Aberdeen Music Hall Antiques Roadshow

This week the Roadshow has come to a city of contrasts and superlatives,

a city of granite, a city of flowers.

Its quarries have created the biggest hole in Europe

and it runs the oldest business in Britain.

SHIP'S HORN BLOWS

Sitting at the mouth of the River Dee,

Aberdeen harbour has been a successful enterprise for nearly 900 years.

It first started charging ships an entrance fee back in 1136

and its continuous use has earned it a place in the Guinness Book Of Records.

It's all the more remarkable

because the harbour wasn't blessed with many natural advantages - quite the opposite,

it was incredibly shallow and full of treacherous moving sandbanks.

Not ideal conditions for large ships.

HORN BLOWS

But with hard work it proved a success

and has been the cornerstone of the Aberdeen economy down the centuries.

The wealth that came from herring, salmon, granite and oil has resulted in a unique city

with buildings of a suitable grandeur.

From the oldest town house in town...

..to the so-called wedding cake of Marischal College,

when the weather's right, Aberdeen shimmers.

Pretty well all the buildings here are made of granite

and that's what catches the light.

Some call it the silver city.

Sitting on the magnificent mile-long Union Street and another tribute to the great rock

is our venue for today, the Aberdeen Music Hall.

The front of the building with its dramatic Doric columns

was built in 1822 as Assembly Rooms

and won the designer a prize of 50 guineas.

30 years later a great concert hall was added,

and so the Music Hall was born.

The hall is renowned for its acoustics.

With a curved ceiling and a wooden floor,

the sound bounces around very nicely.

Now we hear a gentle murmur

as the people of Aberdeen enter the Music Hall

to join the Roadshow's troop of experts...

The performance is about to begin.

We know about fairies and pixies, but do you believe in firbolgs?

Not really.

Because that's what these little creatures are, firbolgs,

very strange breed of the fairy folk.

There are so many of them on there, aren't there? What's the background?

My father bought it at a big house,

-at a sale, an auction, I think it was 1952 or '53.

-Oh.

And, you know, he just loved it and it's been in the family ever since.

Do you remember the cost?

I have no...never... I have no idea what it was.

We're looking at a kind of pottery here made by Wedgwood...

well at about 1920.

Eccentric designer at Wedgwood, Daisy Makeig-Jones invented this...

strange images of fairyland and she called her creatures firbolgs.

Let's have a look at some of these creatures.

We've got here a pine tree and these little folk are falling out of the tree.

Firbolgs were rather unfortunate,

a lot of accidents happened to them and they were generally a bit frightened themselves.

That one there, oh, he's actually got caught up in the trees,

looks like his pants are being pulled off by the tree and other chaps are running away.

They're a bit frightening, aren't they?

-I wouldn't like to meet them.

-No.

So, um, we understand perhaps why people didn't rush out to buy these when they were new.

That really is the crucial thing, because people didn't buy these when they were introduced in 1919.

This was only made for a couple of years,

-this particular design and colouring.

-I see.

And that makes it actually quite rare.

Daisy Makeig-Jones gave her fairyland lustre designs individual numbers.

This is her number four which is one of the rarest of the patterns.

Because it was a bit strange,

people didn't like it and they didn't rush out to buy it.

Then it was discovered again in the 1970s, early '80s by...

particularly American collectors started to pay considerable sums

for pieces like these.

Since then prices have been rising and rising and now they're serious collectables internationally.

So a vase like that one in fine condition,

today we're looking at...

-what, £3,500?

-Gosh, no, I couldn't believe that.

And another £3,000 there.

Heavens, that's unbelievable, I mean I thought they'd be worth something,

but I had no idea.

Right, here we have Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

from the famous picture by Walt Disney, so where did you get it?

It belonged to my mother-in-law who was given it as a present

from her aunt who was a nurse in a hospital in America during the '30s.

Um, well I think the film was 1936, wasn't it?

I'm not entirely sure... I think so.

The stitching is rather loose. Obviously it was given to a child who liked to read it,

and play with it, but the most extraordinary thing about this fairly insignificant book,

is this magnificent signature of Walt Disney himself.

Now the problem with Walt Disney's signature is

there were a lot of studio assistants who actually did it for him.

