Lampeter Antiques Roadshow

If every picture tells a story, this one would have a great deal to say.

It's a portrait of Bishop Thomas Burgess,

a man of many words and, if he hadn't spoken up,

the Antiques Roadshow wouldn't be where it is today.

And where we are is the busy market town of Lampeter in West Wales.

It's 155 miles to Oxford, 220 miles to Cambridge, if you're interested, and Burgess certainly was.

It was the 19th century and the distance between those great university cities

and little old Lampeter troubled the Bishop of St David's.

He wanted Welshmen with a vocation for the church to have the chance

of a university education, but Oxford and Cambridge were just too far away.

So on St David's day in 1822, with a little help from his friends,

Bishop Burgess laid the foundation stone for St David's College.

It became the third oldest university institution in England and Wales,

and changed the face, and the future, of Lampeter.

Today, the college buildings stand at the heart of the town and during term time,

the students pretty much double the local population.

Not content with founding a college and getting works underway,

Thomas Burgess - an Englishman - left St David's his collection of books,

8,000 volumes altogether - as I said, a man of many words.

In the beginning, St David's College concentrated on preparing students

for the Anglican ministry but today, under a new name -

University of Wales, Lampeter -

it offers a broad range of degree courses from church history to Chinese studies.

And the university can make a rare boast. With just 2,000 students

it's one of the world's smallest

but, as part of the University of Wales, it's one of the biggest,

and to give it the feel of Oxford or Cambridge,

it's built around a quadrangle complete with chapel and cloisters,

and that's where the Antiques Roadshow begins its learning curve today.

This looks like a clapped-out Victorian ledger to me,

It's really not in great condition, is it?

-No.

-Um, how did it come your way?

My aunt gave it to me about 20 years ago as a Christmas present.

From the look of the outside, you weren't thrilled, were you?

No, but knowing her, when I opened it up, I was more than pleased.

Well, the first thing to note is the inscription isn't it,

where it says "All the cuttings in this book were given to me

"by Mrs LJ Brierley, and are the work of Mr Samuel Brierley."

One person did the lot and they were given to the Misses Saville Whittle

at Belvedere in Chorley in 1904.

But the wow factor is when we open the first page because this is

-just one page of over 55 pages in the album, it's amazing isn't it?

-Yes.

The work is so delicate, it just amazes me that somebody could do this work with a pair of scissors.

-I know, it's incredible, isn't it?

-It's incredible.

-You have to think about silhouettes and their history.

-Oh, right.

What is a silhouette but a shadow of an image.

-Shadow, yes.

-And the first silhouette was made in France

by the French Finance Minister in 1750

who was called Monsieur Silhouette.

-Oh, right.

-And he perfected a method whereby to get your image accurately recorded,

he put you in front of a light source and it cast a shadow.

He then traced around that shadow, life size and had a little instrument

-that reduced the size of your shadow from life-size to tiny-size.

-Oh, right.

And that's called a pantograph and in the 18th century

they painted black those images on a solid card.

You get to around about 1800 and the making of silhouettes

completely changed and they, they...

they turned to thin pieces of black paper which were cut-outs.

I mean here are two pigs about to enjoy their Christmas pudding.

-Isn't that marvellous?

-Yes.

And the intricate, wonderful way that the top of the holly spray...

I mean their little trotters and their tails,

then these two characters that look just as if

they've come out of Mary Poppins, this one tripping along here

with the frill of her dress, rearing elephants,

bears around a stake, and that's just one of these pages.

Let's have a look at another.

Now isn't this gorgeous?

Here we've got a photographer taking a photograph of an old biddy

and every outline of her - her basket and her umbrella are recorded.

Opposite, we've got the same photographic set-up

but actually coming out is a monkey taking the photograph.

Now photography in 1850 spelled the death of silhouette artists,

because suddenly, instead of going to the seaside

and seeing a man who'd make your image out of a shadow,

you had photographs, so you didn't need those silhouette artists.

So here the silhouette artist is cocking a snook at photography.

-Yes.

-He's saying, "There's a photographer taking an image

"but actually he's just a monkey."

Brilliant. They're wonderful aren't they?

-Absolutely extraordinary.

-Delicacy...

Here's a gravedigger who's doing his job at night, digging out

a grave and suddenly this skeleton appears from behind the gravestone

-and gives him a great fright.

-Fright.

Absolutely extraordinary, I don't think I've ever seen anything

quite like this album.

He's even been able to do it in geometric designs.

