Oh, are they? Yeah. But it's all just a bit of fun,
it's a bit of nonsense, but it's an amazing object,
and I think it's actually quite surreal.
I think Salvador Dali would have loved this. Probably.
As to value, it's not a high value,
someone who likes surreal crazy objects might pay as much as £100 for this.
It's just so mad.
Really? Yes, I think it's probably worth more to me than that.
Another wasp crusher...
You could never find one. No. Exactly.
I suppose it's pretty unusual for two women
to be talking about soldiers. Yes.
They were collected by my grandfather and he died in 1944,
when my father was 12.
Oh, no. And this is half of the collection,
which was then passed to my father,
the other half going to my uncle at the time.
So, they've been part of family life all my life.
Well, you've looked after them extremely well,
I can tell you. And only half! Cos it's a very big collection.
It is. And what amazes me is the condition.
I mean, some of them have been taken out of their boxes.
Well, we did take out the coronation coach
and set up a whole coronation procession from time to time,
which led to a slight accident on one occasion.
What, what happened?
Well, we'd set it up outside my parent's bedroom door
and we didn't know my father was in there,
and he came out and stood on the coach, which was not a good day.
No. But it has survived.
It recovered well.
Well, I think you've had it recovered very well,
because that, to me, is the only one that has had any damage, and been
restored. But what I love, just everything,
you've got soldiers, sailors,
you've got mounted people.
I mean, it's just heaven.
And these are by Britain's,
which are a very well-known firm in England,
and they made diecast toys
which are basically poured into a mould and then painted.
What is fascinating to me is that some of them have got moustaches,
and from 1938 onwards, because of Hitler's coming into the equation,
they stopped painting moustaches.
Fascinating. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Have you ever had them valued? No.
Well, I mean, it's very difficult here
because they all vary, not enormously,
the enormous variation is the coach and horses and the procession.
The fact that the coach has been repainted and restored
literally halves its value.
So, originally, it would have been about 300 at auction.
My favourite ones, to be honest, are these sailors in white coats.
They're going to be worth around 300.
So, between 200 and 300 for almost every single one of these sets.
So, we count up and we get to nearly £3,000.
My delight is in the detail, and how well preserved they are.
Exactly. You've got a very fine collection there.
So, looking at that mark on your wrist,
is this Rolex watch your daily watch or not?
No, I don't wear it at work, but I wear it when I go out.
Good. Somewhere special, like Antiques Roadshow.
How long have you owned it for?
About 40 years, 1978.
OK. And did you buy it?
Not really, my brother bought it for me.
He worked for P&O, and on his second world cruise I asked him if he would
get me a watch, and that's what he came back with.
It was more than I could actually afford,
so he gave it to me as a gift so long as I paid the duty.
Nice gift, and a very good decision.
I mean, he could have bought you something fairly insignificant,
but that is a pretty good watch.
So, do you know what sort of Rolex model it is?
Yeah, it's a Submariner, isn't it? It's not a Submariner, no,
because the Submariner has a rotatable bezel,
and this one is a two-button chronograph.
This is the Cosmograph,
which is Rolex's really lovely, if you like, stopwatch.
Running seconds at nine o'clock, 30 minute totaliser there,
and then a-12 hour totaliser at the bottom.
Because it's such a rare model,
they are highly desirable and collectable.
And I'm going to tell you that it's actually quite a useful sum of money.
Is it? I told my son I'd left it him in my will and he went away and he
came back and said it was very collectable,
but he didn't tell me it was worth a lot of money.
I bet he didn't. I wonder if he discovered what it was worth.
He gave you no clue at all? No.
In this state at auction - £25-30,000.
GASPS AND LAUGHTER
Don't die too soon.
LAUGHTER
I'll be scared to wear it now.
Wow. It's a lovely thing, and it's a great watch.
It's lovely to wear. It'll feel even better now!
LAUGHTER
There's a wonderful collection of knitwear samples here, aren't there?
And what's great about them is that they're a kind of microcosm of
a certain period in fashion history.
And I can see a date here, 1929.
Now, we'll come back to that,
because this is a very, very big sample book.
But firstly, tell me where they are from and what they're doing here.
