De La Warr Pavilion Antiques Roadshow

If it's escaped your notice that the Antiques Roadshow

is celebrating its 30th anniversary, then you really haven't

been watching. We've talked a lot

about the years between now and then.

We've turned the speedometer back to 1977, the year the show actually began.

In those days, to eager young petrol heads, the TR6 was the coolest seven wheels on the block,

and fashion was extremely groovy.

# ..Yesterday's gone Yesterday's gone... #

It was a time when women walked tall in stacked wedges.

Cutting edge flares were a menace to small children and dogs.

Shirt collars were capable of lift off.

And the velvet jacket wasn't just worn in private, it was in vogue.

Just suppose we kept all that groovy gear in mothballs

and the flash motor in mint condition.

Well, back in the days when the Roadshow was sucking on its dummy,

my TR6 was worth just over £1,300.

Now it's worth £13,000 - a good investment,

and that's what today's Roadshow is all about,

making a smart investment for the future of my son.

And we've found the ideal backdrop,

get an eyeful of the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.

In its day, it was seen by some as brash and ahead of its time,

just too modern for its own good.

70 years on, it's a design icon.

Which leads us to ask, what objects from our recent past should we cherish for the future?

Eric Knowles is already in the groove.

Looking at a gramophone such as this, this is the ultimate desire.

This and an MGB GT was all I ever wanted back in the 1960s.

This particular radio gramophone, to give its proper title I think,

obviously was, was first introduced in 1956.

-Right.

-Am I right?

-Yes, you are.

Good. It is without question a piece of classic design. I mean, people use this term "icons of design"

and this is, as it's revolutionary for its age. Back in 1956,

nobody had ever seen anything quite like it, and what made it special

was the fact that it had got this Perspex cover.

I mean, this is Space Age in every shape and form.

But I want to know how long you've been playing with it.

Well, I bought it in '65 from a shop in London called Imhoff's.

It was opposite then the new Centre Point.

-Oh, yes.

-And we bought it from there cos we saw it and loved it, and the very same thing,

we thought it was such a marvellous design and it was something you wanted to cuddle almost.

It seems silly, but it's so lovely, and then, we've had it since then.

-It's been in the loft for 30 years now.

-Oh, what a shame.

It is, yes, but if now, this was 100 watts a channel,

and stereo, I'd take all my hi-fi out and put this back because I like it so much.

-It's the bee's knees.

-Yes.

-What's always made it endearing to me

is the fact that it's always been referred to as Snow White's Coffin,

for obvious reasons. Doesn't it? But shall we just have a quick,

-quick look inside. It's Spartan, isn't it?

-It is.

Um, there's no waste of space here.

First of all, let's extol the virtues of the maker Braun.

I mean, Braun lead the way here and everybody else followed.

What I find interesting on your turntable,

you've got 16 revolutions, 33 and 45. Well, 45 ruled the '60s.

It ruled the '70s. 16, what do you use 16 for?

-Mainly speech LPs and plays and things like that.

-Right.

Very few produced, but it was there.

OK, now, the big question is, what did you pay for it?

I think it was 79 Guineas with the speaker.

A lot of money in 1965.

We couldn't afford the stereo version.

No, that was a month's wages and more.

-Yes.

-OK, well, today,

its value is nearer £300.

I've got to say that around about 10 years ago, they were making around about £400, £500.

-It depends very much on the actual model. This is an SK...

-55.

-55.

-And I think value does depend on the actual model itself.

-Yes, exactly, yes.

So if we were saying £300 today, what are we going to say in 30 years?

This is the bit where I wish I was working alongside Mystic Meg,

but I dare say that you'd be looking probably nearer £1,000 in 30 years.

I'll tell you what, let's make an arrangement now.

We will meet here at the De La Warr Pavilion

in 30 years, and we'll see how wrong, or how right, I might be.

I'd love to do that. I don't think we will, but I'd love to.

I'm forever the optimist.