-Yes, these are my favourites.

-Are they?

-I think they're wonderful.

I think the delicacy and the intricateness of those is out of this world.

-It blows you away, doesn't it?

-It does. It blows you away.

And curiously enough, this happened at the seaside, it continued

at the seaside, particularly in Brighton, until about 1940.

Oh, right.

You'd still go to the seaside.

-You wouldn't have necessarily your portrait cut out by a silhouette artist.

-No, no.

But you'd go and see him do that butterfly, wonder at it,

pay a guinea and take the butterfly home as a souvenir.

What are you going to do with them?

Well, I'd love to frame some because I feel at the moment in the album,

we can't appreciate them.

-Would that spoil...?

-No, not at all.

-And that would be exactly what I would do.

-Really?

I think it's a wicked thing to break up a book, rip out the prints and frame them up,

-but in this instance, all this book is, is an album.

-Like a scrap book.

Absolutely. And I promise you, if you filled a wall with 50 sheets,

the drama and interest that you'd have in front of you,

it would be tremendous.

-Mm, yes.

-Fifty of them framed up, on a wall, at £100 a time,

-is £5,000 worth of silhouettes.

-Goodness me.

Now this involves an unpaid bill and a chance meeting at a party.

-Yes, indeed.

-How so?

-Well, some 35 years ago, my son was in a gymnastics team who were successful

in the British Nationals

and the parents had a party for their kids.

At the party, there was a guy there called Ron Dunton, an artist's engineer

and because I lived in Wales, he said, "Would you like a bust of Dylan Thomas?"

he said "I've got one in my workshop"

but he said, "I'm retiring and I want to clear the old moulds "out of my workshop."

We've investigated the history of it now and the artist is Hugh Oloff de Wet.

But you managed to come by this because the bill wasn't paid

-by de Wet to his engineer.

-To his engineer, precisely.

Because he cleared his shelves by smashing the mould on presentation of his bill.

He would be paid and then the artist would have everything about the copyright completed.

-So you're dealing here with a cold-cast resin bronze.

-Yes.

In other words, not the normal type of bronze that we associate with,

but the cold process, a sort of run-on by the engineer as a gift to you.

-That's right.

-Nonetheless, I think, a really exciting object

because this is the great icon of Wales,

this is the libertine, the hard drinking individual

who transformed the way we see poets, I think,

and you have here what I reckon is probably the most significant

sculptured image of Dylan Thomas.

Why I think it's so good is that sculpture is a very difficult

hard material to express movement, it's stone, it's bronze, it's solid,

but what you have here is a feeling of movement,

this is almost like a drawing or a watercolour

or something done in wax which indeed it might well have been originally,

and in so doing, the sculptor, de Wet, has managed

to express all those characteristics that we associate with Dylan Thomas.

He looks as though he's had a hard night,

and then you've got that slightly puffy drinker's face which he's managed to sort of cream around

and produce that intuitive quality that you normally associate with a drawing rather than a sculpture.

And then this brilliant touch of the fag in the mouth to the side.

If you're trying to express movement and freedom

in a sculpture and you're dealing with a hard material like bronze or stone,

it's always a bit of a challenge to know how to mount it,

and here it's a most intriguing way of doing so,

by using this - probably food-stained tie - that Dylan Thomas had.

The artist has used this as the stand,

so he's pirouetting in this sort of gainful and light-hearted way,

it just really elevates the sculpture and adds to his other dissolute

qualities, to produce a rather amazing poet-goule figure really.

You must have enjoyed living with it.

Oh, indeed yes, it's been in our lounge now for 30-odd years and everybody admires it.

-One of the prime versions is in the Royal Festival Hall, is it not?

-Yes, indeed, that's the original.

And we know that a number of cold casts were produced,

so this is not unique but what is interesting I think

is the provenance, is the story.

It's not hugely valuable because it's not bronze,

but it is none the less I think...

because of that story and because of the strength of the image,

-worth about £2,000.

-Yes, oh, that's wonderful.

I understand it's a cake basket.

-Right, that's what I thought you might say and I'm afraid it's wrong.

-Oh, really?

Yes. We have all the evidence we need to show that in the 18th century

this was actually a bread basket.

Oh, I didn't know that.

How did it actually come into your family?

It was actually owned by my auntie who lived on her own

and she kept it in an old suitcase along with a couple of other things....

-Right.

-And she said to me that she had this

and she thought it was of some value and she had no idea,

and it had come down through the family.

