Selby Antiques Roadshow

This week we're in Yorkshire and the town of Selby, 12 miles south of York.

The immediate landscape is dominated by three enormous power stations -

the largest of them, with a name favoured by Ian Fleming for one of James Bond's early enemies, is Drax.

There's no bigger coal-fired power station in Western Europe.

The coal that Drax consumes at a rate of 36,000 tons per day, comes mostly from Selby coalfields,

and that in itself is no antique - it was discovered only as recently as 1967 - recent for some of us.

It is a gigantic undertaking.

To give you an idea of the scale, each of Drax's 12 cooling towers is taller than St. Paul's Cathedral.

The River Ouse supplies three tonnes of water a day for the cooling process.

The river played a crucial part in one of Selby's colourful legends.

It involves monk Benedict of Auxerre

who in 1069 had a vision of a place where a great abbey would stand.

Years later, he was sailing up the River Ouse when suddenly three swans settled on the water,

and Benedict recognised the area as the one he'd seen in his vision.

He planted a cross and he staked his claim.

Selby Abbey survived the dissolution of the monasteries and the odd natural disaster,

and contains some fabulous stained glass.

The most famous feature is the 14th-century Washington window.

John de Washington was a prior in the region.

He shared a family tree with George Washington.

The family crest of stars and stripes shown in the window, served as the basis for the American flag.

Selby was heavily involved in the English Civil War - there was the Battle of Selby in 1644.

Lord Fairfax stormed the town and recaptured it from the Royalists.

700 years before that, it was the home of the Archbishops of York.

This gatehouse, now owned by the Landmark Trust, is all that remains of the great palace at Cawood.

King John and Henry VIII were guests here.

It was here in 1530 that Cardinal Wolsey was lying sick when they came and arrested him for treason.

He was a popular man in these parts. It's said that as he was led away, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

It's an event that's been enshrined in legend and song.

"And all the king's horses and all the king's men, never ever did restore Wolsey again."

And so to the show. Our academy of experts is installed at the Abbey Leisure Centre -

hoping fervently there'll be no falls or breakages.

Let's see what the people of Selby have brought us - quite a lot!

Look, there's the Queen.

Bet that's the first time she's been in the back of a car!

A whisky flask, in the olden days - have a nip of whisky on the road.

Well, that kept the deer safe.

I'm sure nobody could fire a decent shot after that. We'll get some things taken in.

-Really is a socking great pedestal, isn't it?

-Very heavy.

Yes, it certainly is, all walnut -

solid walnut baluster there, which I think is really nice.

This frame - very gently scalloped all the way around, I like that too.

-It gives the top of the table a lot of weight.

-Yes.

Now I'm going to go underneath here because this is a tilt-top table. Let's see if I can do this.

I might need help. That sounds good. Here we go.

Now, that is pretty spectacular. Can you tell me anything about this?

Well, I got it from my father,

and it was given to him by his mother,

and it belonged to her auntie and uncle.

I believe my grandma's uncle was a mace bearer of Pontefract.

I'm given to understand that it came from the Lord Mayor's parlour.

So it may have a very grand provenance?

Yes, it came into my uncle's possession about 60 years ago.

The date of the table would go back quite a long way further than that.

And the style of the base and the really incredibly decorative character of the front,

would suggest the third quarter, say, of the 19th century.

-So it's showing a lot of French influence, and the French style was very popular at that time.

-Right.

Walnut veneer as a ground, into which are set all these different shapes and cartouches.

The middle bit's almost too cute.

These musical trophies you've got there and here,

a really lovely violin there and a tambourine and a horn.

So four musical trophies interspersed with flower sprays.

-Fantastic colour in this table.

-Yes.

-And it's kept its greens.

-There is a problem with the surface of this table.

-Yes. We stripped the polish off about seven years ago.

Why?

Our daughter - who was three - drew on it with her felt-tip pens.

-Ah.

-So to remove the colour, we removed the polish.

-Right.

-We've never had it redone.

It's a shame as there are bits of polish left and you can see the richness,

it'd be worth having that polished again.

You ought to consider an insurance valuation of around £6,000.

