University of Birmingham Antiques Roadshow

Today the Roadshow returns to Britain's second city.

Birmingham covers an area of over 100 square miles.

There are around a million people here and 1,300 miles of road.

It was once known as the workshop of the world.

To give you an idea of the way it was,

in 1888 the Brummies manufactured 8,000 guns,

6 million coins, 20 million pens and 25,000 pairs of spectacles.

An early city pioneer was Matthew Boulton, who inherited the family metalworking business and in 1762

set up his "manufactory" to produce fine silverware and other products.

Boulton's home - Soho House - was a meeting place for a group of brilliant innovators -

the leading scientists, engineers and thinkers of the time.

The Lunar Society, whose members included potter Josiah Wedgewood and steam engineer James Watt,

sat here every month at the time of the full moon to discuss their industrial plans and ideas.

At the end of each session, the moon would light their way home.

Boulton lobbied Parliament to establish an assay office in Birmingham and in 1773 he succeeded.

The Birmingham Assay Office is now the largest in Britain,

handling 10 million items every year.

The pieces are sampled and analysed

and then hallmarked according to quality.

This swan is sterling silver. It's given five separate marks - first, the maker's mark.

Then the fineness mark...

..the mark of the Birmingham Assay Office...

the lion mark for sterling silver,

and the year mark - in this case the millennium.

Birmingham is constantly reinventing itself. In recent years,

squares have been rejuvenated and walkways created,

linking up with arts, sports and convention centres.

It's a place of impressive buildings and large-scale enterprises and it's appropriate

that today's Roadshow comes from the University of Birmingham's Great Hall,

opened in 1909 by King Edward VII to host the functions of England's first campus university.

When you first look at this plaque, you think it's a piece of costume jewellery

because of its shape and style - is that something you've thought of?

Well, I was 15 when I got it.

It came in a rather untidy box just of bits and bobs from my auntie.

-I just liked it, so I kept it safe and occasionally wore it.

-It's good that you kept it safe.

It does have a value and it's quite - a piece that you could date quite precisely

because of its design and style.

This material that looks like a cloud formation or a snail shell, which you might think is just glass,

-is actually rock crystal.

-Oh.

-It's a natural crystal form.

Um, this flash of colour...

in the centre is actually a line of fine Burmese rubies.

And then the white stones on the borders of the rubies...

are of course lovely diamonds,

so you've got a complete mixture of precious stones

in a natural-looking hard stone rock crystal border.

Its shape is a bit peculiar because it doesn't look very much like... Would you wear it as a brooch?

How would you wear it? And then you turn it round

and the explanation is there because it is a lapel clip.

You've probably seen that if you - just there,

above that little space, there is a word - have you seen that word before?

-I've looked at it and it says "Chaumet".

-Chaumet, exactly.

Chaumet were a firm of manufacturers making jewellery - particularly very fine pieces in the '30s -

and they used to make jewellery that had...

a tremendously pronounced style.

The firm goes back way into about - ooh, 200 years old, something like that.

And they were patronised by Napoleon and they go back a long way.

Some of their jewellery makes a great deal of money.

Um, this clip, although it's a fairly modest piece, really -

it's not got a big flash of diamonds, big chunky stones,

but because of its singularity, the fact that it's signed "Chaumet - Made in France",

and smothered all over the bottom of this are the French control marks so it's got all the right things.

-What is the metal?

-Platinum.

-Platinum.

-It's not white gold - it would be platinum.

The Burmese rubies in the centre

and the quality of the brilliants flanking the rubies themselves, do make it quite valuable.

-So I think if it was sold in an auction we're looking at something in the realms of £2,000.

-Really?

-My father bought it before the war.

-Right.

It hung in the parlour until the Germans managed to move it off the wall in the early '40s.

You can see there's been a little bit of damage.

-Yes, I noticed.

-And that was caused by the frame landing on the corner and the glass shattering

-and pierced the picture.

-Was the picture's title on the frame?

-Because often it was.

-Yes, it was.

-What was it?

