Buxton Antiques Roadshow

Hello, and welcome to another series of the Antiques Roadshow - our 24th.

We shall chart a zig-zag route across the country,

from Cornwall to Scotland to Wales and beyond.

This time, we shall cross the North Sea and the Atlantic, from Shetland to Canada.

We shall go racing at Newmarket, and we shall see our share of stately homes. Where do we begin?

Well, here, in the Peak District and the town of Buxton in Derbyshire -

one of the highest in England.

There is a cavern in the town where the earliest inhabitants of Buxton enjoyed the basic comforts of life

over 7,000 years ago.

This is Poole's Cavern, famous not only for its stalactites,

but for its usefulness as a hideaway for outlaws.

In the 15th century, a man called Poole kidnapped a wealthy widow and fled here to hide.

He would occasionally pop out and rob passers-by, and it's said that his loot is still buried here.

A natural treasure, found only in nearby caves,

is the mineral known as blue-john stone -

for over 200 years in great demand for ornamental vases and jewellery.

Ashford marble also comes from here,

but it's Buxton's springs that have been its main attraction.

Emerging at 28 degrees Centigrade, the water saved medieval people

from preparing a hot bath, to say nothing of its healing qualities.

And locals today will tell you that the water from the well

makes the best cup of tea in Britain. I won't argue with that,

and if Mary Queen of Scots said that the water helped her rheumatism,

that's OK with me as well.

The Duke of Devonshire, in 1780, decided to transform Buxton into the spa town of the north

and a fitting place to accommodate his chums.

The Duke modelled his crescent on the Royal Crescent in Bath.

It was one big hotel for aristocratic guests

and took four years to complete.

The great stables and riding school was the base for coachmen, grooms, carriages and over 100 horses

which were exercised in the enormous circular courtyard.

The courtyard was covered by the world's largest unsupported dome -

bigger than the domes of St Paul's Cathedral and St Peter's in Rome.

This would have been the perfect place to stage our Roadshow, except for one problem -

in the middle of the courtyard you get a strange effect called a "flutter echo".

This could be very disconcerting for our experts

and our engineering manager really put his foot down.

-ECHOES

-Wow!

Instead, we're all set up in another of Buxton's fine buildings - the Octagon.

Among the familiar faces on the team today are David Battie,

Henry Sandon,

and Lars Tharp on porcelain,

and Hilary Kay, joined by a newcomer,

Madeleine Marsh. So with myself on drums,

let's get the show on the road.

You've brought a piece of eggshell porcelain that raises my spirit.

I think it's fair to say it doesn't get much better than Rozenburg.

How did this Dutch pot arrive in this part of the world?

Well, I bought it at a local auction, along with a piece of blue-and-white pottery, but a job lot of two items.

-What was it sold to you as? A kettle or teapot?

-As a teapot.

We found out later that it might be a chocolate pot.

Well, it may well be based on a chocolate pot,

-but I don't think they were ever really meant to be used.

-No.

This is purely ornamental.

First of all, that lovely shape - turn it round -

you've got that lovely loop handle, and it's almost organic, isn't it?

It's almost as though it's evolved rather than it's been potted.

Um, and what about these fish?

These fish are glorious and, because they're entirely hand-painted...

In fact, everything on here is hand-painted.

You've just got to look at the detail. Let's take the top off...

Very careful. The great thing about this particular factory,

-situated in the Hague...

-Yes.

-There was a factory there

in the 18th century and they used a stork as a mark

because storks used to nest in the chimneys of the Hague.

The Rozenburg factory, from the late 19th century, also used a stork.

Various other marks - that particular starburst

is actually a year symbol. I would suspect

that this is around about 1900, maybe 1905.

-Mm, yes.

-And then the decorator -

and the "H" is almost certainly for Hartgring.

Now, it's difficult to be sure, but the actual shape itself

was probably designed by the head of their design - J Jurriaan Kok.

Has it had any restoration?

The handle was broken and we had it restored. There's a few chips...

-A few little chips on the rim.

-Well, you expect that

because this is so thin and delicate,

that the failure rate... For every 50 of these that went in the kiln,

probably only 5 came out.

-Oh!

-They collapsed because they're so fragile.

Now, the financial side.

-Well, along with the blue and white plate, we paid £100.

-All right, OK.