-Because if something happened to it, you wouldn't forgive yourselves.

-No!

She's lost her earrings and the top of her crown, but even with those defects,

-she'd probably be worth about £150, maybe more.

-Oh, yes.

Now this object here is rather interesting.

-We've got a little stoneware thing, and do you know what this is?

-I think it's a handwarming pot.

-Yes.

-And a hot water bottle.

-Yes, yes.

And you can see there's a registration mark here - and that was registered in 1929.

-Oh, yes.

-And you acquired this from another relative?

-From a relative.

You've done well from relatives.

This is not very valuable, £80 to £100 perhaps, but it's interesting.

And then this big - what we could rather poshly call a jardiniere.

-In Yorkshire, you'd call it an Aspidistra pot.

-That's it, yes.

It's a well-known piece made by the Minton firm,

probably round about 1868.

It's typical of what's called majolica.

Majolica introduced by Minton as a result of experiments by a Frenchman, Leon Arnoux,

who was their art director.

and he had this way of making these opaque colours to decorate what's really a terracotta pot.

You've got something which is well known and very collectable, really.

Unfortunately it's got a chip.

-Yes, it has.

-You can see the little chip, but otherwise, it's in good condition.

They're extremely fashionable in America. I would think £2,000.

-Would it?

-Yeah, so of the items we've picked out from all those you brought today,

I found these extremely interesting, so thank you for bringing them.

Every so often, you get a rare treat on the Roadshow.

And I've never seen a brass kettle on stand of exactly this form.

Where did you get it from?

Well, I inherited it from my father's family who were very local and were farmers in the area.

My grandmother said

that it was used as the... at the Sunday School teas.

I think it dates from about 1820.

It's got the original turned ebony handle on the top of the kettle

which matches the turned ebony on the stand. If you turn it up,

inside is the tinned interior, which is what you should have.

And the rare thing is having this stand which, although it looks black, is made of brass too.

I didn't know that the stand was made of brass. I assumed it was iron or...

No, if you look carefully, particularly up at this top end,

-you can see the original brass underneath this black patination.

-Yes.

-And the heat in the fireplace,

standing in the ashes is what has made it go completely black, and inside, this wonderful pig of iron.

So for your family's Sunday School teas - that would have been in the fire

and would have gone into this stand, would have radiated the heat into the bottom of the kettle

and it's remained as it was in those days.

Yes. Well, in my living memory it's never been used.

And I've never cleaned the back of this kettle,

because I think if you do clean old brass you're losing part of its history.

I think this colour remaining on the stand is very attractive.

Now a kettle like this,

ordinarily would perhaps be worth £100 to £150.

To have the kettle on the stand from this period,

translates it rather excitingly into an object that's worth perhaps £600 to £800.

that's just by keeping it together.

Yes, that's rather a surprise really.

What we've got here is a small collection of the typical type of watches that turn up every Roadshow.

The problem is that everybody had a granny and a grandpa,

and most have watches, and although they're marvellous pieces of work,

this little one here is a typical granny watch of 1900, beautifully engraved, probably still working,

but £50 or less.

So this is a very handsome collection and some of these to my eye look terribly expensive,

what would you advise people to do to avoid disappointment?

It's difficult to say, because there isn't an easy way of looking on the bottom and saying -

it's marked like this so i's £50. One just has to bring them along

and one has a look, because there's a chance it may be valuable.

Always that chance.

-Yes.

-It's travelled well.

Oh, very nice, can I give it a...

Nice one.

It's been passed down the family on my husband's side,

from his great aunt - the lady in the picture there.

It originally belonged to her five-year-old sister which she got as a Christmas present.

Unfortunately, six weeks later, she died of diphtheria

and this was the last thing she was holding with the doll when she died.

-Her elder sister has kept it in memory of her sister.

-Was that an orange, do you think?

-Yes, yes.

-Well, it's a tragic story and, as I always say,

valuable things haven't been played with, and usually it's because of a sad story like this.

She's been put away in her original box in superb, pristine condition,

and the fact that it's a British doll - because we don't have many British dolls in this country...