The right Walt Disney is this roundness.

Too many of the other ones are square, but these are all round

and you can see his wonderful flowing handwriting. So, I...

He was visiting the hospital that she was a nurse...

-You should have told me that in the first place, I...

-OK. He signed it in front of her.

So it is, well the story goes, it was him that actually signed it.

I think that's absolutely fantastic.

So the book itself, not a lot of money, but with the Walt Disney signature,

-we're talking about somewhere in the region of £500 to £800...

-Wow.

-What about that?

-Yeah, wow. I would never sell it, but...

We're in the lowlands today but I was hoping somebody would bring

something like this which actually is more traditionally known as from the highlands.

Yes, that's true.

It's a basket-hilted broadsword. Where did you get it from?

I got it from a junk shop in the Gallowgate in Glasgow in 1949

and it cost me two quid.

-£2?

-Yes, because...

I was really, at that time, greatly interested in Scottish history.

It was a month's wages delivering papers in those days. That's what it was.

You were earning 10 shillings a week?

-Ten bob a week.

-50 pence a week?

-Yeah.

-And you were how old at the time?

-I was...18 at the time, yeah.

-18, OK.

Well, what we have is a traditional Scottish broadsword...

not claymore, people in the south think they're called claymores...

they're called broadswords. A claymore is a completely different item.

It's a lovely object, though, and what did you want to know about it? Why did you bring it in?

Well, I wanted to know if it really was genuine or just a Victorian copy.

OK, well from a technical point of view

the pommel is the interesting thing

because that's certainly more like an English broadsword pommel

rather than a Scottish pommel, but forget that - it could have been replaced.

The sword itself is a very good example

of an 18th-century, mid-18th-century Scottish basket-hilted broadsword,

-so it is a genuine piece.

-The real thing?

-Oh, that's braw.

-It's the real thing and it's 18th century.

But I suppose having paid £2 for it,

a month's wages, you'd like to know what it's worth today.

Not really, I'm not all that concerned.

-You're not concerned?

-No I'm not.

-It'll stay in the family, I'm not selling it.

-I'm glad it's staying in the family

but of course these things do have a commercial value, you know.

-Uh-huh.

-And, a month's wages in 19... when was this?

-1949.

-1949, which was £2 for you,

would convert into £1,500 to £2,000 today.

Och, away, it's not worth that!

That!

Piece of junk. GRAHAM LAUGHS

It's a piece of junk I would willingly take home with me.

I can't believe that.

Honest to God, I honestly thought it was a piece of Victorian kitsch.

Highly collectable 18th century sword, there you go.

Thank you very much, that's braw! Oh, great, thank you very much.

Now, obviously you spend your time sailing the seas.

I wish. I mean, this was obviously the heyday of the ocean liners.

-So have you ever been on a ship?

-No, no.

So all this is fantasy, in a way?

Yes, I mean it's such a bygone age that's never going to be repeated.

So in terms of your collection, what does this represent? Half, tenth?

Not even half, this would be the tip of the iceberg.

-So it's a real Titanic experience?

-It is, yes.

-Right.

How did you get into this? Where does it start?

I'd say it was the film Titanic, started reading the books about her,

then reading books on other liners and then woke up one morning,

went up to my local antiques centre and started off with a 50 pence postcard of the Queen Mary.

So this is the cause of it all?

-It is.

-So, if you hadn't bought that postcard you'd have a nice empty house?

Yes, more than likely - and a very large bank balance.

So...let's deal with it by section.

Shipping postcards, presumably you've got albums of them, have you?

Yes, well I've got about 700.

OK, so this launched 700 other cards. What do they fetch?

Your typical postcard, I mean, no more...

-£5?

-Yeah, some of the rare ones like from the Lusitania,

the early ones, you might pay a bit more.

Yes. But somebody could build up a good collection of shipping postcards

-never paying more than £5, couldn't they? You could still do it.

-Yes.

So this is a very accessible area. Let's move on...

Now, menus I've always loved, I think menus are wonderful

because they're wonderfully dated ephemera, what date is that?

-I mean, that's 1930s...

-It has to be.

And here we have a menu for supper and cabaret on the Mauritania, great ship.