-And restoration?

-Then restoration, which was a few hundred pounds.

Right, well, I mean I know a collector in the Hague

and I'm pretty certain that if I were to say,

"It's yours if you're prepared to pay £1,500,"

he would snap my hand off for it.

The day you went to that auction was a jolly good day's fishing,

-wouldn't you agree?

-Mm, yes. Very much so, yes, yes.

-Yes, it was.

I've seen a lot of scrap screens, but this is a cracking example.

Now, is it something that you bought, or did it...?

We bought this in about 1968, 1969.

My mother's one of those people, when they go out,

my father starts to have heart attacks because he never knows what she's going to bring back.

And even when my mother brought this back, my father just couldn't understand why she bought it.

-But my mother loved the pictures.

-Let's look at the screen itself

because I LOVE the design of it.

A lot of these little chromolithographic panels

were known as "scraps", and they were sold as scraps,

and that's how you get a scrapbook - a book to put your scraps into.

And they were sold commercially in toy shops and stationery shops and so on, for exactly this purpose,

for decorative purposes. I LOVE these down here,

the early bicycles and all sorts.

You've got ordinary bicycles and penny-farthings, as they're called,

more of the same, all sorts of shenanigans going on, on bicycles,

and then the central figure here

is framed by this lovely garland of scrap flowers.

Looking at it, there's a little bit of damage, sort of holes here...

-Was that as it came to the family?

-That was later in its history.

-There were times when I actually used this as a dartboard.

-Oh, no!

Just to occupy my free time.

That's terrible! Did they ever find out?

I think they're going to find out today.

That's a terrible story! What were you aiming for?

I was actually aiming to take the heads off.

SHE LAUGHS

Ghastly! All right, we'll gloss over that one.

What strikes me particularly about this screen

is how beautifully designed it is.

Everything balances, it's completely symmetrical,

but then you've also got this central panel -

this is very different to the other two - this is religious scenes -

much more sombre in tone.

Looking at it, I've been trying to work out whether this is something

that's been produced commercially,

or whether it was just really well done by a family at home,

because I have a feeling that this sort of decoupage would have been allowed on a Sunday,

because it's of a religious context,

so maybe they worked on putting the other panels there

on other days of the week, and this panel they only worked at on a Sunday.

So I think that it is really good amateur work

rather than a professionally produced screen.

I wonder what your parents paid for it in the '60s?

-My mother told me that she paid 30 shillings for it, or £1.50 in today's currency.

-And in the '60s,

they were burning Victorian furniture, they wanted it out of their houses. So 30 bob - not bad.

In today's money, I would have said something around £1,000 to £1,500,

-so a reasonable investment.

-That's very nice. She'll be very happy.

-Have you seen this signature down there?

-Yes.

-I couldn't make it out terribly well. "Wale..."

-JP Wale. John Porter Wale.

John Porter Wale was a Worcester artist.

He did some extremely fine painting in Worcester in the 1860s and '70s,

and then he came up to Derby

to help found the new Derby Royal Crown Porcelain Company,

and he was very instrumental in ensuring the success of Derby.

It's lovely seeing a Derby plaque here in Derbyshire.

I'd almost despaired of seeing some Derby! Have you had it a long time?

Yes. It belonged to my mother and before, it belonged to her aunt.

-And what price have they put on it?

-Um, £200 to £300, I was told.

-£300 you've been told by...?

-A local valuer, yes.

I think they're undervaluing it.

Oh, right, good, that sounds good.

-My thoughts are certainly £1,000 plus.

-Really? Wow!

He's a fine artist, and it's beautifully painted.

It's very interesting because it's a complete fake in every sense.

It is a Moorcroft design of about 1901-1902, which was registered,

but what is wrong is the shape. It was never a Moorcroft shape.

-The feel of it is wrong because it's actually made of porcelain...

-Yes.

..not earthenware, which Moorcroft used. There's no mark, which there would have to be -

although unmarked, Moorcroft does exist. It's a very good copy indeed,

-but it is designed to deceive, cos there's no such Moorcroft piece.

-No.

Every week on the Roadshow you hear our experts doing a valuation on various items.

Now, an auction price is the price that an item would fetch if it went to auction,

but you have to subtract the commission of the auctioneer, which could be 10% or 15%.