They're from a company called James Renwick and Company in Hawick,
which is just 22 miles up the road.
And the company was taken over by Jaeger,
and Jaeger decided to move their knitwear departments down to England,
and we had to clear the factory and move everything down.
And this was actually going to be put out as rubbish into a skip.
Right, OK, and you were its saviour.
I was its saviour, yes.
I wanted to save it for the local history for the town.
Right, OK, so you worked in the industry, obviously.
How long had you worked specifically in the knitwear industry?
I've been in the knitwear industry almost 50 years, I'm now retired.
It's a much reduced industry, I expect.
It is now, yes, very much so.
Well, I think in that respect what you have here
is something obviously quite important. As I said,
it really is a microcosm of a period in history, and we can see here,
it says "Boys, autumn 1929".
So, we've got these kind of slightly more muted colours
and pieces of knitwear here.
They've all got names on them - Roland, Jackson, Dennis -
quite masculine names.
But on the same page we've got "Scarves, autumn 1929,"
and they are called Scotby, Sutton, Severn,
there's all sorts of different names there.
So, I suspect there are several hundred knitwear samples in here.
Yes. It just goes to show the variety of production.
Definitely. When it comes to the construction
of clothing of that period,
you probably, I would expect, know something about that,
because I've got these wonderful, wonderful designs,
hand drawn designs here,
and these are obviously from the same period, early '30s.
A part of me is looking at these thinking, "My gosh, I'd like to get some of these remade."
They are absolutely wonderful, aren't they?
They are quite fashionable at the moment, yes.
I think if one of the designers in one of the local factories saw this
they would probably say, "Oh, that would work, that would work nowadays." Yeah.
Now, I'm presuming, obviously, that this is a picture of the actual factory,
what, sometime just a few years before it was closed down?
Yes, this is the '80s.
The factory closed in '92, which is 25 years ago now.
Right, OK. So, we know there's still a thriving industry in Hawick,
but it's much more specialised now, isn't it?
I think it very much concentrates around cashmere and things.
And obviously it's a fraction of the industry that it used to be.
But having said that, I mean, what you've got is a relic,
so to speak, of the industry very much in its heyday,
and I think it's a very useful and interesting social piece
of information, and I suspect there may be not that many of these left.
So, I think what you've done, obviously, is preserve something.
I don't think it's worth a huge amount of money.
Oh, definitely not. I think it has a great deal of importance in terms of
the history of the industry,
but it's worth, I think, probably £200, £300, £400
to someone who is seriously interested in fashion and the history of knitwear.
I think it's great to see for the people of Hawick, and let people
see the history that was in the town over the years.
Absolutely, it's lovely. Thank you so much for bringing it along.
It's been a real insight, and I think it's great that you managed to
preserve it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
It's time for our regular look at changing fortunes,
and this week we're looking at military medals.
And our task here, our challenge, with the help of you, Mark Smith, our military expert,
is to work out, in the 40 years since the Roadshow has been on air,
which of these medals would have gone up in value,
which would have more or less kept pace with inflation,
and which one would have done rather badly and perhaps devalued.
Give us some pointers, how we might come to some kind of judgment.
What we have on the table are medals from my collection.
Now, I've been collecting a long time, so I started when I was six, back in 1969.
So, 1977 was something, when I was actually actively collecting medals.
The medals that you have span about 200 years.
So, this one over here, this is for the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815.
This one, over here, that's the Distinguished Flying Cross,
that's from World War II. It's for airmen.
And that actually ranks only two away from the Victoria Cross itself.
And these two are just humble First World War medals,
known as a pair - the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
I don't really know where to start, Mark, so give us some pointers.
So, this medal in 1977 was £185.
This one, it's an unattributed Distinguished Flying Cross, again,
was about £185 in 1977.
And these two were £3.50.
So, the obvious conclusion to come to,
which I suspect is not the right one,
is that the Distinguished Flying Cross would have gone up in value
because it's rarer. Mm-hm.
It won't be that though, will it? LAUGHTER
No, it won't.
Has anyone got any idea here about this?
About medals?
The First World War ones, because it is '14-'18.
You think First World War, because we're in the centenary year.
Right, OK.