"An Appeal To The Benevolent" or something and the artist Weeks,

and I think it was 1854 or 1857, something like that.

Yes. Let's look at it more closely. If we look to the left of the dog,

we can see a foot at the bottom there, and a stick and a string,

and I suppose that represents a blind man.

-A blind man, I presume.

-Quite a clever interpretation. Yes.

He had a very prolific output of work, William Weeks,

and he flourished, as we say - we're not quite sure of the dates -

roughly between 1864 and just into the early part of the 20th century.

He exhibited numerous pictures at the Royal Academy from, I think, about 1865.

He has, over the years, an eternal popularity because of this confrontational type of approach,

with the dog looking at the pig.

You had other subjects painted by him of a gaggle of geese

stopping, say, a donkey ambling on a track. He also came up with these humorous titles -

"You Shall Not Pass" springs to mind with the geese and the donkey, and yet the donkey was no threat.

Wonderful picture, a lovely, lovely example.

I would think between about £8,000 and £12,000.

-Very nice.

-And perhaps on a good day, a little bit more.

Under a mile away from Edgbaston Cricket Ground and the home of the Warwickshire County Club,

-it seems appropriate that we're looking at a cricket bat.

-It was my father's.

He played at Edgbaston for a number of years between 1948 and about 1958.

-So, he was with Warwickshire?

-Yes, he kept wicket for Warwickshire,

-and occasionally for England.

-Did he? Very good.

Well, the tradition of signing cricket bats goes right back to the 19th century

and you find cricket bats with signatures of WG Grace and all the rest of it on.

And it's not unusual to have the touring side signing.

What is unusual, though, is this - you've probably got all the English players here

but actually divided up as county players.

-Now, your father then played for Warwickshire.

-Yes.

But I don't see Warwickshire here.

I think because it was for his benefit year. He had a number of bats signed and this is one of them

which he gave to me to play cricket with, basically, to sand down.

I broke a bat on a Saturday and he gave it me to play with on the Sunday but I didn't like to.

I've kept it in the loft ever since.

Um, it is a very nice bat, I mean the grip is just beginning

to go slightly - that's inevitable, really.

The bats that have the English/South African/Australian touring sides,

in their normal form, signed on the front, they're probably worth around perhaps £400 -

£500 if it's a good year.

However, yours is better than that because with all these county players,

I think that we're talking about certainly double, if not three times that.

I would have said we're talking about between £1,000 and £1,500 in value.

So this is something you've bought recently?

No, I got it from my mother who died in 1994 and it was in the family for some time previous to that.

-It's nice to inherit something.

-Yes.

It's a lovely piece of furniture. It's often called an etagere which is a sort of a two-tier table.

But very often ebonised pieces of furniture, that are black,

tend not to be very commercial, and this I think, though, doesn't really come into that category.

-Right.

-Firstly it's a small piece of furniture.

-Uh-huh.

-Er, parts of it are ebonised,

it's been painted black, to simulate ebony. Right. And other parts are in fact ebony veneers.

But it's really lovely quality

-and I think the fact that it's a sort of simple classical design is greatly to its advantage.

-Yes.

It's got a drawer at the front here and you can actually see here

where the ebonised painting has worn away and in fact you can also see

-the fingerprints of whoever actually painted it.

-Golly!

But it's a neat small piece of furniture.

It's in the Louis XVI French style but it's actually made in England.

-Right.

-Around 1890 or thereabouts.

I think if you were to put it up for sale - I'm sure you wouldn't -

but if you were to put it in the market,

-I think you'd probably get something in the region of £600 to £800.

-Oh wonderful, marvellous.

This gentleman figures here on the family tree.

-He was born in 1828.

-1828, fine.

And did he have any claim to fame?

His father was John Bate Cardale, the founder of the Catholic and Apostolic Church in London.

Well, George Richmond certainly had a claim to fame

because by this stage - and what date is this? 1847? - he was probably

the most famous portrait painter in Britain and hugely sought-after, for just this sort of thing,

these strong pastel portraits.

And you can see how in relatively few lines he's put down this strong handsome face.