The insurance valuation is always a higher price than the auction price

because if the item has to be replaced on the retail market,

it takes into account auctioneers' commissions and dealers' mark-ups.

It's the sort of difference between a selling price and a buying price.

What a fantastic collection of stuff!

How on earth do you store all this at home?

Well, we've got it all on display in the kitchen and around the house.

-Every square inch is taken up with boxes.

-Yes!

-And what do YOU think?

-It's all right.

-It's all right.

-Yeah.

Well, I think it's really, really brilliant,

because it's a fantastic selection of packaging.

Packaging took off in the second half of the 19th century, with new technology.

Pioneers were Huntley & Palmers,

who really started off the decorated biscuit tin...

always well marked. You used to buy your biscuits from the local bakery

in a little paper bag, but, of course, with improved transport in the 19th century,

you need storage,

so that when you're travelling, they don't get broken up.

But also it's fantastic advertising. How much did you pay for it?

-I can't honestly remember - it was probably about £20-ish.

-Yeah, that's very good.

This is an early 20th-century Huntley & Palmer's one,

and, I mean, in top condition,

tins like this can fetch £300 to £500.

There's a little bit of wear and tear, but it's not bad.

But for you is it the value that matters, anyway?

-No, it's not the value at all.

-It's just sentimental.

-Well, no,

it's really just the visual aspect of it, you know.

Our house is like walking into a museum, people have said.

When people come in, do they go, "Ooh, I remember Rinso!"

-A few people do. Other people just think it's junk.

-Do they?

-We don't. We collect everything, don't we?

-Everything!

-Well, that's so nice,

because with things like this, whether it's Rinso or Fab,

it's provocative memories, because you don't forget things like that.

And if you look at the back, I mean, I love that -

that mum, in her '50s-style dress,

so THRILLED by the fact that her washing is so clean,

and it says here, "for painters' and mechanics' overalls, butchers' aprons and pit clothes..."

A little bit of social history that really makes things come to life.

Something like that, if you bought that from a packaging dealer -

£5 to £10. And the idea of collecting loo paper...

-Where do you have these?

-The bathroom.

-Oh, that's lovely!

Some of these things are worth a reasonable amount of money -

things like that, a couple of quid, but how interesting to see.

It's a really exciting collection.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for bringing it in. And I want to come to your house now.

-You're welcome!

-Yeah.

This is a very unusual north Italian sword,

not the sort of thing that you see very often. Where did you get it?

It was from my father-in-law.

He collected swords and pistols in the mid-'60s.

He died in the early '70s and they've been in family since then.

Well, it's known as a Schiavona,

and it's a type that dates from the end of the 17th century.

-Right.

-And very distinctive with this very complicated basket guard -

a function of armour falling into disuse because of firearms.

Firearms could get through armour, so there was no point wearing it,

and so instead of having a gauntlet to protect your hand, people put the protection onto the sword instead.

It's also got this thumb loop, so you can really get a grip of that

and bear down with your thumb which pulls the sword tightly into your hand,

because this is a chopping sword, rather than a prodder or a thruster.

But a very, very nice sword and in very good condition.

We then move a bit further north in Europe from Northern Italy

to this magnificent specimen

from the first decades of the 17th century,

and it's a type that was very popular during the Thirty Years' War.

It was a war that produced lots and lots of very famous names,

including a man called Pappenheim who was an Imperialist general on the Catholic side,

and, for some reason, swords with this complicated basket-style guard are called Pappenheimers.

I don't think he invented it - he was far too busy slaughtering Protestants to worry about design.

But it's an effective type of sword

which gives tremendous protection to the whole of the hand. In very fine condition -

they are both very desirable swords

because they are 17th century, good condition.

If you had to buy the Pappenheim sword, you would pay about £3,000,

the Schiavona, a little less - £2,000.

-So there's the best part of £5,000 worth of swords there.

-That's more than I expected,

much more than I expected.

The man said, "Who'll give me £1? Who'll give me 75p?

"Who'll give me 50p?" - I'm having to think -

-"2/6d?" And I said, "Yes, it's got to be worth that!"

-2/6d?

-2/6d.

-And how many years ago was that?

-I believe it was about 1968.

My word. Well, that is not bad. And you know what it is?

Yes, it's an Arts-and-Crafts chair, and it was perhaps made

by a William Birch in High Wycombe in 1904.