So, let's say these are the ones that have most increased in value
in the last 40 years,
and the Distinguished Flying Cross and this medal here
more or less were valuable 40 years ago and are still valuable today.
So, back in 1977, £185. Today, £2,000.
This one, again, about £2,000.
These two together, 1977, £3.50.
Today, that pair of medals...
..are £3,000.
AUDIENCE REACTS
Well done, everybody!
Because...? So, what do we have today
that we all have access to, that we didn't have in 1977?
The Internet. The Internet, OK.
So, in 1977 there was a list about Waterloo men
that was made in the 1850s,
and the information you could get in 1977 was the same as it is today
for this. There is no more, there is no less.
This one, as we said, is unattributed,
so we don't know who that belonged to, so the value stays the same.
These medals have the name around the edge,
so we know who this man is.
They belonged to a man called Second Lieutenant Eric Welsh, 16 Squadron,
Royal Flying Corps.
On the 23rd of April 1917 he was shot down and killed
over a town called Vimy in France,
and he was shot down by Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.
Oh! And that you would not have known in 1977.
It is only because of what we can now look at on the Internet,
which is almost instant - you can type it in -
there are more records coming every day.
Lieutenant Welsh - oh, yes, he's something special.
And how fascinating that he's something special
not necessarily by dint of himself,
though I'm sure he conducted himself with great valour,
but because of who killed him. Absolutely, yeah.
How fascinating.
Well, we got to the right answer, even if for the wrong reasons.
LAUGHTER
How interesting. Thank you so much, Mark. Pleasure, thank you.
This is a classic form of British silver.
It's obviously a cup and it's probably been used for wine.
In fact, it's definitely been used for wine.
Right, not by me. Not by you? No. OK.
Well, how did you find it, and what do you know about it?
I've been told it's got a mark from York, a silver mark,
and it's been in my late husband's family as long as I've known him.
You've been told it's from York. Whoever looked it up is quite right,
it's exactly where it comes from, it comes from York.
York is a rare place for these things to come from.
York is one of the areas of silver that people collect.
Normally they are made in London, the vast majority are made
in London, so that makes it a bit rarer than usual.
Generally speaking, they are made in the 17th century
and they're used for wine, for communion cups.
You get the same sort of shapes used for domestic consumption as well.
Mm. It's a York goblet - cup, I should say -
and it isn't made in the 1600s,
which is unusual for one of these, cos they nearly always are,
but this was made in the 1500s. It was made in 1599.
Wow. Yeah, wow.
THEY LAUGH
This was made when Shakespeare was in his prime,
when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne,
and the Armada hadn't long been gone.
It puts it into some ancient perspective, doesn't it?
I'm a bit gobsmacked!
LAUGHTER
The fact that it's 1500s and the fact that it was made in York makes it
a bit more interesting than your average cup.
There have been a few problems with it over the years,
but that's sort of understandable.
It's quite an old thing, and just by being used it's going to be dropped
now and again and it's going to need a bit of repair.
Nothing serious, it's just a few sort of very minor repairs,
so it's in pretty good condition.
If it were mine, I couldn't resist it,
I'd make sure that it was used as often as possible. Full.
Well, I don't know about full, I'd use it for water, or whatever.
You can use it for whatever you like.
It's a very good, functional thing.
Generally speaking, a 17th-century one of these
would be somewhere in the region of 4,000 to 7,000,
depending on where it came from and the condition of it,
but yours, I think it's going to be worth more like £10,000 to 12,000.
Wow!
Gee. I'm a bit surprised at that.
Is it still going to be out on display?
I might use it. LAUGHTER
So we've got a really gorgeous golden emerald ring here,
in a really fabulous shape. How has this come into your family?
I think it came through my great-grandfather,
who was a Lieutenant General, and he was in the Indian Army,
so I don't know whether it's Indian.
It looks sort of Indian to me.
But that's the only thing I can think that it is.
But it's called a spot ring,
so I imagined it possibly came through him, but I don't know.
Oh, great. And so, when was he in India?
He would be in India about 1850. He was born in 1830.
OK. I can understand why you might think it has got that sort of Indian
look, cos it is a really sort of bright, colourful gold, isn't it?
Yes. But it is actually English. It is? It is, yes.
Yes. Surprise, surprise! But date-wise, perfect.