I did speak to somebody that knew a little bit about silver,

and, um, he thought it would be perhaps George II?

Absolutely spot on. In fact we've got the hallmarks here,

the three castles, that is actually Newcastle and the date letter we've got there,

-that particular "L" is actually 1750.

-Oh, really?

-So we're absolutely in the middle of the 18th century.

-Right.

What is rather frustrating though is that we've got no maker's mark.

Oh, what does that mean?

Well, the chap who actually produced the piece,

or the firm that produced the piece.

But, having said that,

Newcastle - there weren't that many people working at that time,

and certainly not on this sort of scale,

so it's quite likely that it was made by somebody like Isaac Cookson,

a really top Newcastle man at the time.

What makes me think particularly of Cookson was the swing handle here,

we've got these lovely monsters

and I have seen similar on Cookson's work, things like sauceboats,

that sort of idea.

So with a bit, a bit more research one might be able to narrow it down.

Little bit rubbed here,

and can you see, there? It looks as though there's been a split,

-in fact what appears to have happened, a repair there.

-Oh.

That plate and there's another plate over there,

I don't believe either of those plates were original,

but they're not desperate.

So often with a basket like this,

you find whole sections have been replaced.

Newcastle bread baskets are not thick on the ground,

particularly in the middle years of the 18th century...

-that's the good news. The bad news is not many people are keen on collecting Newcastle.

-Oh.

If you think in terms of a London example of a basket like this,

is going to sell for in excess of £15,000.

Oh, my goodness.

-But...

-What's the "but"?

I'm afraid there's a "but"...

the condition is not as good as might be,

-we don't know who the maker is and it's Newcastle.

-Not good.

So as I say, it is a very difficult one to call, a little bit of TLC,

a really good restorer just to sort out some of those problem areas,

but certainly we should be looking in excess of £5,000.

Oh, my goodness, I had no idea.

That's amazing, isn't it?

-Well, thank you.

-Thank you.

I know what's in here. I like it very much.

-Oh, right.

-It's a love token, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Isn't that great?

Now, where does that come from?

Well, it was found in a rubbish bin my mother-in-law was chucking away

-and I told her, "Don't chuck the box away, I'll have a look first."

-So it was still a shut box.

-It was shut box.

-But did you know what it was, when you found it?

-No.

-Do you like it?

-Yeah, I do.

It's lovely, isn't it?

-Beautiful.

-These patterns made from shells, from the West Indies,

we've got here "a gift from Trinidad."

Traditionally, in the late Victorian period,

sailors travelling far abroad,

they'd buy these and they'd come back and they'd say to their girl,

"Here you are darling, I love you",

It's a very traditional sailor's present.

Now, these have become very desirable because ones in this condition

are really quite rare.

They weren't particularly well made,

so they often fall apart with time, so one like this,

-in this condition, is going to be £600 to £800 for that.

-Really?

-Yes.

-You're joking!

-I don't joke.

It's a legacy of my grandfather's days in the Merchant Navy...

he used to collect ceramic items.

I don't know too much about it, it's a lovely piece,

I love the translucent effect and the colours but I'm fairly ignorant

about its background and its worth.

OK, well you said ceramics but this is of course glass,

and it's glass in many layers when you actually stroke the surface,

you can feel the layers.

Those layers have been added, subtracted using acids and engraving tools

and as part of all that process we actually have the name

of the place it was made - Nancy.

Nancy which is famous for its creative schools

in the late 19th century, early 20th century.

The most famous glass maker of all at Nancy - Emile Galle.

An absolute genius when it came to producing coloured glass.

His glass was extremely expensive and soon some of his neighbours

discovered that they could probably achieve similar effects to Galle

by other less expensive techniques, and this is one of them.

This is the Daum Brothers whose name appears there.

They set up a rival factory and they produced this sort of glass.

Now, this is not as good as the best of Galle

but there is something about Daum which is particularly wonderful.

I love the dryness of the textures and the terrific range of colours.

You've got these wonderful blue berries

then these russet coloured leaves with flushes of green and the shape

of the glass itself.

It looks like what the French call an "objet trouve".

It looks... That groove doesn't look as though it was made by human hand.

And of course that is the whole secret to the Art Nouveau period,

and I think Daum is fantastic.

The other wonderful thing about Daum glass,

is the colours you see when you're looking at light that's reflected off the surface,

is very different to the colours you actually see when you, when you hold it up to the light.

Now if you hold it up to the light you'll see how

light going through the glass gives you a fantastic range of colours.