Yes, it is a William Birch chair.

William Birch were one of the larger manufacturers in High Wycombe,

and they were also one of the more adventurous manufacturers.

This particular model

was actually commissioned by Liberty's and made by William Birch.

So you have two great names - Liberty's and William Birch -

and the designer - a man called Punnett. And they come together in this typical Arts-and-Crafts piece.

What is it that appeals to you about this kind of thing?

Er...I just like its bulk and heaviness, I think it's lovely,

I think it's something that will last forever.

It is a design classic. You can see one of these at the V&A Museum.

-I HAVE seen a companion there.

-Then you know what I'm talking about.

-But it was mass produced, so there are quite a lot of them about.

-Yes.

So it's not going to be hugely valuable,

and one can still buy a chair like this for...

I suppose, getting on for £600 to £800 at auction.

Oh, gosh, I think that's wonderful!

Do you know who General Jacob was?

I do now. I didn't up to three weeks ago, till I found a biography on him.

He was one of those Victorians who went out into the Empire

and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck

and shook it into Britishness, almost.

He not only was a soldier, he was also a very competent administrator,

political agent and superintendent for the Upper Sind area of India,

and he was a man who - like your regular scrapping with guerrillas - would do his own thing.

Would he have paid for the guns himself, for the army?

He would either have been presented with them, or he'd have bought them.

Officers bought their own equipment. The army issued soldiers with clothing, equipment and arms,

but officers were expected to buy their equipment themselves,

so you'd go to your tailor and say, "I want a red coat," and then you'd go to a gun maker.

The gun maker who made this magnificent pair of pistols...

..was one of the two greats of the period -

both brothers, John and Joseph Manton,

and these are made by John Manton and Company.

We can date these fairly accurately from the inscription on the lid -

-somewhere around about 1840.

-Right.

And they're known as belt pistols

because they have a spring clip round the side

which conveniently would slip onto your belt.

These great big heavy pistols were favoured by officers in India

because two of them gave you four guaranteed shots with heavy bullets

that were more than enough to deal with any enemy.

They were also favoured by people who hunted tigers from elephants,

and they often carried a pair of these in the howdah,

so you could deal with tigers.

But they are pistols of exceptional quality and are highly desirable

for the fact that they are made by the era's greatest gun maker.

They've also got this wonderful provenance from this great Victorian who was a real character,

and, on that basis, I think they're worth round about £10,000.

And they're quite the best pair of pistols that I've ever seen on the Roadshow.

-Oddly enough, this was made in the same place as that.

-Oh?

-It's from Kutani, in Kaga province, in Japan, about 1880.

-Right.

-What's so nice about it is the subject matter.

-Yes.

You've got this wonderful fat - I'm not even sure he's an owl -

-I think he's an owlet, a baby owl.

-Yes.

-What's nice is the way he's sitting there looking at his lunch.

-Yes!

He's about to put this claw down and go, "Oh, breakfast, lunch, lovely!"

You liked it too, did you?

It's lovely, particularly the shape - you want to touch it.

-Yes. And the colour round the back is quite breathtaking.

-Yes.

This particular green colour - very characteristic of Kutani -

as is this mixture of black on green -

again something you would expect from there. I think it's marvellous.

-Where did this one come from?

-Well, that was left to my mother.

She'd visited the house of an elderly couple who did collect antiques...

and admired it. In fact, as she went past it, she stroked it.

And didn't meet them again for many years, but when the wife died,

-she left it to my mother.

-How wonderful!

-Because she'd admired it.

-I think that would fetch somewhere between £1,800 and £2,500.

-Wow!

Well, we must continue to keep it on a high shelf.

My husband bought it in an antique shop in Stockport.

He went there to buy another picture which had gone, and the gentleman there said,

"I've got a portrait at home," and my husband fell in love with that.

I'm not surprised. I've completely fallen in love with her in the short time that I've seen it.

-I think you're aware that it's by John Graham Gilbert.

-Yes.

-Scottish artist.

And, fortuitously for me, it's got a title and it's signed on the back,

along with the year he painted it. Now, the title is "A Border Girl",

-so she's obviously a Scottish girl.

-Yes.

And it was painted in 1858.

Gilbert was unusual amongst Scottish artists in that he went to Rome.