By then it's the second Mauritania.

-No, no, it's still the first.

-Still the first, is it? Oh, '32 yes.

But she's gone into her cruising white and she was on a cruise to Gibraltar.

At this point. So you can bring it all back to life,

you know what the ships were doing, you've done the research.

Everything depends on the ship, is that fair?

It does, that is very fair.

-I mean, it's like a breakfast menu from the Lusitania, upwards of over £100.

-Yes.

An everyday one from Queen Mary from the late '60s, £5.

That's stuff that you could buy, that was given away.

Everything else here, putting it crudely, you had to steal, didn't you?

-Yes, unfortunately and obviously the smaller items like cutlery and that easy to...

-Went into pockets.

Quite how something like...

The great cooking pot.

..which I'm guessing as I imported that back from America is possibly off one of the Queens.

And here we have the White Star vegetable dish, off...

-do you know what it's off?

-Possibly the Olympic.

So it's the Titanic's sister ship, so the Titanic was fitted with things like this.

Exactly the same design because I have seen examples of that dish brought up from the wreck.

So we know this is a Titanic-style piece.

So does that give it a premium?

Yes, I mean upwards of £300 to £400.

Now, have you got any Titanic stuff?

-No.

-Would you ever want a Titanic thing?

Well, like I say, I mean my whole collection is probably worth one Titanic menu card.

Yeah, OK, we'd better sum up in terms of values.

We've talked about £5 or so for the cards and the menus, a really good bit of metalwork can be £300,

a teapot can be £50 to £100. What's your collection worth?

£10,000?

-And the rest.

-And the rest.

My approximate value would be somewhere in the region of sort of £20,000, £25,000.

Are you a driven man? Are you an addict?

-I would say I'm bordering on addict.

-You're in danger.

-Yes.

-Well, you'll need a bigger flat.

-That's all there is to it.

-Yes, thank you very much.

-Thank you very much.

When I was young,

my husband and I used to go dancing every night of the week from Monday to Sunday...

-In the old days when you had on an evening dress, you had to have an evening bag.

-Of course.

So this is my two evening bags.

-This one I got from the old ladies next door.

-Yes.

And this one has a waterproof lining.

-Right.

-And I bought it myself.

-You did?

-Yes.

-Well, that's why you're so spruce now because...

-Well, I still go dancing every Friday.

-You don't! No, give over.

To Broom Hill Leisure Activity Centre.

You were born, you told me in...?

-Eh, 1915, the 13th of December 1915.

-And you're still dancing.

And I'm still dancing and I was dancing with Lionel Blair.

-You weren't! We ought to get you to dance with Michael Aspel on this dance floor.

-Yes, yes, I will.

-You will?

-I'll waltz.

I'll hold you to it.

Now, we've got something else here.

Tell me how you got this.

This come from the two old ladies

-who live next door to me.

-Yeah.

It's an old-fashioned bottle-opener.

Absolutely. And in fact...

-what I would do is hold the bottle first and screw that in.

-Screw that in.

And then it's right down, then you put this on the bottle.

-Put it on, yes.

-Then put that into there so it's like that.

-And then squeeze.

-And then you pull up.

And it takes the cork out.

Now this is by William Lund 1855, it says it here

and it was made in London, so he was a well known corkscrew maker,

and these are worth somewhere in the region of £150.

-You're still going to go home and use it?

-Yes.

Well, this is a pretty wacky little spaceship, isn't it?

Tell me about it.

I don't know anything about it, I got it at a car boot sale,

it was on the floor and I was walking along and picked it up and bought it and that's all I know.

-And you like it?

-I love it, I really do. It's so unusual, everybody comments on it and...

It's a really wacky piece of glass. This is made by pouring glass into a mould.

This is called sand casting, you make an object in...plaster

and you push it into damp sand,

then you pour the glass into the mould you've just created, let it cool very, very slowly

otherwise it'll crack up.

Then you tint, stain the back to create that look.

We know who made it because she's written her name on it,

which is very helpful, we like her for doing that.

-Yes, I know.

-And it says "a unique sand casting by Sarah Peterson"

Now, this is what's called studio glass.

Technology has moved on to a point where instead of needing a factory to make glass,

-you can almost make glass at home.