She's a "shoulder-head" - all in one with the shoulder plate, lovely original silk satin dress,

and little overcoat, original shoes,

her own bag and this photograph of the original owner,

all go to push up her value to - I would say somewhere in the region of £200 to £300, possibly more.

-So...

-Lovely. Thank you.

Well, this is really psychedelia, isn't it? Fantastic bit of optical art, but from when?

Not from the flower-power age of the 1960s,

but look at that one,

that's fantastic too.

This is, if you like, psychedelia from a century before that.

These are 19th-century kaleidoscopic slides.

And there's another rather fun one of somebody looking in the mirror

and they see the donkey's face instead of their own.

Now these slides obviously go with something much more extravagant -

this wonderful magic lantern. How far can you trace it back yourself?

It belonged to my wife's uncle.

-So he was as a projectionist?

-No, he was a plumber.

-Very good.

This particular magic lantern is a very good quality one. It's a good mahogany body, brass fittings,

and on the front here is the name of the manufacturer.

The Hughes company was working from the 1870s all the way through until the early 20th century.

There are two distinct parts to this - one is the lantern itself.

I would say we're talking about perhaps £400 to £600, that sort of figure,

and then we come to the slides.

I would have said that we've probably got about £300, perhaps £350-worth of slides.

So put it all together, and on a good day it could be just edging up towards £1000.

-The marks are confusing because it's stamped there "Nevada silver".

-Yes.

There is actually not a gram of silver in this.

It's actually a manufacturer in Sheffield in the 19th century who was stamping all these names on.

Today, there's no you could put that on, because it would be...

-..Illegal.

-Trades Descriptions Act.

It's made more confusing by these marks which give the impression of a set of hallmarks.

But when you look at them, they're spurious and are made to give you that idea of a set of hallmarks.

So the whole thing is set out to confuse.

-It's a fraud.

-Well, yes. In a nutshell, I think you've got it.

In 1906, Selby Abbey was destroyed by fire,

and a stonemason at that time retained so much wood from the abbey,

and over the next 10 or 15 years used it for carving walking sticks for special people.

-You had to be important to get one?

-That's right, yes.

This is an earlier one which he carved for one of his workmates, but this belongs to Selby Abbey archives.

-This is a later model, probably around 1920.

-But both made from wood from the timbers...

..The timbers from the old abbey.

And they're marked, "Old oak, 1069, Selby Abbey".

-1069, wonderful.

-Before we were born.

-And how many of these are there?

-Probably 12.

-In the world?

-That's it, yes.

It's in a pretty platinum case, probably French,

but its value is commensurate with the diamonds and metalwork.

-So it's worth, in auction, something in the region of £400.

-Oh, really?

What we have here is something else.

-We have a compact.

-Yes. It was given to me fairly recently by - I'd better not say an elderly lady -

a mature lady, and she'd inherited it from an even older lady that had died, and she gave it to me,

-for safe keeping.

-Well, this jet black is quite severe looking, but it's very typical of the 1930s.

Let's have a look inside.

Inside you've got the mirror and these two little doors, rather like wardrobe doors.

-and as the lid flips up, it slightly releases the handles of these doors.

-Dinky.

-And you can see it's a powder compact. Inside there you've got a little hallmark.

-Yes.

-And it's not gold, it's silver-gilt.

-Oh, right.

And it's black enamel on the surface. If I turn it,

you can see the full extent that it has been black enamelled.

-Lovely diamonds that form this flash on the front.

-Are those initials?

Yes. If you think about the 1930s,

it was fashionable to put a monogram in a very linear look.

There's a tiny inscription there on the edge.

-I didn't see, but my daughter saw it, and there's a number.

-That's right, because it's by Cartier, London.

And if you look in the hallmark, it's 1934,

-and that makes it quite valuable.

-Oh.

-Now it ought to be worth something approaching £1000.

-Really?

-Yes.

-I was going to keep my pills in it.

-You still can.

I still might, on special occasions.

It's appropriate being in Yorkshire we should be looking at this piece of embroidery which depicts archery,

because of the important association that Yorkshire as a county has had with the history of archery.

-Oh.

-Now, this sampler was worked by Sarah Enson who finished this in her 11th year, 1802.