-Yes...

-This paper is - was originally

probably just an off-white, an ivory-creamy paper,

and it has absorbed the acids from all the woodwork

around it and has turned brown, and actually that can be reversed. I think probably in the region of...

-£800 to £1,200, £1,500, something like that.

-Yes.

-But a jolly good buy for that - not that you're...

-It's never been bought.

-Never been bought.

-It's not going to be sold either.

There are two rotundas

in Birmingham and the older and much lovelier is here, at the entrance to the Great Hall of the University

and it has this astonishing trompe l'oeil ceiling here - absolutely magnificent.

And on a slightly smaller scale

we have a commemorative medal for the opening of the university

in 1909 by King Edward VII - how did you get hold of this?

I was given it about 35 -

bit longer - years ago. People used to give them me because I used to collect medals, coins,

old Victorian copper and everything.

-That one's always fascinated me.

-It's very handsome. I wonder how many were struck.

I haven't got a clue, that's what I'd like to know.

-What a wonderful rattle.

-Yes, I think this part is a teething...

Exactly that, yeah. These were all the rage

for the greatest and grandest babies of the land, to be given, at birth, a silver rattle.

Um, this one with the coral teether, as you say,

hallmarked round there...

Good. This is very local to where we are now. It's by a firm called Willmores, made in Birmingham.

Birmingham of course was the real centre of toy making,

little silver buttons and all that sort of thing.

This is 1850 or thereabouts.

Very unusual to have this tin box which I would think is contemporary with it, also made in Birmingham.

The bells - all contemporary,

hung on separately with floral chasing and feather work going up there, you know.

The little suspension ring would have been a ribbon

to hang that - I'm sure they were more often than not, actually,

-used for family portraits rather than...

-Probably.

-..anything else.

It's been in the family for years.

Er, if it was an auction estimate today, we would probably be expecting...

something in the region of £300... up to £500 as an auction estimate.

-My guess is that actually you've not been buying ivories for very long.

-No, no, I haven't, no...

-How long?

-Oh, three or four years, perhaps.

OK. There is really a sort of warning here and that is

that one should be very careful about buying ivory.

Yes.

-Um, the trouble is that it's an illegal trade now.

-Yes, yes.

And there are people still killing elephants to provide ivory for carvings.

Unless you know what you're doing, you really shouldn't buy them.

-No.

-What you've got here are a group of modern ivory carvings.

Although these appear to be Indian,

they are in fact probably Chinese.

The Chinese are carving in Canton and elsewhere, um, ivories in Japanese style,

Indian style and Chinese style,

-and they're being exported. This one is not actually ivory, this one is bone.

-I wasn't sure.

Yeah, this one's bone. You can see these brown lines running up here, that's where the blood vessels go

-in bone, and you don't get that in ivory at all.

-Ah, yes.

-So it's a very easy way of telling.

-Where did you buy this one?

-I only bought that this week from the Birmingham antique market.

-This week? An antique market?

-Yes.

-All right. What did you pay for it?

-Have a guess. What do you think?

-I don't know, maybe you paid £10 for it.

-No, three

-Three, OK, well...

-I liked it, it's so intricate...

-You think it's intricate.

-But I don't know whether it is ivory.

OK, the real clue is here. On the neck - see that line?

-Yes.

-That's a seam.

-Oh yes.

-It's plastic.

Oh, plastic. Oh, never mind,

-I haven't lost much.

-It's all right for three quid.

-I like it.

Um, but this is the real piece de resistance.

-I like the markings on this, you know.

-You like the carving on here.

-Carving... Yes.

-Of peony.

-It isn't ivory.

-It's not ivory.

-Oh, no, I don't think so, do you?

-What do you think it is then?

-Some sort of bone.

Whale bone, some - some sort of shark bone, something like that.

-Thank goodness you're right. It is bone.

-Yes.

-It's not ivory.

-Oh, no.

And what we've got here are obvious joins

where the pieces have been stuck on.

Where did you buy this one from?

-Birmingham market.

-A Birmingham market?

-Yes.

-How long ago?