-Right.

You can get all the equipment and it's like home-made glass-making.

Now, there are hundreds and thousands of people doing this.

I've had a look on the internet for who Sarah Peterson is,

and there is one in Colorado but it may or may not be this one.

The point about studio glass is that a value structure has yet to be established.

-You see a piece, if you like it, you consider it to be worth it, you buy it.

-Right.

If you think that's a good price.

-Uh-huh.

-So, bearing in mind that you bought it in a booty for...?

£10.

-Well, I think it's got to be worth £200 at it is.

-Honest?

I do, and time may tell whether Sarah Peterson is really the one to collect

and this has been a fantastic bargain instead of just being a fab piece of glass

that you love around the house.

-OK, thanks very much.

-Not at all.

Michael.

Cath, my body is yours, shall we dance?

-OK, now don't lead, will you?

-WALTZ MUSIC PLAYS

Something like this poses lots of questions.

Firstly it's not Scottish

-or English or Irish, it's not British, it's Flemish.

-It's Flemish? OK.

-Yes, Flemish.

It would have been... Well, it is oak...

-you can see the graining of the oak just but it's been blackened and the gilding's been added later.

-OK.

Possibly, I should guess, in the 19th century

-which gives some of its age away, you've already guessed it's probably older.

-OK.

We've got this lock here. Well, you know that's an honest replacement, isn't it?

You can see there's a very old looking lock

-but with a great big hole where a bigger lock would have been...

-Yes, yes.

-Clearly that's been altered.

-Yes.

You can just see the wonderful dryness of that back panel.

-Yes.

-That's the colour I would like to have seen on the outside.

I'm not worried about the gilt decoration and the black, not too much.

-My first reaction... wow, it's a blinder.

-OK.

Then I looked again and thought...not so sure.

Then I started looking at the detail and you get lost,

you look at all these details all over the place.

The first one I noticed - and the reason for standing on this side - is this chap.

-OK.

-He's rather good looking.

-Yes, very regal.

-You know why he's good looking?

-Oh.

-Perfect.

-Yes.

-His moustache.

He's pointing at her, over there.

-Right, I've never noticed that before.

-She's pointing at him.

-It's very odd, isn't it?

-Yes.

-That to me is very 17th century type of carving.

-OK.

The whole shape, proportions of it are 17th century Flemish

and fairly early 17th century, we're talking 1620-1650.

-What, this part?

-Yeah, and the general scale and proportion of it.

I'll tell you what I don't understand is the carving up here.

This gadrooned fish scale type carving here and the gadrooning here,

they're not as good or as strongly carved as the carving for example on the door below here.

This is much more typical of the 1620-30 period

whereas that is more typical of the 1650-80 period.

-So someone somewhere has done a bit of fiddling about.

-Mm.

-I think this was taller.

-Was it?

And it's been reduced in height, possibly because it wouldn't fit into a small cottage,

having been made for one of those great big Dutch houses, one of those huge houses with tiled floors.

-I think most of this top part is new.

-OK.

-When I say "new", not 1630.

-OK.

Have you ever thought about that?

I've looked in many a book to try and find where it's come from,

what it's about, and I can't figure it out at all.

-Well, you've come to the right place.

-Ah, wonderful.

-Because we've had it for a few hours...

-Yeah.

-we took a digital photograph...

-You're joking.

sent them down to an armorial expert in London.

-Oh, you've made my day.

-When you look at the photograph,

the owl there shows it's the McTaggart family.

-Married into the McGowan family.

-OK.

So a Scottish family who moved to England...

this is the interesting bit for me...

-who moved to England in 1830.

-My word.

What is really fascinating, because they moved to England in 1830,

that's when there was a wonderful tournament called the Eglinton Tournament

where they did medieval revivals,

people were dressing up in suits of armour pretending they were medieval knights.

-OK.

-Sir Walter Scott was writing - couldn't get a greater Scottish writer.

-Yes.

-Was writing about this romantic period of the 17th century. So what has happened...

This has been, in my opinion, cut and shut in about 1830 for this family,

down in England when this was all the rage and the great fashion.

I am gobsmacked, absolutely gobsmacked that we've got a result on this one.