He spent a lot of time in Italy.

The interest for us that that holds,

is that this very Scottish subject, to me, has an Italianate influence.

She's a Scottish girl, but I think there's something Italian about her,

not only her features, but also this deep red cloak that she's wearing.

-But above all, it's those eyes.

-Yes, the eyes are lovely.

-Aren't they?

Quite haunting. And his ability with textures is very apparent,

like the bonnet she's wearing. He's caught the light on the side of it,

and the glow in her cheeks which match her lips and her cloak.

The whole thing's most alluring. It's a lovely thing.

Did you pay a lot for it?

-£100. But it was in the early '70s.

-Early '70s.

The fact that it's in such good condition and the fact that it has such allure and power,

mean that I really have to value it at between £8,000 and £12,000.

Absolutely wonderful! Thank you very much indeed.

..This relates to the battleship HMS Repulse. What's the connection?

-My father served on the Repulse.

-That's your father?

-Yes.

-In Repulse uniform.

-That's right.

The story of the Repulse is one of disaster. On 11th December 1941,

the Repulse and the Prince of Wales were sunk by Japanese aircraft.

-Yes.

-The ships sank very quickly and the loss of life was terrific.

How is this photograph still here?

-How do we have this material?

-That's a telegram.

-Can I read it?

-Yes.

"Deeply regret to inform you that your husband, Joseph Marland Mellor,

"who is believed to have been serving on HMS Repulse, has not been reported as a survivor,

-"and must therefore be regarded as missing." 18th December?

-Yes.

-So this came to your mother?

-Yes. All the family and friends were at the house.

Everybody seemed to be making a fuss of me and I couldn't understand it.

Then, a few days later, we had a further telegram.

-This is the 27th December, so ten days.

-Yes.

-Ten days later.

-Ten days later.

-"Pleased to inform you, information received,

"that your husband is safe and now recovering at Colombo."

That is correct, yes,

-and then a telegram came from my father...

-From him?

-Yes.

-"Safe. Tres fit. Love..

-Joe Mellor."

-What a wonderful New Year it must have been.

-Yes, 31st December, we received that,

-so that was a very good present for the New Year.

-So how did he escape?

Well, it appears that, very fortunately for me father,

the ship called in at Colombo and he was sent on a radar course and left the ship,

but his name had not been taken off the ship's register.

-So, officially, he was still on the ship.

-He was.

-So he brought back the hatband.

-Yes.

-And - this is extraordinary -

a crossing-the-line ceremony.

Everybody who crossed the line - the equator - for the first time,

had to go through this extraordinary ceremony where everybody dressed up and were ducked in the water.

Then they were given the booklet and the certificate

which proved that they'd crossed the line

-on Her Britannic Majesty's battle-cruiser Repulse.

-Yes.

-Very rare survival, I'm sure.

-Well, it is, yes.

-So now, when did he finally come back?

-Well, I met him...

I was born in 1938, so I was nearly six years old

and the bell rang, we went to the door and, er...there was a figure.

Mother said, "This is your father."

So I was quite shocked, really.

Until then I had not had a father, so I was very pleased to see him.

-Do you remember what you said?

-No, I can't, no, I can't remember,

-but it was a joyous moment for everybody.

-It's a wonderful story.

It's terribly unusual to find things relating to the Repulse - so few survivors,

so few people associated with the ship still alive today.

So the value to this is incalculable in terms of personal history

and also the history of those times. This is a remarkable archive -

I'm so glad you brought it in.

I understand it's an ear trumpet.

-I think that my great-grandfather used to use it.

-That's right.

-It should have an ivory earpiece here.

-Oh, something missing?

-Does it work?

-Yes, yes.

-Yes, it does, sort of, yes.

-Yes.

It's very decorative, isn't it? Beautifully engraved with flowers.

-And it's beautifully done underneath as well.

-Yes.

-Beautifully finished.

This will probably sell for...

-somewhere between £700 and possibly even £1,000.

-Really?

Wow!

This yellowy parchment is a camera script and a cast list

of an Antiques Roadshow which took place in Buxton in the Pavilion

in July 1978, the very first series.

In the cast list are Bruce Parker - the presenter, Arthur Negus,

and among the others - David Battie and Simon Bull.

Gentlemen, the evidence.