-Er, three or four months ago.

-Oh, right, and may I ask what you paid for it?

-A hundred and fifty.

I mean, you know, this amazes me -

how can anybody go to this amount of work,

-get it over to England and sell it for a hundred and fifty quid, quite extraordinary.

-Yes.

But in my opinion for a bone tusk as decorative as that for a hundred and fifty quid...

-Why not?

-I just snapped it up. Something I liked, you see.

At the beginning of the - now the 20th century - in about 1900

there was a new style that came out, very much inspired by France, called Art Nouveau,

which is new art, which was very much inspired by nature, but at the same time was very much into

sort of flowing lines. Now if you look at the pattern on this,

you've got this sort of - I suppose it's like a flower, interlaced flower

inlaid with enamel on the silver vase and if one rotates it carefully,

you can see that the pattern is not repeating itself absolutely.

It's actually climbing up the vase

in a very sort of organic way and it's the way the design has been drawn round the vase

that is very characteristic of Art Nouveau, as is this extraordinary sort of flared base,

and the sort of sweeping again, sort of plant-like form.

Now this was designed by a man called Knox,

um, who was a metalwork designer, graphic artist,

who came originally from the Isle of Man and his influences, as well as being natural,

came from a sort of Celtic tradition.

-He worked for Liberty's, now does Liberty...?

-Yes.

-Right.

-Yes.

-Now Liberty were great...

leaders of avant-garde design in the Art Nouveau period and they commissioned designers like Knox,

many other people - the potter Moorcroft - to make things that were

absolutely up to the minute in style

and if you could imagine this in a shop window in 1901,

it couldn't have been more outrageous, modern, avant-garde. It was always wonderfully stylish,

but absolutely super-modern taste.

Here we have the Birmingham hallmark for 1901, we have Cymric, we have the Liberty mark.

A lot of Liberty pieces were made by Haseler and Company who were a Birmingham silversmith,

so it could well have been made not very far from where we are today

but sold in London into an avant-garde market.

-But it lives at home?

-Yes, and it's cleaned regularly with loving care.

Yeah. There is some damage, as you know. It's been bashed a bit, the shape is no longer round,

-Yes.

-This is slightly erratic. That does affect it.

If it was absolutely perfect, you'd be looking at £3,000 or £4,000.

Gosh!

Now, calm down a bit - because of the damage and condition, you're probably going - I think I'd say

sort of £2,000 to £3,000 - but for insurance you could certainly say £4,000. It is a fantastic piece.

-He's been in the family for 80 years.

-As far as you know, it was sold

-as a toy rather than as, um, a symbol to sell something.

-I think so, yes.

-Yes.

I wondered whether he'd come off a display stand.

Yes, well, I would imagine he has. Once upon a time he was made for

a display in possibly a bookseller's,

because when I first saw him I thought he was stone, until I picked him up and then - he's so light,

because he's made of papier-mache which is lovely

because he's such a character and as you know,

Beatrix Potter couldn't get anybody to publish her first Peter Rabbit in 1901

so she made her own edition and it wasn't until 1902 that the trade edition came out.

This is much later.

I would imagine that this could be just pre-war. He is absolutely original to her drawing

and so anybody collecting anything to do with Peter Rabbit,

and there are a lot of them around, they would pay probably around

£200 to £300 for this, even in this condition which has obviously been played with.

During the war my parents hired a cottage,

to take me out of Birmingham and we lived next to an old lady

and in about 1942 we'd got close to one another

-and she gave me this book, which she told me was hers as a child.

-Oh, lovely.

And so - it says 1895 on the cover.

It certainly is 1895,

and it was published by Ernest Nister who was actually

a German based in Nuremburg,

but became very famous for producing pop-up books, movable books,

books with all sorts of things - lovely things that moved.

What I love about this is that it's a very good example of Victorian colour printing as well as being

highly mechanical and very carefully worked out.

It's also, to some extent, a social commentary because you've got a lovely range

of figures along the back and you've got

an indication of the sort of pursuits that the Victorians particularly liked.