So she would have done this just at the beginning of the major part of the Napoleonic wars.

If we start from the top, there's this wonderful scene of an archery match and you can see two gentlemen.

One of them has just loosed his arrow,

winging its way to the butts, and the two chaps are the scorers.

They're quite brave fellows to stand there.

One thing that is very important about the whole aspect of archery

is that it was the first sport in which both men and women could compete equally in an outdoor sport.

And we have a lady, very fashionably attired.

The detail is beautiful. She really has observed things and I think she's been inspired by them.

My favourite bit is this person coming to church in a sedan chair.

-Now that's got to be style.

-Yes, I love that.

You gets lots of formal painting of people with their bow and arrow,

but there's very little folk art, and yet archery was so important in the history of Yorkshire.

There's a match now that's still known as the York Round.

So it's wonderful that we've got it here and in beautiful condition, with just the odd little hole in it.

I paid for that and another sampler which you - a friend of yours had -

-and I paid £1,000 for the two.

-Well, I think it was a good buy.

I think that this is worth about £1,500 because of its clarity and its unusual subject as well.

-How did you come by it?

-It was a gift.

-A fabulous gift.

-You know it's Japanese, obviously?

-I presumed so.

-What do you think he is?

-A samurai.

-In fact, he's a little bit more complicated than that.

In fact he's a sort of renegade samurai warrior, he's a Yamabushi.

Yamabushi were priest samurai figures.

-Was he a bad warrior?

-Yes, he would have been, but he is a sort of renegade

who left the official samurai clan for whatever reason, went into the mountains

and became a priest samurai. But he didn't turn out to be a good figure.

They would descend from the heights of the mountains around Kyoto into Kyoto

and cause havoc, so they're not at all popular.

This figure is by one of the most well known of the Japanese bronze makers.

This is a sort of travelling box, and let's take his conch shell off.

You can see he's blowing it, by his rounded cheeks - I suppose it's a sort of mobile phone of its day.

-He would call his companions from the mountains.

-Or to announce the arrival.

-Indeed.

But this piece has a signature by quite a well-known maker called Miyao,

who was the most well known of the Japanese bronze makers.

This is post-1868, when the habit of wearing swords was forbidden and people turned to western dress -

and thus metalworkers made animals and bronze figures.

Some are extremely fine and can be large. Large Miyao ones are worth tens of thousands of pounds.

This is not of that calibre, it'd be worth something like £1,500,

-probably more like £2,000 to £3,000. I hope that's a good surprise.

-Lovely.

-Good.

-Amazing.

That one's Dopey.

-And this one looks - he looks a bit bashful.

-Yes, that's him, shy.

-Actually, he's Grumpy.

-Grumpy.

He's Grumpy, so maybe this one is...he's Bashful.

Well, you've got a lovely group of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

And where did you get them from?

-I've been collecting since I was young.

-And how old were you when you started?

-About two.

Very good. Can you see on the bottom there's a name which says "Wade"?

It's been cast out of pottery and it's been painted on afterward.

So this paint is a little bit fragile, so you can see on places that it's...

-It's chipped.

-It is a bit chipped, yeah. But no, it's a nice early set dating from probably the 1930s.

I think it's worth a lot of money.

It could be worth about £500.

It's all right, isn't it?

It was done by a private in the regiment of Captain Oates

after the Scott of the Antarctic where he went out to the snow to die. It was done with Army darning wool.

-Because it looks very coarse woolwork.

-Yes.

The Army darning wool makes it kind of triply interesting.

Here we have "a gallant gentleman" -

the absolute emotional epitaph here.

-It's very beautifully done. It's in jolly good condition.

-Yes.

-I think it's a really super object and it would be incredibly popular were it ever to be sold.

-Really?

If this comes onto the market,

-I think you'd be likely to get between £1,000 and £1,500 for it.

-Really?

-Mmm.

-Good heavens!

-It's a very rare object.

-Amazing.

-Thanks for bringing it in.

-Thank you.

My great-grandfather got this as a wedding present.

and he was a barrister, so the connection's quite apt when you think of the history.

-The title "Laying Down the Law".

-Yes.

-"Trial by Jury" is the other.