So although it's poor man's Galle, which is bad news, I'm afraid,

I think if you were to put that up for sale today,

you would fetch somewhere between £700 and £1,000.

Ooh! Ha, ha, ha!

That's a pleasant surprise.

I had the table by way of a gift from a lady

who became a great friend of mine.

She was married to a high ranking officer in the British Army

and she spent some of her time out in Algiers in North Africa,

and I believe she had some connection, you know,

with the Spanish monarchy. And I think this table

was brought back by her from Algiers to this county

and she bought a smallholding outside Lampeter.

Oh, I see.

Well, it's interesting that you say that she moved around,

because what's so fascinating about this table is, of course,

-that it is a multi-functional table.

-Yes, yes.

And as such, the shape of the table, the shape of the legs

give us immediately a date which is about 1740,

-straight legs with this very nice crisp lappet, as it's called, at the top.

-Yes.

This sort of apron at the top.

-Yes.

-And simple feet. And then the curve at the top which, when you open it out,

-and it's a gate-leg action, so we have a support there.

-Yes, yes.

Gives it these wonderful sort of protuberances - like earlobes at each corner,

and once more you've got this extraordinary strong red colour on the inside of mahogany,

very straight grained mahogany which is quite characteristic

-of that early period when it was used.

-Uh-huh, yes.

This sort of table you can see in paintings by Hogarth in the 1740s.

-Uh-huh, yes.

-And this surface could have been used as a tea table.

-Yes.

And after tea you can play your game of cards

-with the candelabra, the candlesticks in the corners.

-Oh, I see.

-Here, and your chips, your game chips here.

-Yes, chips there, uh-huh?

-So this is superb, you've got already two tables in one.

-Yes.

And then it goes once more and the backgammon table which is very bright, very lively.

Yes, it is beautiful.

-And I can see that there are other things that are happening here.

-Yes.

-So to go back, and you have a writing slope, or a reading slope.

-Yes.

-And that explains what we've got on this side, which is inkwells possibly, here.

-Uh-huh, yes.

So it could be used as a writing desk or virtually anything you like to use it for.

-Yes.

-It truly was a multi-purpose piece of furniture.

And I think what, at the period, in that time, you had people moving around in terms of accommodation,

-they often went into rented accommodation, leased property.

-Yes.

-And pieces of furniture like this would be extremely compact and easy to take with them.

-Yes.

So you clearly use it now?

I do occasionally, yes, but I don't play backgammon.

-You don't play backgammon.

-No, unfortunately.

No, I don't either, I've never mastered the art of backgammon.

-No.

-But it's a wonderful table, beautiful colour.

In terms of a valuation,

I would have thought five or six thousand pounds at least,

and possibly more than that.

That's far more than I anticipated.

I had a figure of about two and a half thousand in my mind.

-I think you can do better than that.

-Yes, I'm delighted.

-Good.

What did you do in the war, Daddy?

That's a question that many children have asked their fathers,

but you know, don't you?

-Indeed, yes, I do, yeah.

-Tell me what he did.

He was with the first tanks, went out to Sinai, Palestine.

There's a group of soldiers here.

Is one of them your father?

Yes, it's this chap, this chap here.

-With the glasses?

-Yes.

-He looks very young.

-Yes, he was 20, 21, I believe, at the time.

It must have been quite an adventure for him, I would think.

I think so, particularly in those days

-when people didn't travel very far.

-No, true.

-To go out to Palestine was quite something.

-Hang on a minute, these are photographs inside a tank?

-Yes...

I've never seen photographs taken by an amateur photographer

-inside a tank.

-He took them himself.

-He did?

-Yes, and developed them.

-Did he take all of these photographs?

-He took all of the photographs and developed them in war conditions.

-Good heavens above.

So, you're Mother are you?

-Yes, I'm Mother.

-Yes, and you were married to... What's his name?

John William Bishop Farmer.

John William Bishop Farmer, and was he just in the Tank Regiment?

He did serve with Lawrence, didn't he?

Hang on, Lawrence? THE Lawrence of Arabia?

-Yes, yes, yes.

-He served with Lawrence?

Yes! Donned Arab costume and went and served with Lawrence, yes.

Good Lord! That's extraordinary, and fought the Turks with Lawrence?

-That's right, yes, that's right, yes.

-And rode a camel.

-Yes, yes.

That's amazing. But he seemed to be, from some of these medals,

quite well awarded, he has here the MBE...