Amazing! This ought to be on the memorabilia table! Somebody ought to put a value on this!

-23 series later, and nothing has changed.

-Oh, yes, it has! I've got less hair,

I have a nasty feeling that I had sideburns,

and shirts that came out there and a kipper tie!

-Yes, the dress has changed a lot.

-Worth a fortune now.

-I pay people

not to show those old pictures!

Sash-window supports.

-Have you got sash windows at home?

-No, not any more.

-There are a few round here.

-Yes.

When sash cords go, it's a devil of a job replacing them.

-So how do you keep the windows open?

-You put these in as wedges,

and the roughened area there keeps a grip on the lower part of the sill.

These are portraits of a particular person. Do you have any idea who?

No idea.

-There's a ram or something on there.

-Ah!

There's the clue. This is not a ram, this is a goat.

-Oh.

-And what do we call goats?

-Nanny.

-Or?

-Billy.

-Billy goat.

-Billy.

Now, think of Billy - think of the House of Orange,

because this is an orange tree...

-William...

-..of Orange.

-Of Orange.

-Good Lord!

-How amazing.

-The Orange Order was actually revived

at about the time these were made.

These were made in Staffordshire some time in the 1830s or '40s,

-and they are very orange, aren't they?

-Yes.

So find a friend with sash windows

of the Ulster persuasion and you will have the perfect client!

Political commemoratives are highly sought after,

-and going from purely ornamental supports - worth maybe £200.

-Mmm.

I know they're damaged, but that's not a huge problem.

These suddenly become worth rather more...

They're going to be worth, to a political commemorative collector, somewhere in the region of...

-£800 to £1,200.

-Good heavens! How extraordinary!

Albums like this - and they always look like this -

with these covers - are Chinese,

and they've always been known as rice-paper paintings,

but, in fact, they're made from the pith of a tree.

-Ah.

-They were made by the Chinese,

not for their own market, purely for the European export market.

So this one here shows golden pheasants, actually.

When they... And I'll turn over...

-This one shows the most fabulous moth, doesn't it?

-Yes.

They're in fantastic condition, actually. Have you inherited these?

-We have, yes - my father-in-law's.

-My father's.

-Did he go to China?

No idea where they came from. As far as I know, they came from HIS father,

-but how they arrived there, we just don't know.

-We don't know.

-They're made in about 1850, by the way, 1850-60.

-Oh, right.

Usually, that they were made in sets,

so you'd have a set of junks, a set of insects, all in different albums.

-A set of courtiers and so forth.

-Yes.

-But what is really fascinating

-is that it's a sample of each of the different categories.

-Yes.

Did you know these as children?

Were you allowed to play with them? I suppose they...

Well, we didn't actually play with them, but they were always there. We sort of looked occasionally.

In the cupboard, weren't they?

This is a botanical subject matter and shows...lotus, isn't it?

We have the dried pod and nuts, too.

This intrigued me. Were you ever shown this as a child, I wonder?

That was the one we always wanted to see.

-And it IS horrible.

-It is.

Well, the thing is, they made albums of torture.

God knows who bought these things -

somebody with a rather gruesome frame of mind.

-So clear, that.

-They are. This one is the most decorative of the lot.

-That's lovely.

-A basket of flowers.

-Very rich, isn't it?

-Oh, it's marvellous. That's my favourite one.

I'm glad you said that, because this is the most saleable one.

If they were put up at auction, I daresay they would be broken up -

-it would be a dreadful thing, but that's life.

-Yes.

-But the whole lot - you've got about 20 all-in-all...

-There's 18.

18, are there? OK.

They're going to be worth something like £2,000 to £2,500.

-Really?

-They're really interesting.

Fascinating.

I got my bear on my second birthday.

I also had a baby sister on my second birthday.

-That was clever of your parents.

-Very clever.

She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't like to have been an only child.

-Oh, good. So you were happy to have a sister?

-Very happy to have her.

-They don't half sparkle, don't they?

-They certainly do, yes.

Anyway, anyway, tell me a bit more about the background of them.

These rings belonged to my mother, and when she died they came to me.

-Did she tell you where they'd come from at all?

-No.

No, I don't know the history of them at all, no.

In many ways, they're all different periods.

This is a very typical band ring, probably made in about the 1970s.