I just think it's, it's exactly the historical piece as I'd want to see it

and I'm as gobsmacked as you, to be able to do that research and to be able to find out...

It answers all the questions that I've been looking at and that's confirmed.

-A result.

-Fantastic.

How much did you pay?

I didn't, I didn't really grudge the money at all.

-What did you pay?

-£1,200 and I think it was well worth it.

Not bad.

I thought that it was probably worth,

as cut and shut, today about £5,000.

-Now we've got that documented history.

-Yeah?

-I want to up that a little.

-You're joking!

So for retail replacement, if you bought it from the same antique dealer,

who now would know more about it,

he'd probably... let's say charge you £6,000.

That's phenomenal.

Well, it's going back in the cottage anyway, that's where it's going.

-That's why they cut the top off.

-Yes!

-To get in the cottage.

I know Scotland is the home of golf, but this is the wackiest club I've ever seen.

-Yes, indeed.

-What can you tell me about it?

Well, we found it in my wife's house when we were clearing out

-and...we took it to the golf museum in St Andrews.

-Right.

And, they identified the maker, I think it was a company called Ayres,

they said they hadn't seen one before but they thought it was a driver.

Doesn't work as a driver, does it?

-Doesn't really, no.

-No, I think it's one of these patent putters...

As today, you know everybody wants to putt well

and they buy the latest gizmo, be it a ping putt or whatever it is, or a long shafted one.

I am sure this is much more of a putter,

it's got no playing surface to be used as a driver.

-But I've never seen this shape.

-Indeed.

Well, I think you've got something of extraordinary rarity, um...

and the market goes up and down,

The Far Eastern collectors were paying silly prices ten years ago.

They're coming back in a small way to the market.

-I would see this fetching £1,200, £1,500 today.

-Gosh.

-Do you play golf?

-I do indeed.

Well, why don't you give it a go? If you can get it in the hole, then hang on to it.

-OK, thanks.

-Thanks for bringing it in.

Thank you very much.

I want you to picture a world where in the domestic environment,

electricity had hardly been thought about and gas was for the very, very wealthy.

A clock of this type, in other words, a carriage clock,

always came in one of these leather travelling boxes.

And they always had a flap in the front

that could be parked in the back,

to reveal the clock during transit.

Think of this being dragged along to a lovely late Victorian or Edwardian house party...

a marvellous thing to pop by the side of your bed,

you couldn't click on the light switch so you pressed the button

and...

it repeated to the preceding hour.

Well, the slight give away that it's a fairly late example

is what we call the arcaded minute ring,

those little floral swags that just go all the way round there.

We have the maker's name: EM & Co,

that's Maurice and Company and above that it says "French make".

That is a sign with that dial that it's going to be early 20th century,

pretty much for our Edwardian market, so sort of 1905, 1910 perhaps.

We've got some lovely columns here with superb enamel all the way down

in this lovely white, red and blue. It's ever so handsome.

And this would have been a very, very expensive clock new.

So it sits at home,

hidden, clearly not insured or anything...or do you have it insured?

-It's only covered by the house insurance...at the moment.

-Great.

So, if it went missing, it wouldn't really be the end of your world?

This is before I take it away now, of course.

If it was to go missing, God forbid,

to replace that,

would be costing you

in the region of £4,000.

So I want you to get it out of wherever you keep it at home and just love it a little bit more.

-Will do.

-Good man.

Well, so thrilled and so delighted that you've brought along these items today.

In amongst this collection of Communion silver

there's one thing that immediately jumped out for me.

We've come all the way here to Aberdeen and here we are

with a piece by James Cromer Watt

which I recognised instantly

-from the work of delicate enamelling around the base.

-Yes.

Perhaps you could give us an idea what you know about it.

Well, it was commissioned during the ministry of James Cooper, at the east parish of St Nicholas.

He was minister in the latter part of the 19th century there and left in 1899

and this was a gift to him on his departure.

Then when he died, his wife gave it back to the church.

That was very generous of her.

The thing about Cromer Watt was he principally made jewellery

and always with delicate enamelling, usually with copper foil backgrounds and this just jumps out at you

as being a fabulous piece of his work.