It is around that 1850-1860 period.
I love the engraving on the side of it.
But the Victorians loved quirkiness, and what I really adore about this
ring is it is not just a ring, it opens up into a gorgeous bracelet.
Wow, that is fantastic. So, a multifunctional piece of jewellery.
Perfect for every lady, isn't it?
Absolutely. So, value-wise,
because of its quality, its quirkiness, the fun aspect of it,
I would be putting £600 to £800 on it.
Wow. My daughter will be very happy, because it is her ring.
Fantastic! Oh, that is fantastic.
Lovely. Well, thank you for bringing it in.
Not at all. Thank you for telling me about it.
So, what have we got here?
Well, we've got commemorative glass.
One of these
says "God bless Prince Charles, 1745,"
with a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
And this one says
"the capture of Gibraltar by the British fleet in 1704."
So, how do they fit in with you?
Cos you don't look as if you were alive in 1704,
so I don't think you were there.
No. So, they actually belonged to my great-grandmother, Molly.
And she had a bit of a nose for finding things,
and I think she might have got them out of a junk shop,
which is not a really exciting story, but it is...
No, but it's the way people find stuff. Yes.
They find them in junk shops more often
than they dig them up in the garden, it has to be said.
So, let's take them in date order.
1704. What happened in Gibraltar in 1704?
Well, the British fleet captured Gibraltar in 1704 from the Spanish.
And it was ceded to Britain in perpetuity, to today,
by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
So, what it is doing is the day that Gibraltar joined the British Empire.
Yes. God bless Prince Charles -
well, this is obviously Bonnie Prince Charlie.
We have the date, 1745, which is the, I suppose,
ultimately ignominious date of the Catholic rising from Scotland
reaching Derby in 1745.
The Duke of Cumberland is dispatched by the King.
He beats the Scots back, ultimately to Culloden,
where you have the total wipe-out.
The way I understand... Followed by the Highland Clearances.
And according to my family story,
that's when we left Scotland and we went to Ireland. Yes.
So, can they be right?
You tell me. No. SHE LAUGHS
They're wrong. That's a shame. They're wrong.
I'm really afraid to tell you. There you go, Grandma.
Sorry, Grandma. But they are wrong.
I mean, to be 1704 you've got to...
..a certain form, and the form of this is 1925.
Ah. There you go.
It does look quite fine, doesn't it?
It's quite fine, but basically
it is a Georgian form reproduced in order to please a market.
That makes sense.
But the glass is right. This is lead crystal.
GLASS DINGS BRIGHTLY
This, on the other hand...
What colour would you describe that glass as?
It's greeny yellow. Greeny yellow.
Yes, definitely. So it's wrong.
This is made not in Britain but probably in Czechoslovakia, Bohemia.
Both, again, in the 1920s.
For a commemorative market.
That said,
what are we going to do? The right price or the wrong price?
The right price on this glass,
well, it's going to be 3,000 or 4,000 quid.
This one - 1,000. 2,000 may be right.
But as they are, they're more curiosities.
Well, they are good for drinking wine out of.
They're good. And what you do with them, of course, is that you enjoy them. Yeah.
That takes them out of the league of being scared to death of them
because they're so valuable that you daren't even sneeze in their presence.
Now we can. And now you can.
And so, their value today...
I mean, that's still... That's a 100 quid glass.
It's not like you've completely found yourself in the bottom of a well.
And this one probably even a little bit more because
it's a good portrait, it's a more collected area,
and I suppose that's going to be 200 quid as it stands.
So, bearing in mind she probably paid sixpence three farthings for them...
Exactly. Junk shop. ..I think you've done jolly well, actually.
Good Christmas glasses.
This evening, I reckon. OK. We could enjoy some wine tonight.
Thanks for bringing them in. Not at all. Thank you.
One of the things about television
is that it's quite difficult to judge the scale of something,
and as you look at this wonderful piece of furniture,
it looks like a thing that would be
in a full-scale kitchen, but it's not, is it?
It is about three foot high.
And it's a dresser, and it is bedecked with printed earthenwares,
a dinner service.
Do you know anything about it?
Absolutely nothing, except that it came from my great uncle,
Frank Gilbertson. So it dates back to
the turn of the century, but that's all I know about it.