-Yes.

-Well, it's one of the most famous images by Landseer.

-Yes.

One of the greatest animal painters in the 19th century.

At that time, judicial reform was very very topical and the artist was trying to give us a message.

This is satiring the very fact that possibly animals and dogs could do a better job than humans.

I do understand that Landseer saw the dogs sitting at the table and said it reminded him of a judge.

-We better say now that it's not the original.

-Oh yes, yes.

-But it's a very good version of the picture.

It was either bought or commissioned by the Duke of Devonshire, and it was painted about 1840.

Yes, that's right, yes.

-This spaniel was in fact the Duke of Devonshire's dog.

-Yes.

It was engraved in 1841/42,

-and in the engraving he doesn't appear.

-Yes.

-And in fact, the dog was actually painted in later.

Yes, so I understand.

Artists magnified their income by having the paintings engraved

and selling them across the country.

Look at this wonderful poodle.

The poodle belonged to Count D'Orsay, and he's the most wonderful, imposing figure.

With a copy - and it's a very good copy - you ought to say £2,000 - £3,000 and insure for a bit more.

Yes, right. Thank you.

Some are of incredible rarity.

Wonderful things.

That's a terribly rare one, that's this little chappie on the front, it's a Worcester one.

A lot of them are incredibly rare. By golly!

There's one or two that are probably a little bit wrong.

1790 is wrong. It's a later French piece. They often put phoney dates on them.

And this one, the Dutch decorated one, that's here on the table, isn't it?

They belong, in fact, to the Lodge, not to us personally.

We just brought them along today for you to have a look at.

-And how did they come into being?

-They're all donated,

principally by two members of the Lodge who were quite wealthy and knowledgeable about this.

-Yes. This is extraordinary. This is a Worcester one.

-Yes.

Terribly rare, with the Freemasons on the front and the emblems.

Engraved by James Ross who was a great Worcester engraver, a pupil of Hancock,

the originator of transfer printing.

This is marvellous, about 1780 something like that, this one.

I mean, some of these - I mean, this super Leeds pot, must be, I don't know £1,500 to £2,000.

-Really?

-Yes, this little Worcester mug is splendid.

I mean, here we're £1,500 - £2,000.

Some of the glass - especially these lemon squeezer bases -

are worth up to £2, 000 each.

-Gosh.

-So on this table, just these few pieces from the collection...

-Yes.

-There must be what,

£17,000 - £18,000 or more.

-I've had just a little flipsy through this collection, it's mind-bending.

-Yes.

And one must be looking at something like £250,000 or more.

Take great steps to get them all itemised and all insured,

and perhaps enable the public to come and see it one day.

-We would welcome people to take an interest.

-That's wonderful to know. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Mr Sandon.

Very good.

-That just proves that it's got a good tone.

-Yes.

-Now, this is a cornopean.

-Oh, yes.

Because at the date that this was made, that is between about 1830 and 1860,

they weren't called cornets, they were called cornopeans.

I know that it's most likely been handed down through the family,

and possibly played by my wife's grandfather in the Salvation Army.

-In a Salvation Army band?

-Oh, yes.

Very good. It's very attractive. I love the curlicues round here.

You also think there's something dodgy with the valves.

The invention of valves to get the notes only came in the 1820s.

-And in 1838, a man called Shaw invented this particular...

-That system.

-..system which must have worked very well, because although finally it's died out now...

-Yes.

It was actually used for many many years.

-Now have you played both types?

-Yes.

-And what's the difference?

Well, this is a much slower movement than the valve movement now.

So that decided the future of the Shaw system.

-There's something that I love about it, which is you haven't cleaned it.

-I was going to ask you about that.

There are two schools of thought, particularly with an instrument that's used in public performances.

People think a brass wind should be shiny.

-Should be shiny and clean.

-But to me, I bang on about this all the time,

something that's old should look it.

-And it's got this wonderful patina, this golden colouring.

-That's right.

It lightens the grey which is wonderful to see.

Here we have the maker - Kohler - of Henrietta Street - here it is.

-That's right, yes.

-In London, obviously of German extraction.

The instrument itself is a rarity and cornopeans are very desirable.