When I see that Biba logo, it sort of brings back

the whole of my teenage years. And opening up the catalogue,

there we see one of those terribly evocative photographs,

but also, what's even better, of course you've got the real thing.

Now, who is the Biba nut? Sorry, this is a colloquial term, we're amongst friends.

Well, probably both of us, but my sister was the one who introduced me to it,

because she used to go up to London and...

-So you were the older sister?

-Yeah.

-OK, so...

-We shared a bedroom so...

Oh, say no more.

But for any girl of our age...

-Absolutely.

-..it was THE destination, Saturday morning, off you'd go and...

-It certainly was, yes.

-Tell me your reminiscences actually of the shop itself, describe it to me.

Well, my reminiscences were first of the Kensington Church Street branch where...

it was so atmospheric. I mean, um, I was into Art Nouveau,

and it's all very much in tune with that.

Exactly. They ended up, of course, in Derry & Toms

-in Kensington High Street, which was this shrine really...

-It really was, yes.

..to girlie consumerism. It was a real destination. I mean,

they had cafe, they had homewares,

-they had a whole floor devoted to the sort of kasbah scene...

-That's right.

..with Moroccan and Turkish artefacts and so on, and of course, make-up.

-This is what...a cake tin?

-Yes, I mean, I just loved it because it was

that sort of 1930s style that I loved, um, and just the colours.

I think the colours together, the gold and black

-and the red, are just perfect.

-And terribly brave at that stage.

-Yes.

We are looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, when we all know about Art Deco and about

the colour schemes that were used, but actually in the '60s, this was really cutting edge, really new.

It was, because, er, I think in the '60s, everything was very modern and it was going back to that sort of...

-you know, era that you know, very much in the past.

-Exactly.

-And had been swept away really.

Exactly, this was the era when everybody was burning their Victorian furniture on bonfires, you know,

and Barbara Hulanicki, who started Biba in 1964, went right against the trends because she was,

she was using these dusty pinks, these plums,

dark browns, greys, and I think she described it as "aunty colours,"

the sort of things perhaps your maiden aunt would be wearing.

And I mean, the coat is fabulous,

and that's what I call traditional Biba style, what they set out to do,

and this is obviously much more...

Yes, psychedelic, because I was kind of into that at the time

-and this was the closest they did to the wilder patterns.

-Exactly.

-That's why I went for it really.

-Exactly.

Now, we've got lots of memorabilia here. I want to know...

-how sad is it?

-Yes.

How sad is it that somebody here...

keeps a bag, with the receipt...

I didn't know the receipt was still on it until I fetched that out.

-I don't believe you for a moment! Well, it's 26th June 1974.

-I know.

And I can look that up in my diary, because every time I went to London, I had to go to Biba's,

-it was just...

-It was a pilgrimage, wasn't it?

-It was, and I had to buy something,

-and I just kept them because they were too lovely to throw away.

-Absolutely.

I mean, as far as value's concerned, prices vary you know, from...

perhaps £30 or so, £40 perhaps for a catalogue,

up to £100, £150, maybe £200 for a simple piece of clothing...

-Right.

-..to something perhaps a little bit more for, for the coat that you've got on.

But how much was the biscuit tin originally?

Well, there we go, originally 40p.

Er, today, I would have thought...£15.

-Really?

-I think if you, if you ever decide that you want to add to the collection,

you will find plenty of venues out there which will enable you to feed your habit.

Thank you very much.

Well, it's a sunny but windy day here in Bexhill,

so I'm very glad you brought your heater.

Perhaps we can turn it on.

-And it works.

-It works, even better. But why have you brought your heater?

Because it was a wedding present to us when we were married in 1961.

-Right.

-Having met up there in the ballroom on the dance floor.

-So you met in this building?

-Yes. In 1959, yes.

-Across a crowded room, our eyes met.

-And it's been wonderful ever since.

-Wonderful, hasn't it?

-Yes.

-So, this heater comes into your life

-when you get married in, what was it, 1961?

-Yes.

And were you modernists?