That's all you know. Well, the dresser,
it's what they call a dog kennel dresser.
But what it is, it's a toy. It's for children to play with.
And I've seen these over the years,
but what's fascinating about them is
they're not just toys, they're educational toys.
This is an accurate representation of an English or British earthenware
dinner service of about 1830 - the vegetable tureens, the pie dishes,
the platters, the gravy boats, it's all here.
But the staggering thing for me is,
although it is a miniature, it is a huge one, isn't it?
It isn't the kind of thing you could have in a cottage, is it?
This is the kind of thing that would've been
in the nursery of a large country house.
And so that's the interest for me.
There is this well-born child in this grand nursery
with this wonderful toy.
And she's being taught, with the use of toys,
how the people downstairs would have laid the table.
Mm. It's great social history in this thing.
I must say, I am very fond of it. Yes, absolutely.
It's the Antiques Roadshow, so I have got to give you a value.
I suspect this is something that is going to stay in the family, so you don't care.
Yes, it is going to stay. It is going to be Nel's.
Well, I'm sure she's enjoying it now and will continue to do so.
But it is something that is worth £800 to £1,200.
Is it really? Is it really? Yes. There you go.
Over £1,000. Not bad. Splendid.
So, here we are. We're looking at
a very nice copy of Tolkien's The Hobbit.
I'm interested in it not because it is a first edition -
that would have been very nice indeed.
In fact, it's not a first edition,
it's seventh impression of 1972.
The first edition was in 1937. Yeah.
That is quite a long way down the line.
Yes, it is. Normally that would be very good news.
But what caught my eye, of course, was this.
The title page, with this inscription,
signed for - I think this is Mrs Cox.
Yep. J R R Tolkien.
OK. I want to know all about that.
Who was Mrs Cox, and why did Tolkien sign a copy of The Hobbit to her?
Mrs Cox was my gran.
And she was a housekeeper for an Edinburgh professor
who went to Oxford with Tolkien,
and Tolkien was visiting the house in, we think, 1973
when my gran met Tolkien and he signed a copy for her.
Gosh. So, 1973. That's the very end of Tolkien's life.
He died in that year. Yes, yeah. So, he's an old man at this point.
Yeah.
And you looked at it as a young boy,
then it went back on the shelf and it stayed on the shelf all that time.
Yeah, well, I think it came off the shelf every time I visited, to be honest with you, you know?
You would go for The Hobbit and have a little look?
Yeah. Did you ever read this copy? No, I never read it.
I don't think I was allowed to read it, but I looked through some of the illustrations in it, you know.
Sure. And your grandmother, Mrs Cox,
I guess is no longer with us.
No. So, what happened to the book after that?
It has just been kept safe in our family house.
OK. And you have custody of it now?
Yes, yeah. Well, my dad and my auntie, really.
Sure. I'm really pressing you on the provenance of this copy.
I really want to know.
I want to be absolutely assured that this was signed by Tolkien in 1973.
And the reason I am is because signed Tolkien material
is a problematical area. Yeah.
You may well know that there is a temptation
for unscrupulous people to forge that signature. Yeah.
It is a very self-conscious signature.
It's an attempt to bring a bit of Elvishness into it.
It's a kind of Elvish signature,
and I have seen examples of people giving it a very good go. Right.
So, you want to feel as though the author has
had their fingers on it. The book has come from Tolkien,
and you want to know that this copy had been in his hands.
Yeah. My gran was a cleaner for Professor Angus McIntosh,
I think for something like 33 years.
Well, I have no doubt at all that what you're telling me is absolutely the truth.
And that is delightful, and it is wonderful.
I would urge you to write that down and keep it with this book.
So, in this condition,
with a secure knowledge of its provenance,
I'd put £6,000 to £7,000 on this.
Right, OK, brilliant. That's great.
The piece you brought in to look at today
looks like it's been in the wars.
What has happened to it? Where did you come by it?
My sister was a pharmacist, and about 50 years ago she was working
as a hospital pharmacist in Edinburgh
and I was a student at Heriot Watt University.
And, lo and behold, we were walking out one night
and we came across a skip, and she collected
pharmacy jars and she said, "Aha! We've got a winner here."