Look at the diamonds,

because they have rather grey, dull, blobby looking centres to them.

The reason is that they are a more simple cut - single-cut diamonds.

They lack the lustre of the far more complicated brilliant-cut diamonds.

This is a brilliant-cut diamond

and I think you can see the sparkle of that stone compared with these.

So when you get a diamond that's a single-cut,

the value of it is much lower

than that of the full brilliant-cut.

So this 1970s gold-band ring with straightforward single-cut stones -

if I was selling this in auction, I might get about £300 for it.

Oh, right.

This one is a brilliant-cut diamond that weighs around about 1.8 carats.

A nice, bright brilliant-cut stone

in a pretty, fussy and complicated setting of platinum and gold.

But the problem with this stone, when I look at it through my lens,

-I can see that it's severely hampered by having a very nasty flaw at the side.

-Oh, right.

And these stones are valued

according to how few the flaws are and how white the stone is,

so if a diamond is white and clean, it's far more valuable

than a stone that's a bit off-colour and a bit flawed.

This one is quite severely flawed, so it's worth...

-around about maybe £1,400 - £1,500.

-Really?!

-Yeah.

-Good heavens!

And I would insure it for maybe around £3,000, as a retail price.

Gosh!

-This bear, as you probably know, is made in Germany.

-I know that, yes.

-You do?

-Yes, yes.

-And you know he's made by the firm of Steiff?

-Yes.

-May I hold him?

-Yes.

He shakes his head, but he won't growl any more.

-I can hear there's a growler in there.

-There's a growler in there.

Um, yes. But you've probably tipped him up too many times.

-Probably that was, yes, yes.

-He's known as a cinnamon colour,

so is one of the most collectable colours of all the bears.

Yes, I always knew he was different.

He probably dates to about 1908.

-Yes, well, it's 1909.

-Oh, 1909.

-1909, yes.

Well, it's very rare for me to meet the owner of a 1909 bear,

-I feel very privileged.

-It's very unusual for him to be photographed,

let alone on television!

You know, if you were going to try and buy a bear like this, by Steiff,

a cinnamon bear, it would be very hard to find one

under £4,000.

My goodness! You're worth keeping, old man, aren't you?

Now, this one. The feature that is most outstanding about THIS diamond

-is that it's bright yellow.

-It is.

That means that it's a different ball game from these white diamonds,

because this is a fancy yellow diamond.

-Mmm.

-And when you talk about fancy coloured diamonds,

the value of them totally transcends the valuation for a white diamond.

-She referred to it as "canary".

-Well, it's a good word to use.

-Yes.

These days they use a scientific approach to establish the depth of colour yellow it has.

There are different grades of yellow - fancy light yellow, a fancy yellow.

The very best grade is fancy vivid yellow, and goodness me, that is a very intense colour.

Now, we have a setting which is platinum,

and this very, very fine piercing work in the mount

-would tell me that the ring was probably made in about 1925...

-Yes.

..but the diamond was probably cut in about 1910 or 1920. Now, that's very good news -

if it's that age, the chances of it being treated to make it yellow

-are not very likely.

-Mmm.

There is a procedure to follow to establish the grade of yellow it is.

Now, if we calculate the weight - it weighs around about 3.2 carats -

we then send it off to a laboratory, typically in the States,

where they will issue a certificate to confirm (a) it is natural colour,

(b) that if it IS natural colour, what intensity of yellow it has.

In here, it's difficult to see,

but I think this is a pretty good-looking yellow.

Subject to all these caveats

-I think it's worth something in the region of maybe £10,000.

-Gosh!

Gosh, yes! And she used to wear it when she was doing the housework and gardening!

-She just had them on all the time, didn't she?

-I notice that this one is clogged up with quite a lot of dirt!

-And you've already cleaned the stone!

-I took the opportunity

to clean that one out and have a look at it.

-But, honestly, it needs to go through this procedure.

-Yes.

It really is quite an exciting gem.

Not the sort of thing one sees every day. I'm delighted you brought it.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank YOU very much.

Time to put up the shutters at the end of the first programme of the series -

a programme that contained one or two very pleasant surprises.

It's good to be back on the road and as far as Buxton is concerned,

it couldn't have happened to a nicer place.

Until next week, from Derbyshire, goodbye.

Subtitles by Gillian Frazer