-If one was talking about auction value today, we'd be thinking about perhaps £1,000 - £1,500.

-Really?

-Yes, quite a surprise.

-Had you had its case, that might have pushed it over £2,000.

-Would it really?

-Yes.

-So that makes a difference, but it's a wonderful instrument.

-It is.

-And go on using it.

I've not seen anything like that before, it's extraordinary.

Well, generally, if you brought me a bit of Zsolnay, I would say "gosh that's grotesque and not very nice."

And they made these very complex, slightly Turkish-inspired pieces.

-This one is the only bit of Zsolnay I have seen that works.

-Oh, right.

-The painting is simply lovely. It's beautiful.

-Is it hand painted?

Hand painted, very well.

-It's a sort of faiency material.

-Mm.

-These colours - typical of 1875- 1890.

-Really?

It's worth about £600 or £700 but I haven't seen anything of this quality.

-Did you know anything about this?

-No. I've liked it ever since my father bought it for my mother.

I've always said I would like that one day.

And then when it came to me, I was really pleased to have it, and we love it. It's extraordinary.

-You're very lucky.

-Thank you so much.

-I'll touch it for luck.

-Yes.

-It's a nice thing.

-Thank you.

It's a strange thing about the Roadshow, some days we never see the same thing,

others, the same thing occurs again and again - this is our second cornet.

All my life I've wanted to play the cornet. I'm completely unmusical.

I'll never do it, but it's always been the instrument I loved. So why have you got this one?

-It belonged to my husband. He played in a colliery band.

-Ah, in this area?

-In the Wakefield area.

-Right.

-I think he bought it a few years after he started playing.

-It was an Echo cornet and he always wanted one.

-Now, this is the interesting thing about it.

This is a very unusual instrument as most cornets, obviously as most trumpets, have three valves.

-Yes.

-This has got a fourth valve.

That allows sound to pass through an extra tube extension here...

-Yes.

-..into this shaped extension which looks like a sort of motorcycle exhaust pipe.

-Yes.

-When listening to brass bands, when the cornet's playing,

there is this wonderful echo behind the note.

I've never known how it was made because I haven't seen one of these.

Seeing one, I understand it, that you get that extra effect on top of your main fingering

through the fourth valve. It was made in London by a company called Besson.

We've got the box here and you can see there's their label, and made in about 1900.

-So it was quite old when he bought it.

-Was it?

-An instrument like this, in this condition, with the box by Besson, should be £800 to £1,000.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-I just kept it because it was his.

Which is the best reason for keeping it.

It's a memory of him, and of colliery bands, which are nearly a thing of the past.

Yes, they are now, yes.

This is a sort of sideboard vitrine. What else have you got?

We've got what we call a dessert or chiffonier, which is much smaller but it goes with this.

-I'd say this is a French piece.

-It is, yes.

It's a Majorelle and it was bought the last year of the war

in an auction room in a little town in the Massif Central by my parents, among other things.

Ah, right. Now, Majorelle, Majorelle is a magic name, really.

Majorelle - associated with the great period of French Art Nouveau furniture -

who came to real prominence at the 1900 exhibition, with very flamboyant curvelinear work,

and lots of marquetry and lots of gilt bronze, but this doesn't have a lot of those features.

There is a mark which says "Majorelle, Nancy" down here.

He didn't sign all his pieces, but the better quality pieces were usually signed.

-I love these handles, I must say, absolutely tremendous. These have got grapes on them too.

-Yes.

And we've got grapes carved into the wood in the middle there,

also a very Majorelle feature. And let's look at the drawers.

The dovetails here - very tight,

very evenly spaced, which suggests machine dovetailing.

And - oh, this is great - because at the back - you hardly ever see this,

if you can see the characteristic features of machine-cut dovetails with these scallops -

this suggests that it is indeed a machine-made piece,

even though it's of high quality.

The other thing that perhaps goes with your idea of it being Majorelle

is the use of this wrought-ironwork and this is to me what really makes the piece of furniture.

I think this is really fantastic.

You've got vine leaves, grapes,

and behind it, a panel of glass which sets the whole thing off.