In this case it's in decent condition. It's not the finest, but it's good enough to be really

sought after in the market, and I think probably in this kind of state, it would be worth perhaps

-£300 or £400.

-Really?

To all intents and purposes, you've got a very standard captain's naval maritime telescope here.

-Yes...

-But it's distinguished by two features.

The first is this inscription engraved...along the sighting tube.

And the second is it's got its original box, which they've almost always lost.

The nice thing about the box of course is it's also got the inscription repeated,

-because it's very difficult to read on that shiny surface.

-Yes.

And it says "presented by Her Majesty's Government to Captain Henry Procter,

"Master of the Barque 'Aunt Lizzie' of Sunderland,

"in acknowledgement of the humanity and kindness to nine castaway islanders belonging to the island

"of Yap, who he picked up at sea on the 29th December 1867. Troughton & Simms, London".

-Yes.

-They're a firm that started

as Troughtons - and existed from, I think, 1826 to about the 1920s-odd.

-A normal telescope like this, perhaps £200 - £250, because of the box, which helps.

-Yes.

But the moment you have a history like this, you can double that,

-£500, £700.

-Mm, fantastic.

These were made by our grandfather,

um, who at the time worked for Wilkinson Sword in London. We think they're apprentice pieces.

To me this is really wonderful. Look at the size of this Scottish dress dirk.

Now you've got a knife,

a fork and the sheath.

It's a wonderful little set.

I mean this is - we're looking at perfection now, not any amateurish, you know, effort.

Now this is an 1831 pattern general sword for a general officer,

but the incredible thing here - that all the etching

-is actually on the blade.

-It's beautiful, isn't it?

-It is, it's truly amazing to have

anything that small,

-that you could understand and read.

-And that has his initials and the date.

-I saw some initials - so they're your grandfather's initials.

-Yes.

-Oh, well, that's fair enough,

isn't it? Now, this is a naval

-officer's sword.

-Ah.

-In this instance we've got a post-1902 crown on it.

-Ah.

And true to the big brother of this sword,

it has a hinge flap down here securing the sword

into the scabbard, so we lift the flap,

and then we can take out the sword.

But truly amazing - just look at this!

I would value them at - I know it sounds a lot of money -

-I would value them at £2,000.

-Oh!

-Where has this picture been? Look at my hands!

-It's been somewhere very dirty, I'm afraid - in my loft,

-and only recently discovered.

-Well, you are in a city

that was one of the most envied cities towards the end of the 19th century,

because the Birmingham Arts and Crafts School was the envy of the world.

These sort of artists were not just painters and draughtsmen. They made enamel, they made stained glass,

they made and designed jewellery, and Birmingham was the centre of these crafts.

-For the artists, the greatest hero of Birmingham was a son of Birmingham.

-Yes.

-Edward Burne-Jones.

-Yes.

-And when we look at these,

we then see the link between the Burne-Jones/William Morris collaboration,

Arthur and the Kelmscott Press illustrations,

and then you can see how these people openly dedicated themselves to Burne-Jones.

So at the turn of the century you have Southall, in his early 30s -

Joseph Edward Southall, that's who they're by.

-This is his monogram here.

-Yes.

These are illustrations for the story of Bluebeard.

-Yes.

-So here we have somebody in the heart of Birmingham - which is exciting,

because when we come to Birmingham we want the Birmingham School. Yes.

We see the craftsmanship of these illustrations,

we see the whole Aesthetic Movement, the way things are put together.

So these are sort of £2,500 each - that's five.

Overall, say £5,000 to £8,000.

-I nearly threw it away.

-And you didn't.

-No. Goodness.

These are Staffordshire figures.

-Yes.

-And they were extremely popular in the Victorian period.

-We have two figures here which are the same.

-Same figures, yes.

-And helpfully,

-they're labelled on the bottom Beaconsfield.

-Yes, yes.

Well, we probably know who it was from his little goatee beard - it's Benjamin Disraeli.

-Yes.

-He was an MP from 1837...

-I see.

And he was made Beaconsfield, Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876,

so these figures must have been made around 1876 in Staffordshire.