Well, we actually had no furniture at all really apart from bits like this, so I think we were modernists.

-I was, I'm not sure that Richard was.

-We had to be minimalists, we couldn't afford anything else.

-So, minimalism is to do with having no money.

-Yes.

-When you're first married.

-Yes.

-A new definition.

This is an iconic object of that period, this is very much the contemporary look,

spiky legs and all that sort of thing.

It has that sort of Space Age feel about it, and this is a very collectable object,

they're not rare, they fetch anything from £50 to £150,

depending on condition and colour. There were different colour ways, and it's just nice that you have it,

you still use it, and it links so precisely to the building.

It is the style that was outrageous in the 1930s,

by the 1950s and '60s had become in a sense accepted, But the great thing is,

-this is a record of coming together here.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-It does go very well with the building, doesn't it?

-When you see it here.

-It's the perfect setting.

-Perfect setting.

If you can, cast your mind back to 1977. If you can't, ask your dad.

As I recall, it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee,

Virginia Wade won Wimbledon, and Star Wars was on its way to becoming one of the top films of all time.

But apart from the birth of the Antiques Roadshow, what was telly up to in 1977?

And time to come alive with some hit music and jive on this week's Top of the Pops!

Did you know you can do multiplication sums on your fingers?

-This may look like an ordinary piece of corrugated iron.

-..France!

Here is the news from the BBC.

I loved him, loved his music.

# Are you lonesome tonight?

# Do you miss me... #

Elvis Presley will still be the king of rock and roll to me,

-he really and truly will.

-# ..we drifted apart... #

Hello and welcome to "Ask Aspel".

Five thousand and fifty.

OK, girls, let's get to the, to the bottom of this.

Tell me how you got started, because we are surrounded by...

-well, it's sort of Starsky & Hutch heaven really, isn't it?

-It is for us.

What was the first thing you bought?

That would be the Starsky doll, and notice the cardigan.

-I am noticing that cardigan.

-It was knitted by my mother in 1975.

-Sheer devotion, sheer devotion.

-And did she knit you that one at the same time?

-No, my friend here knitted this one.

-And who made the jacket?

I made the Hutch jacket, yes, matches the Hutch doll.

-So... So, you became, this is not your life. You have more lives.

-No.

Yes, we do have lives, yes.

But you, you share this extraordinary passion for Starsky and Hutch?

-We do.

-We do.

-So there you were, glued to the TV sets every, what was it, Wednesdays it went out?

-Saturday.

-Saturday, yeah. Time flies.

That was repeats on the Wednesdays.

-And they were a complete phenomenon really from day one, weren't they?

-Yes, they were, yes.

To put it into context, there weren't any similar hard-hitting detective series at that time.

-No.

-And at one point, I think that the censors were getting really worried about Starsky and Hutch

-because it was too violent.

-It was.

-We think of it as kind of...

-things made for kids, but it wasn't, was it?

-No.

-Well ahead of its time.

-Absolutely, serious issues.

-Yes, prostitution, drug addiction.

-Yes.

-And yet the nub of the show, the friendship between the two men, is what made it so long lasting.

And they were good looking.

-I know it's a minor point, but...

-Not for me it wasn't.

-I know.

-I have to say, he was my favourite.

-Oh!

-Yes.

-Fifty-fifty...

-So, tell me, you said that you bought this at the time,

were you both buying at the time?

I was, I was buying quite avidly, my poor mum, she had to spend so much money,

but we bought them, the magazines which were monthly,

-the bubble gum cards.

-The bubble gum cards.

-Yeah.

So you were collecting from the start, and were you also?

Well, I'm a bit older, so it wasn't quite right for a mature woman,

22 I think, to collect at that time, but I did go and buy the magazines.

-Right.

-Because those are, those were so special

and every month more pictures, more letters, more stories.

-And I can see he touched this page.

-Yes.

-It's signed.

I mean, there are some things here that one sees relatively regularly.

The Corgi toys, something that you see, and some of these games turn up.