-military MBE.

-Yes, indeed, yes.

And these two First World War medals.

Yes, he also had the Military Cross didn't he?

-Did he really?

-And the OBE.

-And the OBE, yes.

So he was very well awarded.

He was commissioned in the field, for bravery.

And did he find quite a great interest in the Arabs,

I mean was he very interested in them?

-Oh, yes, oh, yes, yes, he did indeed.

-He liked them a lot.

-He did?

He liked their bravery. And when he returned to Britain

he actually called his home "Khanyunus"

which means "little oasis."

-Oh, how wonderful.

-Which was a spot where he was wounded

when he was out in Palestine.

And as it happened, "Khanyunus" was in Oriental Road in Woking

where the first mosque was built and he made contact there

and converted to Islam.

-This presumably is him?

-Yes.

-And this is the Koran.

-And that's me with him learning to read...

-This is you?

-Yes, yes.

And you have also taken that faith, have you?

I have indeed, yes, and so have my children.

Really? You know, it's a fascinating story, and I would

imagine there's far more involved than we can possibly go into now.

-Indeed.

-And of course at some point we have to look at the value,

or think about the value of what you've got -

the majority of which, I would imagine, is in the medals.

The moment you start to improve the interest in a group of medals

with ephemera, photographs, the story of someone who actually

served with Lawrence, who served in the Tank Corps in the Eastern Desert,

who converted to Islam - the most extraordinary life, really,

the moment you put all that together, it makes quite a valuable group.

And I would say that we would probably be thinking in terms of

an auction value of something in the region of five to seven thousand.

-Good gracious!

-Extraordinary, extraordinary story.

-Of course we wouldn't get rid of them, they are of sentimental value.

-Oh, indeed.

-Pass it down the family, whatever you do.

-Oh, yes, yes.

They were on my uncle's windowsill and when I was a child

I used to gaze at them, but I don't know anything else.

Right, this is a type of tile which is known generically as encaustic

and the way it's made,

the basic brown tile is pressed into a mould with all the design in cut-out, not in relief, in intaglio,

and when you've got that,

-you fill it with clay of another colour.

-Oh, yes.

Scrape it clean and fire it, and so you've got one colour clay inset into another colour.

-Right.

-And this is a medieval process.

-Right.

-If you go back to certainly the 13th C

and possibly even earlier in Britain,

cathedrals, abbeys, had tiled floors made of encaustic tiles.

Right, from High Wycombe, I read that.

Exactly. But the technique was lost from the Middle Ages

and then in the 19th C the problem arose...

We've got all these buildings with medieval floors which are all falling apart. How do we restore them?

-And so in Staffordshire in the 1830s they had to completely reinvent the technique.

-Oh, right.

And they were used extensively through the Victorian period,

the Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament, are filled with tiles...

-much more colourful, but in this technology.

-Right.

-These come from designs,

that were produced by a man called Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

who was one of the architects of the Houses of Parliament,

-Palace of Westminster.

-Oh, right.

He was a very famous Victorian designer.

He became interested in tiles in the early 1840s

and the first tiles he designed were made by Minton

and they were published in a book called "Old English Tile Patterns" in 1842.

-Right, right.

-And some of these...

that and that... are in that series.

-OK.

-So in theory you're looking at very early Victorian encaustic tiles.

How did you get them?

Well, I got them after my uncle died.

I asked for them because they'd always been favourites of mine.

He told me that when London was bombed

he'd got them from a church, and he said The Temple.

Well, that's a very revealing remark,

because when they began to remake encaustic tiles

for restoration projects at the beginning of the 19th century,

there are references that the first ones were made for the Temple Church.

Oh. There we are, then.

-So there we are.

-Oh, good grief.

If these come from the first Pugin Minton series

-in 1842, they're worth about £300 each.

-Are they?

These may be a bit later but they're still a Pugin design,

they're early productions of the encaustic process,

they're a lovely evocation of Gothic Revival in that period.

-Right.

-I think they're lovely.

Well, this is a great trophy. How did it come in your possession?

Well, it is my grandfather who won it at this college here in St David's.

How terrific, well let's have a look at it, it says "Athletic Sports SDC".

-St David's College.

-And I think that's St David on the building behind us isn't it?

-In person, yes.

-First prize for throwing the cricket ball, 1884.

-Yes.

-And do you know how far he threw the cricket ball, or not?

-I'm very sorry, no.

We've got the lion here with the coronet on top holding up the shield.

-Yes.