Lorraine, which is where Nancy is, where Majorelle worked,

became very famous for its ironwork in the late 19th century,

-and Majorelle picked up and really exploited that.

-Ah.

I think, for an insurance value,

you should be looking at around £9,000.

£9,000?

-Very good, lots of money, I am surprised.

-I hope that comes as a nice surprise.

-Very nice surprise.

-It is a handsome piece.

-We love it very much.

Here we have a limited edition of "The Fairy Caravan", one of the later books by Beatrix Potter.

and she's signed it. "For Fred Satterthwaite and Metal with kind regards from Beatrix Heelis."

We all know that she was married to William Heelis, the solicitor,

and in this later book she actually calls herself Beatrix Heelis.

So what is the connection with Fred Satterthwaite and Beatrix Potter?

Fred Satterthwaite was portrayed in the book as Metal, his dog,

because Beatrix Potter always turned her characters from people that she knew.

-So she wrote about people but turned them into characters.

-Wonderful.

-So Metal was his dog and...

Lovely. And if I turn to this picture of a smithy...

-In the middle - is that Metal?

-That's Metal.

-Wonderful story.

-All his dogs were called Metal.

-What, all at the same time?

-No! They were Lakeland terriers.

-All Lakeland terriers?

-Yes.

Presumably when one passed away...

-the next one was called Metal.

-Very convenient.

-Easy to remember.

-Absolutely lovely. Now, have you any idea of value?

-Not really.

-I do know he was offered £5 for it a number of years - well, a lot of years ago - and...

-Really?

-Yes.

-Amazing.

-And he gave it to me and said if ever I was short of money, I could sell it.

Right... Aare you short of money?

Well I COULD be!

Well would it surprise you to know that this is worth £5,000?

-Gosh! A bit better than £5.

-I think so, by a few thousand.

-Yes, yeah.

-Thank you very much for bringing it.

-A lovely story.

-That's wonderful.

I trained as a needlework teacher. and my husband had this bright ide. to start a needlework collection,

So being in London, we could go and buy things.

You bought this a long time ago?

About 17 years. Yes, I think so.

I know that it came, because it says so, from the Shepherd Collection -

which was THE collection in 1982 or so.

And it's the most wonderful piece of mahogany. It's a niddy noddy.

It is for measuring skeins of wool, and it's highly collectable - early 19th century.

and probably worth as much as £300.

-Oh, but it's a bit of stick!

-No it's not. It's turned and specially made...

I don't know what to take out next! ..I've NEVER seen one of these!

I've seen lots of needlework dolls, but never one with all its limbs, made of...what you see!

Probably made in Germany, this actual doll, and sent over here.

That again, for a needlework collector...

-I suppose we're talking about £60, £80...?

-Wow!

And...

This is known as a goose wing.

-Oh, yes?

-And it actually is an early 19th-century fruitwood knitting sheath.

in here... you put in a knitting needle.

-Right...

-And you go round the house knitting with one hand, while you do your chores!

-A goose wing.

-Oh.

-Highly collectable.

Wwe're talking about around...

-£150 for that.

-No! 150...!?

I like this one! The original mirrored interior...

tiny little scissors!

Wonderful, lovely little box! Leather. Possibly the first part of the 19th century.

Again up to £100 for that.

Some Tunbridge ware.

-That's my favourite is this.

-Is it?

-Yes.

-Why's that?

-Well, I know they're quite rare.

These were for holding narrow spools of thread.

It's absolutely wonderful. A lovely piece in very good condition.

-That's probably worth about £200 on its own.

-Wow!

-And so...

One more little doll. Again, they're collectable.

-Probably 1890 something like that.

-That early?

-£80 or so for that,

So what have we got here? We've got...getting on for £2,000.

-Boy...!

-Wonderful collection.

-Just there?

-Yes.

-Absolutely splendid.

-Wow!

Well, Selby has certainly dug deep, but I think that wood has definitely been the star of the day.

That French sideboard, that lovely marquetry table...

and these walking sticks made from the beams of the abbey.

So, to the people of Selby, thank you for a warm welcome. Until next week, goodbye.

Subtitles by Graeme Dibble BBC Scotland 2000

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