-I must say, there are some things that are rarer, this for instance I, I don't remember seeing.

-Yes.

I mean, when one's talking about, um, valuing a collection like this,

I guess value is kind of not what it's about.

It's priceless to us. Priceless, yes.

But I mean, the price for instance that Corgi...

-This one.

-The, the Torino there with the sort of spread-eagled guy, I mean that varies between about £100

and £250 on the internet depending on which day you're looking and I mean the great thing is,

because there is an international fan base, that a collection like this

is going to go up in value, more and more people are going to become fans.

This was a time of innocence, not having to worry about your mortgage or your children or anything else,

just whether your mum was going to give you enough money to buy a Starsky and Hutch magazine.

Who can ask more from a collection than to do that?

Than to take you back to a time when you were happy and carefree and were just looking forward to the next...

-to the next programme.

-Yes.

-I don't suppose either of you can remember the theme tune.

-The theme tune, let me see.

-Give it a go?

THEY HUM THE STARSKY AND HUTCH THEME TUNE

I feel very comfortable sitting here.

I feel I could spend a long time chatting around this table.

Is this something you use a lot?

We have used it a lot in the past, particularly sort of family dinners, things like that.

This I think is interesting because we've got a whole ensemble...

here, sideboard, chairs, table, and it's becoming extremely fashionable,

retro furniture, but you said you've had it for quite a long time. So, when did you get it?

In the late 1950s, leading up to 1960, when we got married.

We were working in London at the time and places like the Design Centre in the Haymarket

and Libertys, they were all the sort of places we tended to visit

and, um, the sort of teak and stainless steel look was, was coming in at that time.

We decided we wanted it and ordered it at a local store in Maidstone, and they got it for us.

-Fantastic. So you were very design conscious when you were, when you were young?

-Yes.

And did you know when you bought this set that it was designed in 1959?

I don't think we knew that at the time but I'm a retired architect now and at the time,

people like John and Sylvia Reid, who were the designers,

we were aware that sort of thing was going on.

But I think it's worth looking at what really makes it so interesting as a design.

-You've got this lovely oval table, and it extends?

-It does, yes.

-So, how many leaves does it have?

-One.

-It's got a centre leaf, which is stored underneath.

-But it makes a very elegant shape,

it's very much of its period, isn't it? This sort of modern, simple,

streamlined shape, and then the chairs are very simple...

metal legs as the table, and this sort of slightly geometrical elliptical shape to the back.

-Yes.

-And it's interesting I think picking up the metal legs, that really is a pre-Second World War

feature that came in through Bauhaus and so on, but also this kind of back

-really is looking to Danish or Scandinavian design as well.

-Yes.

So that you're really combining the two elements

of German modernism and Scandinavian humanism, if you like, in the shape.

So, let's move over here and see what we've got behind it.

Because also getting a whole ensemble in terms of design was something relatively new for...

when I say ordinary people rather than the kind of aristocratic design...

commissions of the 18th and 19th Century, and the little stool here.

-The chairs have been reupholstered at some point?

-Yes.

-And this is the original fabric.

-Right, yes.

There is the manufacturer's label - Stag,

and you mentioned John and Sylvia Reid, and they were the modern designers for Stag,

but what's also interesting is to look at the kind of construction, because it's

not the very highest engineering quality, it's quite simple, isn't it?

-This was the accessible face of the new design.

-Yes, yes.

And the sideboard here too, er,

stylish little pulls here, I like that, the cutlery drawer inside.

Can you remember what you paid for it?

No, we've been trying to think of that, it's almost impossible to think back to those times.

It was probably...

sort of £30 or £40 type of money,

which was a lot then when we weren't earning that much.

For a while this kind of thing, as I'm sure you know, was completely out of fashion, nobody wanted it at all,

and now it's becoming much, much more fashionable, but it's still up and down, if you,

if you look on internet sites, you can probably find a set of chairs for, I don't know, £100.

Elsewhere, I've seen a set of dining sets just like this one,

in nice condition, as this is, going for...

at auction this is, er, about £850.