So, she popped it in her bag and off we trotted.
So, she literally climbed into the skip?
Yes. Did you spend a lot of time looking in skips?
It seemed to be a family trait.
I should make sure I pay more attention next time I go past a skip.
Do you know much about it? Not a lot.
I really want to find out how old it is, and really its history.
OK, it is of a type they call majolica,
which is a tin-glazed earthenware.
And the earliest examples of this I suppose date back to
the sort of, you know, 1400s.
And a lot was coming out of Spain.
It is widely believed that the Italians exported them out of Majorca,
which is where you get the name of majolica.
This one, I would say, well, this is a wet drug jar.
That is what it is, which is why we've got our little spout on there.
And if I just turn it around...
We would've had at some time a handle on the back.
But maybe it got damaged throwing it into the skip.
Or maybe that is why it was in the skip. In the skip.
Now, I have sort of roughly translated the front for you.
I think the top part says "learn to love from now".
And then underneath it will say something about roses or rose water,
so I think it was obviously some sort of rose ointment or something like that.
When does this one date from?
There I am saying these go back to the 1400s.
This one, I think, is much, much later than that.
And this type of piece had a real revival in the 19th century,
and actually that's when I think this one is from.
I think it is from the mid-1800s.
Around 1850, something like that.
It's interesting what you say about her being a pharmacist because,
in actual fact, the reason there was a bit of a revival in the 19th century of these
is, in fact, it was pharmacists that were using them as displays in their pharmacies.
So, I suspect, as we touched on before,
it probably got damaged, the pharmacy closed down,
the skip, and everything was loaded in there.
She didn't have a good rummage around?
There weren't any early 15th or 16th century ones? I don't think so, no.
Look, they are collectable today. OK. But condition is key.
Yeah. And... It is not in good condition.
It is not in the best condition, no.
What is it worth? I think, as it is,
it is a charming thing.
I think a collector would probably pay around £200 to £300 for it.
I think in perfect condition it would probably be £400 or £500, something like that.
Interesting. But a lovely thing. It is. Thank you for bringing it in.
Thank you. And it is a great story. A great find. Thank you. Thank you.
You've brought along a letter here
which I think many of us can empathise with.
After a good night out. Oh, yes.
Now, tell me who it's by.
It's by a Scottish poet called James Hogg
who was known as the Ettrick Shepherd.
And he was a renowned Scottish poet. A renowned Scottish poet.
Close friend to Walter Scott. Yes, that's right.
And how do you come to have this letter?
This letter belonged to the father of a friend of ours who would love
to have been here today but can't be.
She didn't know he had it.
When he died and she was looking through his things,
this was on the wall.
And it was as much a surprise to her as anyone else.
And this is written after a night out.
This is written after a night out.
So, James Hogg was out where? Set the scene for us.
Well, if the letter is to be believed, out at Edinburgh Castle,
carousing the night away with his publisher.
In 1808. In 1808, yep. In 1808. Let's hear it.
OK. Get ready.
"Dear Sir, as I leave town tomorrow morning and cannot see you again at
"this time, I beg you will be so good
"as forgive or at least overlook any behaviour last night.
"I am but an uncultivated being at best,
"and a man of that kind when drunk is intolerable.
"The truth is, that for the last three hours I was at the castle,
"I do not recollect three words that were said.
"But if Mr Park is correct in his statement of facts,
"my behaviour to you must have been rude in the extreme."
So, he obviously behaved abominably.
He was a fairly dissolute character, wasn't he?
He was indeed, yes. Now, my favourite bit -
I had a quick look at this early on -
my favourite bit is at the end where he says,
"I do not recollect anything
"but I'm sure from the state I was in
"that it is all too true" - that he behaved terribly -
"and I really am sorry for it and beg your pardon.
"You are in part revenged,
"for I fell for Mr Park's pony and broke my face.
"I'm filled with the utmost regret for what I have said.
"Yours, James Hogg."
Ever felt that bad yourself? That would be telling.
Well, I spoke to one of our experts, because James Hogg is a renowned
Scottish bard, as you say.
A normal letter, probably about £500,
but with this fantastic content, maybe up to 2,000.