-These two figures are much less well known.

-Oh.

You've got Moody and Sankey.

Moody and Sankey were evangelists and they came over here

three times, and the first time they came over was 1873

and that was about when these figures were made, so they must have approached the factory,

I think, to say, "We're coming over,

"and would like you to make some figures of us to sell to the crowd,

-"really get everybody going".

-Yes.

-In spite of that, they're quite rare figures.

-Yes.

-At auction - not an insurance value -

-No.

-but at auction they're going to fetch £2,000.

-Oh!

Of all the toys that I see, I have to admit that Noah's Arks are my favourites,

and what we're looking at here is a particularly lovely example.

The carcass is made of wood and then it's been

covered with these fantastically coloured pieces of straw,

both in long strips and then little tiny mosaics

running round a frieze and it's in lovely condition. It doesn't look as if it's been played with much.

So was it yours?

I don't know much about it except that it belonged to my husband's great-great-aunt.

A little aide-memoire to tell you which way to push the slide, thank you!

Um, and inside, yes, well we have got lots and lots of animals,

-so - have you counted them?

-Not recently.

-Oh, good.

So this is a sort of voyage of discovery. We can actually count them all out.

So, Roy, this represents a good day out for you, doesn't it?

Yes. I see so many of these in the Roadshows over the last 22 years

and I've always said that if ever we're in Birmingham and one comes in, I'd like to mention it.

-So what have we got?

-Well, we've got the very first coin struck by steam pressure.

They were only struck in 1797.

Watt of steam engine fame joined Boulton, and Boulton and Watt struck these tuppenny pieces.

And also penny pieces. The tuppenny pieces weighed two ounces and of course the penny piece, one ounce.

Having struck them, they submitted trial proofs to The Royal Mint and they gave them the licence

to carry on to do so,

but you can see the size - and they were very unpopular with people.

-If you had a pound's worth, you wouldn't be able to walk.

-No!

The way that these animals were created was slightly like slicing up a piece of cake.

There would be a block of wood, circular and the height of the animal - let's pick one at random.

How about one of these stripy hyenas? They would then cut slices through the cake,

smaller at the nose end, wider at the rear,

and then very roughly carve in the details of the feet and the head and so on.

And then they were given out to cottage workers to finish the carving

and to cover the little animals with gesso - a kind of whiting - and then to paint the details on,

so you can picture the scene in the southern area of Germany, in the Thuringian forests where they

had access to all this pine.

You would find whole communities of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties and children,

sitting painting

the animals that they had round them.

We have all the members

of Noah's family, Noah in the red robe

holding his staff,

and it really was a toy that was educational

as well as being amusing.

It would teach you a little bit about the animals of the world.

More particularly, this was a toy that could be played with in religious households on a Sunday,

so it becomes part of a group of toys known as "Sunday toys", things with a religious connection.

It dates from the early part of the 19th century, something around perhaps 1825 to 1850,

that second quarter of the 19th century.

The other thing that I love about this one is its size,

because they can be anything from this size

up to great things that you almost feel you could sail in yourself.

This is a lovely size, very compact, and yet to fit in 89 animals.

They're rare.

They're rare in bad condition, so in good condition they are super-rare.

I would have thought if we're talking about value,

-we should certainly be talking about perhaps £2,500 to £3,500.

-Really?

What's your house like without the door?

A little bit bare. We have a temporary panel in.

-What do you know about it?

-Well, it was actually designed and made by

-Vincent Muschialli.

-Right.

-For his house that was built in 1929 - and he worked in stained glass.

-Yes.

My grandmother became his companion/ housekeeper and when they died, my aunt inherited the house and then

in turn I inherited the house.

I mean what this takes us into is a particular period of English domestic architectural design,

the spread of the suburbs, along the arterial roads, all those bungalows and semis,

all the same but all subtly different and one of the ways builders made them different

was by the installation of stained glass panels, either in the doors or often in the primary room windows.