-And his head tilts back and of course it turns into an ink well.

That's right.

It's not silver, it's silver plate.

-I see.

-And we know the date, 1884.

-Yes.

-I think it's a lovely family memento and how appropriate

that it should be here at St David's College.

Well, exactly, this is why I thought I'd bring it along.

Well, thank you for doing so. Difficult to value but if it came up at auction it's such a fine model,

we might expect it to fetch between £300 and £500.

-I see, yes.

-But I hope being your grandfather, it will stay in your family.

Oh, exactly, I'm M Richards, my father's M Richards,

my son's M Richards... and his son is M Richards

so they're all M Richards. How terrific. Diolch yn fawr!

So this is the work of Scottie Wilson who was a Scottish Primitive painter

who did some work for Royal Worcester and this is a Royal Worcester dish.

-Royal Doulton actually.

-Eh?

-Royal Doulton, isn't it?

No dear...

Sorry.

Put your hand out...

Royal Doulton, bah!

-No, it's Royal Worcester.

-Sorry, folks!

He did a lot of work for Royal Worcester in the 1950s.

-Er, yes, that's right, yes.

-Yeah, and designed these plates to...

-very similar to some of his watercolour paintings.

-That's right.

-And you've actually got one of his watercolours?

-Yes, yes.

-How did you acquire that?

-Well, we acquired that later.

My husband had met Scottie at an exhibition he was holding

down in Teignmouth

and then later on this came out, and we were rather delighted

-to see that it was so similar to the...

-The scene with the swans.

-Yes, yes.

-He loved swans.

-Yes.

-Yes, you've got more of this, have you?

Well, I've got sort of a couple of cups, saucers, plates.

The work that he did in the '50s for Royal Worcester were very unpopular,

no-one wanted to buy the damn things,

they were left with stacks of the stuff... Although Lord Snowdon

had a great appreciation for them,

he praised them up enormously, but that didn't do any good

so the stuff is out there for people to collect.

-Oh, yes.

-But it's now beginning to fetch money, so your other pieces

-are in good condition?

-They are, yes.

Yes, this one's a bit of a wreck.

-It is.

-So you'll look after the other ones you've got, won't you?

-I will, yes, I will.

They're going to be worth, I don't know, £40 or £50 apiece at least.

-Are they really?

-So - careful with them.

-Yes.

-But this is very unusual, although his watercolour paintings

-don't fetch as much now as one would think they should do.

-No.

-I mean probably £100 to £200 for a piece.

-Yes.

But one day, I think, his watercolours will fetch

-a much greater amount, so keep them carefully.

-I will, yes.

-Don't break them.

-No.

-And look after the jug.

-I will, yes, I will indeed.

-Even if it's not Royal Doulton.

Well, the valleys of Wales are famous for male voice choirs but this little

instrument has also played its part in Welsh worship, hasn't it?

Yes, it has. It came from Pembrokeshire.

It was with a retired farmer who my husband used to live with

before we got married, and he asked me one day

whether I'd be interested in having it, and I said I would love to,

so he said, "Well funny thing is", he said, "There was one sold

"in the auction just down the road from here the other day and it made £500".

So I said, "Well, you'd better keep it then!"

So I ended up by giving him £150 for it,

but he then told me that it had been in his family for many, many years.

It was said that it had been used by John Wesley

to travel round Pembrokeshire doing his preaching.

-Yes.

-But it was only said, there is no written proof of that.

-That is what we call a "by repute".

-By repute, that's it.

-Yes, you mentioned the word "organ",

and it does sort of make an organ-type noise

but the instrument in question is basically a...

what is called a "free reed" instrument.

Whereas an organ - a conventional church organ -

-blows wind through pipes.

-Yes.

Here you have what is called a free-reed instrument

-and it's basically a harmonium.

-Yes.

And they are incredibly portable,

we've got two rather sturdy handles at the ends.

-That's right.

-We have the maker... or the retailer's...mark.

Hamlyn is not a name I've come across before. But let's be optimistic

and think could this possibly have been around at the time of Wesley?

-What do you think?

-I doubt it.

Well, the style of this piece is totally Gothic

with a bit of Arts & Crafts thrown in,

I mean those handles, slightly medieval handles,

I would put this instrument somewhere towards the end of the 19th century,

and there's one other thing I would say. These keys are plastic.

-Right.

-This would have made history

-if it really had been around the time of, of Wesley.

-Yes, yes.