And the sideboard, you might be lucky and buy one for around £200,

or you might have to spend at auction £600. So, it's still one of those markets

which is very, very fluid, but I think it's going to become much more fashionable in the future

as people begin to see how comfortable it is to live with,

-how simple the designs are, how elegant the designs are.

-I don't know if the children will want it, but...

Oh, well, you convince them that this is, this is the new Chippendale and you'll be away.

So, we've got 30 years of the Antiques Roadshow

and 30 years of the Star Wars saga of course, this being the 6th film.

You were presumably a fan as a child?

Yeah, just really never seen anything like it before really.

So this being an actually quite important poster,

do you know why this is such an interesting poster?

Their name, they changed the name at the last minute from "revenge" to "return".

That's it, I think they felt, that George Lucas felt that revenge

wasn't something that a Jedi should really have. So a little bit un-Jedi like, so they changed it.

-The other interesting thing about this poster is that it's probably one of the most faked movie posters.

-Yes.

And there are three pointers that I tend to look at. One of the very recent reproductions was actually

effectively taken from one of the folded posters, so you have to look very closely at the fold marks

to make sure that through the actual fold there aren't other marks

within the poster. That will indicate it's a reproduction.

The other side of it is the fact that the "Star Wars"

running along here is quite often in orange and not this yellow.

-And there's a little red line at the top.

-Oh, right, OK.

Yeah? And then the Fox logo is normally slightly blurry

-on some of the reproduction posters.

-The one in the corner?

In the bottom corner, yes.

And sometimes it's a much darker blue.

So we haven't got fold lines,

we've got a solid black, a nice light blue,

and a yellow here across the "Star Wars".

My feeling is that it's based on that,

and that they're the normal hallmarks of it being a reproduction or a fake.

-I think this is brilliant, I think it's absolutely correct.

-Oh, good.

But it's also very good news from the financial side of it as well, because I don't know what you paid for it.

I paid around just short of 100.

Well, if it was a fake, I think you'd have been looking around sort of £10,

-it's purely decorative value.

-As little as that?

-Yeah.

But an authentic one like this,

I can see fetching anything from sort of £250, £300, maybe a little more.

It's a sort of notorious poster, it's an iconic poster,

Darth Vader of course, you know, featuring large is a good thing.

-And I don't know if you've noticed this, have you ever looked at the light sabres?

-The wrong way round.

They are the wrong way round, exactly, it's another interesting feature.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Now, I was around in the 1970s, and I think I was reasonably up to date, you know, fairly pacey,

I never had an LED watch, I don't know why,

just never sort of grabbed me, but obviously it's grabbed you.

When I was a kid in the late '70s, me dad bought me a cheap LED watch that I used to, of a night,

lie under the bed sheets, pressing the button till it wore out looking at the red LED glowing,

but then I realised that with these watches, they are quite collectable, the early models, so...

So, when did you start again?

Well, it was about ten years ago, I bought a fashion magazine,

I was flicking through the article and there was a picture of an Omega LED watch and I thought,

"I remember when I was a kid owning one of them watches,"

so I thought, seemed a good thing to collect, so I started to go back as a kid and collecting them.

So you were going back to your childhood in a sense?

-Yeah, just reminiscing.

-Where did it start? Have you got it here?

-It starts there with...

-That one? The Pulsar?

-Yeah,

the Pulsar P1, that come out in, er, early '72.

Everybody saw that and thought, "God, we'd better make those," so Omega do it, everybody else does it.

Yeah, soon after the Omega was the first European LED watch,

but Pulsar was the first, that was very expensive back in the early '70s to buy.

So what would that cost then?

-2,100 in...

-Gosh, so nearly £1,000.

Yeah, in '72 you would have...

-Which is a huge amount of money.

-Yeah.

-Now, when does it die out?

Um, around about '77, Pulsar closed because the LCD market took over.

But hang on, let's get this story, LED/LCD.