You see them still there. Of course so many of these were stripped out by double glazing,

by plastic frames, hundreds and millions of doors have been replaced, of course

by dreadful fake Georgian replicas, so it's wonderful to see one that is actually total as it should be.

Maritime motifs are the most popular. That's what people go for.

You get all sorts of things but the idea of... Often it's a great galleon in full sail,

but this is much nicer because it's almost a contemporary image.

The number 40 is very nice. I think this is a later replacement.

-Yes.

-It probably was an iron one originally to match that, but essentially it's

as it should be and of course it still belongs on the house - even better. Can you value a front door?

Of course you can. Places called architectural salvage centres sell things like this all the time.

Usually the panel is taken out, the door is scrapped and it's sold as stained glass, which is a tragedy.

But that panel is great, in the door.

It has to be £400 which is quite a lot of money for a front door,

but better than any replica or reproduction,

-so screw it back and make sure it continues to live there.

-Thank you.

-We often see Doulton plates on the Roadshow - you know, someone brings in one piece.

-Yes.

But to see a big collection is wonderful - you've got more than this, have you?

-Oh, yes, I've got something like 105 pieces.

-Really?

-On the dresser.

And these are all connected with Dickens. What started you off? What was your first piece?

Oh, that plate there was my first piece, Tony Weller.

-This has got the signature of Noke, Charles Noke...

-Oh, yes.

-..the designer of all this series of Dickens subjects.

-Yes.

-And on the back of course it has the name of the subject, Tony Weller.

-Yes.

And the normal Doulton mark, and also, interestingly,

the year of the making of the piece.

-Yes, yes.

-So that says 109 which is, um, January 1909,

-when this series started.

-Yes.

-And of course it had a great boost when the Dickens centenary happened

-a couple of years later.

-Oh, yes.

-And masses of this stuff was made.

-Yes.

And it's extremely popular.

It's been popular right until the 1950s when they finally eliminated the Dickens scenes

-from the thing.

-Yes, yes.

-But you've got some fascinating items.

This is, I suppose, one of the most extraordinary things. This is a...

I've never seen one of those in the catalogues or books that we've got of this.

It's what, a sort of a cigarette holder, or match holder?

I think you turn it up for cigarettes to go in there. You have to feed them in there.

-Cigarettes.

-You stand it up and of course

they won't come out because they're stopped by that.

-And you have the matches in there?

-Yes, strike on...

And then you strike them on the platform, yeah, and then put the...

-used matches down in there.

-Yes.

-Absolutely fascinating. So you've got Sam Weller on one side.

Sam Weller, yes.

-One of the great characters. And Tony Weller.

-Yes, yes.

-On the other. All these things are fascinating.

-Yes.

-They're not uncommon, I mean, you know,

we do see a lot of the Dickens characters on these pieces and at auction a plate is expected

-to go for something like around about £25, £30 or something like that.

-Yes.

-More, of course, at an antiques fair. You'd have to pay much more for that then.

-Yes.

The unusual objects would be pushing towards £100, I suppose.

-Yes.

-And so amongst this there's a... there's a fair amount of value.

We believe it's by a woman artist called Kate Eadie and I believe that they've got one at the V & A.

Indeed you're right. It is certainly by Kate Eadie. She was one of the sort of

quite prominent women in the English Arts and Crafts movement.

She was based in Birmingham,

and also the thing is that she was pretty versatile.

I mean, she did jewellery, she did sgraffito work like this, illumination.

How did you acquire it?

Um, in 1973 I went into a junk shop

looking for something completely different with £5 in my purse and bought this instead.

-You bought this for a fiver?

-For a fiver in a junk shop.

Well, I'm amazed that you could have got it for that price in 1970.

I could understand, you know, before the war or something when this was - but already people were

beginning to be very interested in the Arts and Crafts.

It's in such beautiful condition with this sgraffito work

on the wooden panels and the gilding, absolutely perfect.

Have you any idea of its present value? None at all, none at all.

-No, well you should insure it for at least £2,000.

-Oh, good heavens!

-Yes.

-A little pottery bust. I wonder who he's meant to be.

-Yes.