£500 would be a lot to pay for something like this

and today, generally speaking,

you shouldn't have to spend more than £100 or £200.

So I was in about the right price.

-Do you use it for any form of worship at the moment?

-Not really.

It's quite a narrow range.

-You can't really get very far with this.

-No, no.

We normally need a chair to pump the bellows so you're going to have

-to take the left hand side, I'll take the right hand side, OK?

-Yes.

So for what we're about to receive.

Here we go.

HE SINGS FALSETTO: # Ave Maria... #

-You mean this is an early model of you?

-Early model of me, yes.

-They did a lot of them.

-Well, it's pretty accurate isn't it?

-Not bad really.

-Sideways on.

Yes. When I had more hair.

-I'm looking at the other bit, actually.

-Oh, dear!

-Yes, it is me.

-Very good.

-Lambert I suppose is it?

-This is Henry Sandon.

-Henry Sandon.

-Yes, it might be Lambert.

-I'm related to Lambert in shape.

-And in the genes.

Yes, the JEANS are very difficult to get on now but, but I'm sure I am.

-This is the obverse side.

-Right.

-The side which does not have the pattern actually.

Looks a bit dull doesn't it?

Doesn't it look very dull?

How terrific, a wind-up razor, isn't that great?

-Where did you get it from?

-I got it from a charity shop just down the road.

-Very period isn't it?

-Yeah.

I would think that's what, mid 1950s, something like that, it's got the maker's name there, Thorens, who were

quite a well known maker at the time, Riviera's the style. And you press, presumably the red button, is it?

There we are, and it goes. And the black button to stop. It's nice

that it's got its original case and it just winds up from the back, and how much did you pay for it?

Um, I think I paid £1 for it.

Well, you can't lose at that price can you?

-No.

-I would think in a shop specialising in items

of this period, from the '50s, '60s, you might well pay £40 or £50 for it.

-Right.

-Are you going to show us how it works?

OK, um...

-Where are you, dear?

-I'm here.

-I'm not with you, what?

There you are.

That's right turn it up a bit...

These were made at the Shelley factory, which is a great Art Deco factory, in the 1930s

from designs by Mabel Lucy Attwell, so they're really quite collectable.

Where did you get them from?

They were given to my daughter by an aunt.

-Well, she was jolly lucky. Aren't they lovely?

-No.

-Oh.

-Not particularly.

-You don't like them?

-No.

-Well, I'll give you the good news. Even if you don't like them, they're still worth about £600.

Oh, right. That's OK, I can live with them, then.

And then you've got another.

Ta-da! Look at that, isn't that amazing?

Incredibly brilliant colours, but yet, if you look at the back

it's as dull as anything. Now tell me, where did you get these from?

-Captain Birch was in the artillery in the Far East.

-Right.

He died eventually in Aberystwyth some time before WWI.

My grandfather bought his house from the estate, fully furnished.

In two chests were these.

Well, you would think that Captain Birch having been an army officer

and been in the Middle East would've bought something in the Middle East that came from the Middle East.

-Well, you would think so.

-Well, you'd be wrong.

Because this cannot be more Islamic looking, as a cloth, in all the wide world, can it?

-No.

-Now the secret to this is on the back...

because you don't see any knot or weave on the back, it means that

this thing is entirely machine made and this is machine made in Brussels.

-Good heavens.

-So, a Belgian machine-made cloth.

-Get away!

Made in Europe, sent to the Middle East and sold in some souk,

bought by the Arabs - or the visiting British military -

and brought back to Wales and fitted up in a house. Now, isn't that the most extraordinary thing?

Absolutely marvellous.

-And have you, all these years, thought that this was made in the Middle East?

-Yes, we did.

There you go. I'm sorry about that, but it's the truth of the matter.

Oh, well, That is absolutely marvellous. This is what we've been trying to find out for years.

We've had these things, we bring them out, show people, and everybody

says "Oh, definitely Burmese, definitely Indian, definitely..."

And now this. Tim comes along... and shatters all our dreams!

-I'm sorry!

-Completely... And says the ruddy thing's made in Belgium!

This is one of the most delicate and exquisite little pieces of textile

I've had the pleasure of dealing with.

And to look at it, I was immediately taken by its absolute beauty.

The work that has gone into this is just staggering.

-That aside, there's a lot more to it.

-Yes. It's Napoleon.

It is Napoleon and I'd like to know how you came across it.

-It's been in the family for a very long time.

-Right.

-I have no idea how it originated there.

-Right.