Also the use of local pearls from the River Don and garnets here.

He trained at Glasgow School of Art and then set up a workshop in Aberdeen around about 1890s,

so this ties in as probably a very early commission for him

-and one that he's put a huge amount of effort and workmanship into getting it just correct.

-Yes.

It's also fascinating that in the whole group of Communion silver that you've brought along today,

principally these pieces here are from a much earlier date,

-they date from about 1740-1750.

-That's right, yes.

All I can say is that you've got the most fabulous thing

amongst other pieces here,

-this just jumps out as being absolutely astonishing.

-Yes.

It should really be a museum piece

but it's in safe keeping in the church.

-It's in safe keeping and we do use it on high holidays.

-It's still in use?

-It's still in use.

-Well, all I would say is be very careful with it...

It is fragile.

-It's a difficult thing to value, because obviously you couldn't replace it.

-No.

But you're looking at something probably in the order of £10,000.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: 'Ladies and gentlemen,

'stand by for an important announcement.

'We're interrupting our programme for a piece of news for which we've all been waiting.

'The management announce with due thankfulness

'the official confirmation that hostilities in Europe have ceased.'

FANFARE

-What a relief! That's been going on since 1939.

-I know. It's a long time.

Where did you get this from?

My granddad was a projectionist in the cinema and just before the war finished

these were sent out to cinemas around

and it was just waiting for the confirmation that the war was over

and then they had to interrupt the movie

and play this to the people in the cinema.

-But not like this... it was on a disc?

-No, no, I have the disc here, yes.

So each cinema had got a copy of that announcement we've just heard,

-before the war was over, to be ready when it did.

-Yeah.

So everyone else is listening to the wireless,

and if you went to the pictures, this is how you heard it.

-Yep.

-The end of World War II, wow.

-I can see that box temptingly says "Russian plate".

-Yes.

-Is it?

-It is, yes, I believe so.

-There you go.

-Right, in a very smart bag.

Right, now this is what I was actually hoping it would be.

Now the key thing about this is

this plate is either worth £50 to £100 or several thousand pounds.

-OK.

-So, first of all, what I want to do is ask you why you've got it.

-My great grandfather was a ship's captain.

-Right.

And he used to sail to Leningrad and his...

because he was a captain, his wife used to get to go along on the ship with him.

When they were in Leningrad in 1934,

she got given this plate by a ship's chandler.

-Right, now that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

-OK.

What we've got is Russian revolutionary porcelain.

-OK.

-Made in the immediate aftermath of the revolution.

The imperial factories were taken over by revolutionaries

and instead of painting those lavish Tsarist patterns,

they used the same blanks to paint revolutionary scenes,

and what we've got here, I suspect... We've got skeletons, a crowned skeleton...

-Yes.

-This is probably about the decay of the Russian court, the corruption,

the element of destruction that the revolution had brought about.

And if you turn it over, on the back, that is the mark of the imperial porcelain factories.

-Yes.

-That is the dates relating to the painting,

you've got the hammer and sickle, 1922,

and when they took over the factories, there were piles of blanks ready for decoration.

-OK.

-So that's why it has a mark of an earlier period, the Tsarist period,

-plus the marks of the revolutionary period.

-OK.

These come out from the early 1920s and by the end of the '20s, early '30s, they're no longer fashionable

because Stalin is saying, no, we don't want revolutionary art any more.

-OK.

-So it's a very short period in ceramic history.

By the nature of the Russians and of this business, these have constantly been copied.

I've got two at home which are exactly the same... different designs...

same backing but I know they were made in the 1960s. Therefore they're worth what I paid which is £90 each.

-OK.

-The value of this, and the story, only works if we've got what you told me.

We know this goes back to 1934,

there were no fakes being made in the 1930s.

-OK.

-It's the real thing and so to go back to the beginning,

is it £100 or several thousand pounds, what do you think?

-Several thousand.

-It is several thousand pounds.

-OK.

For every real one of these there will be 100, 1,000 later copies. This is the real thing.

-OK.

-And this is therefore a wonderfully rare moment.

To see one with that story is just, to me, really great.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

This butterfly looks as if

it could really fly out of its case, don't you think?

-Oh, it could, it's beautiful.