-Mm, sort of, he - he's wearing...

I suppose that's a turban of some sort with a jewel on his head, so a Turk of some kind.

Well, my aunt had it on her mantelpiece all her life.

She lived in the same house from the 1920s until she died at the age of 94 about four years ago.

-It's just been sitting on the mantelpiece and now come down to you.

-That's right, yes.

What we've got here is a piece of pottery which is clearly shown by his nose being missing.

-I can see inside the colour of the clay and it chips very easily.

-Yes.

-It's a material called delft.

To look like Chinese porcelain, they took a pottery clay and covered it with a thick white glaze,

and it looks like a nice white china body, but it's soft, it chips easily

and when it chips you get this coarse clay colour inside.

And this material was developed in many different countries.

It started perhaps in Italy, it's best known in Holland

where the name delft applied, and you also get it made in France and in England.

Placing where it's made is going to be a very crucial thing to this little object.

-Yes.

-We're going back to quite an early age for delft.

Underneath the base there are some initials.

-Normally this arrangement of initials is quite interesting - it would indicate a marriage.

-Right.

"T" and "M" would be the names of the husband and wife and "W" is most likely to be the surname.

And often that arrangement would indicate this piece was a wedding gift of some sort.

-Mm.

-That kind of lettering on an item

occurs on quite early delft pieces and we're looking for a date

which I suppose the subject can suggest. Um, looking at his face there, he's wearing,

I guess a moustache and a little goatee beard which sort of comes to mind images

of, um, Charles I or indeed Charles II,

and that's really the period we're looking at. This little piece here is in the 17th century,

-goes back to the 1670s.

-Gosh.

-Anything from that age, it's quite a rare piece.

-Yes.

-Indeed.

-Even though it's so battered?

-Well, that's - I like to see battering on these.

-Oh, right.

-That's telling more that it's got some age.

-Right.

-If delft has got no chips at all,

then it's normally modern. It's a very rare survivor.

I've never seen one like it. I've never seen this model.

-I'm sure it's totally unrecorded.

-Gosh.

And because they just simply - very few were made and they got broken.

You get figures made in France and Holland and in England - the most exciting ones to us

if they're British. The colours are the simple colours of delft ware.

The orange and yellow are sort of - rather badly fired yellow.

It was very hard to get really bright colours on these - they occur on a few known pieces,

particularly some cordial cups which were made for the coronation of Charles II in 1660 and they have

this combination of colours exactly,

so lots of things are telling me this is London of 1660.

The search continues all the time to discover what was made in London and what was made on the Continent.

-Right.

-But the difference is very important in terms of the price.

-Right.

-Because although Dutch and Continental figures are rare in delft at this period -

-and they're quite expensive - the price of English ones go through the roof.

-Oh, really?

-So preparing you on that line, um - what were you thinking it might be worth?

-I'd no idea at all.

Holding it here, it's speaking to me in an English accent. I want it to be English.

One has to be cautious and say we've got to check it out, we've got to ge some other opinions after today,

-to perhaps just see if other examples are known - any other way to be sure.

-Right.

But English delft figures start at a substantial amounts of money. They don't exist.

Examples have fetched, um, tens of thousands of pounds,

-even over £100,000.

-Really?

-So we're talking about a lot of money.

-Gosh.

-So, I mean cautiously one is thinking £50,000.

-Really? Ooh.

-And it could... As I say, some have made over £100,000.

-Oh, dear.

-For pieces of such importance.

Right, well, it isn't insured, I don't think.

-It needs to be insured and looked after.

-Yes.

-It needs to be researched. It's a major discovery.

-Really? Gosh.

-It's so exciting. I'm shaking holding it here, but I'll put it down carefully.

-Gosh.

-Because it is a wonderful thing, wonderful condition. What a piece!

How much would you or I have paid for that battered little piece of pottery? Extraordinary.

It has to be said that this fine hall has provided the perfect atmosphere for a day of discovery.

So thank you to everyone in the Great Hall of Birmingham University, and until next week, goodbye.

Subtitles by Veronica Wells