Yeah. Oh, my goodness!
Well, my friend will be thrilled.
Wow. It's funny, though.
It's funny. It's funny.
And what a night out he must have had,
and I think we can all empathise with the sentiments. Totally. Thank you.
Well, a simple little grey suede bag containing a...
Well, a gentleman's dress stud, set with a colourless stone.
Mounted in gold. Very simple, very plain.
Can I ask you a question?
What are you doing with
a gentleman's gold dress stud?
It belonged to my grandfather
who went by the incredible name of Percy Tennyson Perkins.
And I adored him. He was a master mariner, sailed the world.
And was a bit of a rogue.
In what way? Well, he could drink a bit.
And he could tell amazing stories.
He was also in the First World War.
He was in those boats that were...
They were fishing boats, but they were actually armed...
Q-ships, I think they were called.
Right, OK, OK. And he was sunk a few times by German torpedoes.
But he always... He always came back. He always came back.
And when he died he left quite a lot of money,
quite a lot of assets, and I ended up with that.
Well, it's certainly, I would suggest,
the smallest thing I'm going to see today.
It's a colourless stone set in
a very simple claw mount,
and on the back you have this disc.
You probably know this, but just in case you don't,
can I just show you how it actually works?
So, if I pick it up,
you just literally turn it, did you know that?
No. No, you didn't know it did that?
No, I didn't know that. Oh, right.
Well, look, if I keep unscrewing it like that,
you would do that so that you could convert the top of it
into a gentleman's tie pin. Oh, OK, OK.
Do you see? Nice.
This was made, I suppose...
I'll put it back together again.
This was made in roundabout maybe 1915, 1920.
Yeah. Would that figure?
That features, yes.
Well, clearly a man who was...
Had an interesting background, interesting career.
And this is his dress stud.
Not necessarily of any great value, is it?
It's just a bit of a sort of connection between you and him.
Yeah. Isn't it?
Oh, indeed, it is, I love it.
So, do you think he would be glad if I told you that the white stone in
the top is a huge diamond?
A what diamond?
A huge diamond.
Right. Right.
He would love that. Do you think he'd be pleased if I told you...
He would want it back. He'd want it back?
Yes. Well, he can't have it back.
No. But are you pleased or would he be pleased to know
that he ultimately gave you something that was worth £3,000?
Oh, my goodness!
That will do nicely, but I'm not ever getting rid of it.
It's my grandfather's.
But it's a nice example of something
where you got no idea what a simple colourless stone is -
hey ho, £3,000!
With a great story. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Do you know, you wouldn't believe it.
Cos you'd think that these would be two a penny, we'd see hundreds, maybe thousands. We don't.
I've been waiting for 20 years
to see a really good Victorian engraving
because I'd love to get my teeth into one.
I've long thought that they should come out of dark Victorian passages
and be put pride of place
in a modern house above the mantelpiece,
cos they're marvellous. Wow.
What do you think?
Well, I was five when I saw this picture in my grandmother's house.
Probably five years later, when I'm about ten,
my father decides his mother has to downsize.
This was going to go in the skip. And I begged for it.
If memory serves me right, I had some money as a ten-year-old
and I offered it. You were that keen?
I was that keen.
And I don't believe my parents took some money off me
but, anyway, we got to keep the picture.
And the reason for what I loved about it is,
I had two sisters and myself, a mother and father.
So it was a family, and it meant a lot to me,
and it was known as Brian's picture.
And my sisters used to taunt me and call me Brian the lion.
And I didn't mind.
The real name of the picture is The Lion At Home.
Yes. And the finished picture is...?
Is in Hull. It's in Hull in the Ferens Art Gallery.
And it was painted, actually,
you can see that it's actually signed in the plate,
that means it's actually an engraved signature
and dated by Rosa Bonheur in 1881.
And she was a French animal painter. In fact, she was incredibly famous.
She was as famous as Landseer in her day.
Wow, right. And the print itself is engraved by
Thomas Lewis Atkinson, who's signed it in pencil here.
TL Atkinson. Oh, right, OK, yes.
And there is, just invisibly, almost, there,
the Printsellers' Association blind stamp.
It's a little mark put on it in a letter-number code
to denote that it is part of a limited edition.