-It is beautiful.

-Lovely piece.

-Really fantastic, and do you ever wear it?

-No.

-Why not?

It's too pretty, I'd probably break it.

What do you know about it? Is this inherited or bought or...?

A family piece, and it was given to me by my granny

but I believe it was her granny before her, so my great-great-granny

-and it's been passed down.

-That's a lot of grannies.

-Yes.

Been passed down through the female generations and it's come to me.

Well, it's a gorgeous butterfly, it really is and it's really...

typical late Victorian diamond butterfly brooch, very naturalistic,

it's a very, very popular subject.

I think it was associated with happiness and lightness of being.

-Yeah.

-We call it these days.

And probably, although it doesn't really work very well any more,

this would have trembled when you wore it,

-because there should be a little spring inside here.

-Oh, right.

It would have vibrated gently with every breath,

which would've been good fun, and very often underneath here there's another little bit, and there is.

-The hair piece.

-So this screws off

and that screws on and you can wear it in your hair, trembling away,

catching the light, candlelight, gas light, looking really fantastic.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Because they didn't have any other white metal but silver, the front is all silver

and the back is all gold like a sort of sandwich,

complicated to do, and then they drill out little holes and they shape them all out with tiny files

and set the stones. It's really gorgeous

and it's really nice it's in its original fitted case from Hancocks.

Yes.

Very well known 19th century firm who also make all Victoria Crosses.

Well, it's a really lovely piece of jewellery and erm...

They're very much in demand, very sought after...

especially the genuine ones, which this is, and erm...

if you had to go out and replace this,

I think today you'd be looking to pay £8,000 to £10,000.

Blimey.

Yes.

So have you had him on your bed, or have you played with him?

I played with him when I was a baby, he's just always been part of my life.

-Really? What's his name?

-Teddy.

Oh, right, very original! Well you've kept him very well, you've looked after him

because so often they get pulled around and the sawdust, well it becomes sawdust.

It starts off being long strips of wood inside.

-Yes.

-But the interesting thing about him is, you know he's by Steiff.

-Yes.

-Because he's got his button.

-His button.

-He's got two factors that make him more desirable than other Steiff bears.

His colour is very, very desirable because the ordinary brown colour, beige colour, is sort of normal

and then the other factor is that he's got a seam down the middle of his snout

which is also...

one in seven gets a seam like that. They have seven bolts of cloth

that they make up with this fur which they call excelsior...

and every time they come to the end of the seventh one,

they have to cut another one in and so you get...

that's the beginning of the next bolt

and that's the end of the seventh.

-Uh-huh.

-And so they're known as centre seam bears

and they're more rare than the others.

So do you have any idea what he's worth?

Absolutely none, I've looked up in books but I really don't know.

There's a lot written about these and of course they are still the king of the teddy bears,

Steiff in Giengen South Germany, they're still going strong, they're very clever at publicity

and he's worth around £2,000 to £3,000.

Really? Thank you.

-This is the most super, super little mug, it really is.

-Really?

-Where did it come from?

-It's my Dad's, it's been in his loft as far as I can remember.

I know it seems a shame but...

It does seem a shame. Do you know when it was made?

No, no idea.

-We're looking at a mug that was made in about 1700.

-Wow.

-Wow!

-Condition is wonderful, colour, everything about it is wonderful.

-The coat of arms at the front.

-Yes, what does that mean?

Well, it's fascinating because straightaway

we can tell from that that it was actually made for a woman.

Oh! How do you know that?

Because it's in a lozenge.

Right.

Now, when women bore arms they couldn't put them in a shield

-because a shield was considered unseemly.

-Right.

It was an implement of warfare, so female arms are always in lozenges.

-That's interesting.

-We've only got the one mark underneath.

I was a bit worried about that but...

Well, you don't need to be actually, maker's mark only at this sort of period is not unusual.

The maker's mark is actually that of Robert Cooper.

-Robert Cooper was a goldsmith who started in London in the reign of Charles II.

-Right.

And actually made things like a spitting pot...

-for Samuel Pepys.

-Oh, well that's interesting.

Right, so...

it has... And actually the quality with this goldsmith's so chunky

and oh, it's to die for, it really is.