And unfortunately, there's nobody I can ask who would know where it came from so I'm a bit stuck on that one.

It's an extremely rare survivor. What we've got in fact is, is Napoleon sitting here on an eagle,

but also there's something very majestic about him. Look at him here.

The Legion of Honour at the bottom. He's being portrayed as an emperor.

That, to me, almost tells us something about the way and the time in which it was done.

I feel that it was done by someone who very much admired Napoleon

and perhaps thought he shouldn't be in prison. Now if we look at this very carefully, we can see here

his foot is on a map

and underneath,

in extremely tiny letters, "France"

"Cors" for Corsica and "St Helene".

-St Helena.

-I hadn't noticed that.

Now, he was put on the island in around about 1815

and died in 1821 and I feel that this was done in that period.

-Right.

-I mean obviously, because the island is named there, it has to be after that.

-Yes, yes.

But I feel that that was done in his lifetime.

It's on silk. And the problem is with silk, and particularly silk of this age, it obviously deteriorates.

It needs to go to a skilled conservator.

-Yes.

-And I think what they would certainly have to do is probably mount it on...on a gauze...

-Yes.

to give it stability. I think that's how they would approach it.

But I think, given all those things that we've discussed, it is absolutely exquisite.

-Putting a price on it is very, very difficult.

-Oh.

-Personally if I were to go and buy this,

I would probably be tempted to pay £200 or £300 for it without thinking about it.

Having said that, I think if it were to go to France...

-Yes.

-...then it would acquire even more value than that.

So from that point of view, how long is a piece of string?

It's a difficult one. It's a gorgeous thing and I have to say, today,

-it's one of the most beautiful and exquisite little things I've seen.

-A pleasure. Thank you.

You know I'm immensely jealous of you. If I had lots of money,

what I would collect is this.

Italian "istoriato Maiolica".

I think it's one of the most beautiful classes of ware ever made.

Do you like it?

I love it. Many years ago, my father, in Wales, happened to ring me one day

and said "Oh, I've seen a nice little decanter,

"I think you might pop in and have a look at it when you're down here." so I did and I bought the decanter.

As I was going out of the shop, this very small shop,

I noticed this plate hanging from a very precarious looking hook,

so I thought "Well, I don't know, that looks as if it's an istoriato plate to me." So I asked the chap,

"What are you asking for that?" and he said "£5."

And I walked away with it.

Well, I'm glad that it found a good home and somebody who loves it,

what I always think is so amazing about these pieces is they look very colourful,

yet if you start counting how many colours there are in them, blue,

ochre and yellow and manganese...

four colours, that's all...

arranged in such a way that they give,

by brilliant juxtaposition of colour,

-you get a great feeling of brightness don't you?

-Indeed, yes.

And this was made in about 1540, maybe 1550.

and when you look at a dish like this, because it was fired,

you are actually seeing, we are actually seeing,

the colours exactly as they started out all that long time ago.

So this really gives us a snapshot of what people liked

in terms of colour and design in 1540 or 1550.

Now, as often is the case with these dishes -

generally made in Urbino or in that area -

is they wrote on the back what the subject was.

And this says "Tobie misterium",

The mystery of Tobias." So presumably it's something from the Book of Tobie.

Now there's one other interesting thing about it,

which affects the date.

Somebody called Bernard Salomon in Lyon published a Bible

with little woodcut illustrations.

In 1552. And it got to Urbino extremely quickly, we know that.

And I suspect that this is taken from an illustration of that book.

-Really?

-So it pushes me to date it slightly later

than some people might have thought.

It's still, you know,

-400 years old!

-That would be part of Henry VIII's time.

Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah! I think if you had to go out and buy it again,

you'd probably have to pay £10,000 for it.

-It's that kind of money.

-Dear me.

So, fantastic. I've been longing all the years I've done the Roadshow for a nice bit of istoriato Maiolica,

-so you've made my day and I'm thrilled.

-Thank you so much.

What is this strange contraption?

I think it's a pair of foghorn bellows that a sailor would've used, coming into harbour in thick fog,

-to let everybody know a boat was coming.

-And how old is it?

-About 100 years old.

I'll tell you what, it's nearly time to go home.

-I think we could use this as a sort of blowing the retreat, couldn't we? Sounding the retreat.

-After you.

Right, I'll just do this once, it's been a wonderful day at the University of Wales, Lampeter,

and on behalf of the entire Antiques Roadshow team may I say...

TRUMPETING BLAST ..and goodnight.

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