Ah, right. And that's very important, cos that meant that you
could charge 12 guineas for it or something.
Oh, right. And that's a lot of money in 1882...
Yes, yes, yes. ..when this was published.
And it is a tour de force of engraving techniques.
You think, this is done on a copperplate
which might be tin plated later
to make it last longer in the printing process
cos copper's so soft, it squidges out and the thing becomes very tired.
And later impressions - this is a good one - become very grey.
This has got lots of life and strength in it.
The darks are very dark, the contrast is good.
It's rich, it's legible, and that's because it's quite an early impression,
and it's part of a limited edition. Right. It was a huge industry.
You could sell the copyright of this painting for more than the painting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was big money.
Big money. So, as a 10-year old boy what do you think you'd have had to
pay your grandmother for this print?
Probably £2 or £3.
Right, OK. Well, now, you'd probably have to pay about £600 to £800 for it.
Right. Because it's in such good condition, it's such a lovely impression.
And what about your family now?
It's still pertinent insomuch that I have three daughters.
Admittedly, not triplets.
My wife, myself.
So, the profile still fits.
So, it still means a lot to us.
You're The Lion At Home. That's the one.
I know we're not quite up to night-time yet,
but if it were night-time this is what we'd do.
And do you do this with your lantern?
I do, every week.
Yes. And how did you get it?
From my father, from his father.
And he was a medical missionary in China.
And that was when? About 1890 to over 1900.
OK, so, approximately 100-plus years ago.
Yes. It's a beautiful thing.
I think so. You're obviously fond of it since you use it.
I love it. We always had it on at Christmas.
And it was just part of the Christmas scene.
Yes. Candles. What's Christmas without candles?
Absolutely. And incredibly difficult to make something like this.
It's a really skilful thing.
Each of the facets is pierced with a different type of trellis.
Here you have a sort of honeycomb trellis.
And in the centre there's a reserve with a little lotus flower.
And what I particularly like is this one here where two...
..handsome young maidens are...
..accommodating this man here, who's looking up and gazing at the moon.
That's the moon. Ah, yes.
It's a night-time scene.
And in this case the trellis is not honeycomb but it is overlapping
Chinese coins or cash.
Yes. Now, coins and cash, they denote wealth.
May you have wealth. So, there is a sort of ongoing,
as the candle flickers and burns and casts those shadows
on the inside of the room.
Remember, all of that cage work is now appearing on the inside...
Does it do this? It does. It does. You can see it from quite a distance, yes.
Ah, fantastic! I wish we could... Lights down, you know, but we can't.
Anyway... Lovely thing, beautifully painted,
exquisite detail of flowers repeated on the foot.
So often these lanterns have lost the foot.
I believe so, yes.
OK, good. All I can say is, you haven't got the companion, have you?
No, I'm afraid not. They did come in pairs.
Did they? Well, I don't think my grandfather had two.
Not to my knowledge.
This one was made sometime between the late 18th century and I think the mid-19th century.
Really? I didn't know that.
And although it is very much to European tastes,
I think it would also appeal to Chinese tastes.
Well, you light it once a week, so you must have it insured.
For fire, if nothing else.
Yeah, the house is.
LAUGHTER
OK. I think that to replace one of these,
if you wanted to go out and buy another one,
I think you're looking at somewhere between £10,000 and 15,000.
Oh! Strike a light!
Never! Really? I thought it was about 500.
£10,000 to 15,000!
This market has gone absolutely through the roof,
and it's going to appeal to the Chinese, and it's going to appeal to the Europeans.
It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Thank you. Really nice.
Good. Thank you very much indeed.
Oh, a round of applause - my word!
Thank you. Oh, no, no, really, really!
LAUGHTER
Every week on the Roadshow we can see objects that are hundreds of years old,
but here is an antique for the years to come.
In this little vial are drops of the blood of Dolly the sheep.
Remember her? The first animal to be cloned anywhere in the world.
It happened here in Scotland.
Who knows? Those sheep behind me could be related to this.
I asked our experts about a value.
They were a bit woolly on price.
They thought in future people would be flocking to see it.
And I can guarantee EWE,
it's an antique of the future.
From the Antiques Roadshow, bye-bye.