I would say at auction today,

I would have to fight if I was bidding for it

at maybe up to about...£5,000.

You're kidding! Dad's going to be pleased.

-I kid you not. It is an absolute...

-For that little thing?

For that little thing, and boy...I would love it.

Hands off.

Do you know, we see so many fake bronzes on the Roadshow

that my initial reaction when I saw these was that they were fake,

they are just so beautiful and so perfect, they seemed too good to be true.

I think I need to know really, from your point of view,

what the family history is behind them.

-Well, they belonged to my husband's grandfather.

-Right.

So they've been around for a bit.

The original perpetrator of these bronzes

was a famous Austrian factory called Bergman.

Now, these are cold painted bronzes which means essentially

that the bronzes are founded

and then they're cold painted by hand afterwards.

Now, ordinarily, bronzes of this type,

and these purport to be circa 1900-ish, maybe 1910-ish,

they're worn, they're marked, they're knocked around,

they're just not this pristine.

-Do they sit in a cabinet at home or anything?

-No.

-They don't.

-I dust them occasionally.

You dust them? What do you use, a feather duster or something?

-Just a, just a duster.

-Right, OK.

Obviously they're a great pair of hunters...

We'll call them a pair because they're both similar subjects.

This one here, which heartens me a bit, has got some damage.

His rifle is bent.

I kind of like the idea of his rifle being bent -

ordinarily I wouldn't, but that kind of helps me

and it reassures me that perhaps there is some age to it.

What I can see here is a four-digit number, typical of German bronzes of this type.

They have a four-digit number, almost like a catalogue number.

Interestingly enough, Bergman often signed their bronzes "Namgreb",

that's "Bergman" backwards, or they'll be marked with "geschutz"

and a Bergman foundry mark.

It could be hidden anywhere

and... Aha! Look at this, hold on a sec.

On the bottom of this bird's tail...

is a mark, can you see that there?

Look, it's hidden in the feathers.

Hold on one second...

and it says "geschutz"!

That's very heartening.

Let's look...ah, there's one on the other bird as well, look.

It says...

"geschutz" and...

it's got the Bergman foundry mark on it.

I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

Well, Marc, I've had those for a long time and I've never noticed.

Well, I don't think you would easily notice

because those are so well concealed on the bird's feathers there

that they're actually almost part of the plumage.

Value is difficult because the thing is, when something this exceptional

in terms of its condition, comes to the market place,

it's almost impossible to put a very accurate price on.

Would you be surprised to know

that a sort of fairly worn example in a quite reasonable condition

with perhaps a couple of small bends on the birds and things,

would probably be worth in the region of about £2,000 per figure.

£2,000 per figure, so to start off with you've got £4,000 worth of bronze sitting here.

Now let's look at the wider picture, we've now...

-With the bent gun?

-Sorry?

-With the bent gun?

Forget the bent gun, I mean, to be honest with you,

that's inconsequential, we'll leave the gun bent and not worry about it.

I think they're in such exceptional condition,

I don't think I have any hesitation in putting £7,000 to £10,000 on this pair of bronzes.

-Is that a surprise to you?

-Yes, yes.

-You haven't got any more at home, have you?

-Just the one.

-What do you mean, just the one?

-The one...

-a man in a te...

-A man in a tent?

-Yes.

-Is it the light up one with the carpets?

-That's it.

-£3,000 to £5,000.

-Ooh.

-£3,000 to £5,000.

-Well, I'll treat him with more respect then.

-Do you not like him?

-No.

-Why not?

-Do you like these?

-No.

No? Do you like them any more now?

Oh, well, you know.

I know value isn't everything but at the end of the day

you have two of the most perfect Bergman bronzes I have ever seen.

They're absolutely exceptional

-and you've absolutely made my day, thank you.

-Thank you very much.

I've just been browsing through this useful little booklet

about the history of Aberdeen's Music Hall.

They've had some big names here: Charles Dickens, Jenny Lind - the Swedish nightingale,

the great Paul Robeson, Alma Cogan, Des O'Connor and a group called The Chinese Ambidextrous Jugglers.

Not all on the same night, of course!

And the stars of today's show... the people of Aberdeen,

and now from the Granite City, goodbye.