Yeah, Light Emitting Diode, LED, LCD - Liquid Crystal Display.

-Sure.

-And the battery life was a lot longer, whereas the LED...

-This is a short period in watch history?

-Yes, six years and it was pretty much done with.

-And then it's all over.

-Then it was all over.

-When I look at them now, I missed it at the time, like I missed quite a lot of the '70s I think...

-Yes.

..but I can see now what it is, you know, it has a very, very strong statement about its period,

-about its time, and that's why they're collectable.

-Yes.

They have that wonderful resonance of when they were made.

You wear them very much making a style statement.

Well, it's not often I wear a watch because...

-A watch...

-Oh, this one's...

This is a Girard Perregaux Sideview LED watch.

That sounds expensive.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the watches,

-you know, big watch companies, did make the...

-Yes.

-..and GP was a company that made 'em.

-What do you pay for them now?

Well, I mean, the high end ones, I mean a lot of the, like the P1

or the Tiffany & Co calculators, they're very difficult to come by so...

-So this was 2,000 when it was new?

-Yeah.

-What is it now?

Well, if you was to find one in the box with the magnet,

it's got a gold magnet, it's gone as high as 17,500.

-17,000?

-Dollars, yes. 17,500.

So it really is the gold dust in...

Oh, it is, the Pulsar P1 is...

-But how many have you got?

-Around about 85 watches.

-And more to come?

-Well, there's a few key pieces I want,

but if they do come up for sale, there's a lot of collectors...

Does it cause domestic stress?

Well, she's got you know, many pairs of shoes, so she can't complain.

-But this is a bit more expensive.

-Now, this is a very important thing to tell the nation,

-us men collectors have to fight back.

-Yeah. Exactly.

-The only other thing I'd like to say is,

-I think those are great, and Andrew Grima...

-Yes.

..was a fantastic '70s jeweller,

he had a wonderful shop in Jermyn Street I think with a very stylish front,

it disappeared, the style went out, so I think in 30 years,

I don't know that I'd be collecting these watches,

but I'd certainly be picking the ones by great designers.

-Exactly.

-Thank you.

-Thanks very much.

The Sunday Times Magazine, September 11th 1977,

and the headline is, or the baseline should I say, "The King is Dead,"

and here's a fantastic picture of Elvis.

The Sunday Times was renowned for its fantastic photographic covers, but something else happened in 1977

of which we all here are all part of, which was the birth of the Antiques Roadshow.

So, how many of these things have you got?

We've got them all around us.

Well, I started collecting them in 1970 at the very beginning.

-Right.

-So I've got over 1,800 copies.

That's quite incredible.

Why did you start? Do you just like hoarding paper?

No, I don't think it was a decision that I just said, "I will keep them,"

I just happened to start keeping them, then I had a reason to keep them,

which was that we were due to have our first child at the end of 1970,

so I thought, here's something that might reflect

the period that she was born into, and thereafter.

-A sort of cabinet of curiosities.

-That's right.

-I think it's absolutely fantastic.

-This is particularly grim, they do quite a lot on Cambodia, don't they?

-Yes, all the world's hot spots...

And here's another lovely one with John Lennon,

"Ticket to Ride, unseen pictures of The Beatles

-"when they won the Wild West".

-Yes.

A very nostalgic picture there, and this of course I think is,

is quite remarkable, um,

photography in the womb, and this is how it appears

on the front of the Sunday Times Magazine

for September 16th 1990.

So, how much do you think you've spent over the years?

Well, it currently costs about £2 a copy, I suppose if you average it over 37 years,

it might be £1, so we're talking about £1,800.

£1,800. Does your wife resent it?

No, of course not.

And last, but by no means least, the, the chinful wonder

who we've all come to know and love,

who now presents the Antiques Roadshow, and this dates from 1970.

-Yes.

-This is Michael Aspel 37 years ago, not a grey hair in sight.

-No.

"Listen to what Michael Aspel has to say about

"the world's greatest work of reference."

And you get a free disc with it, it's quite incredible.

I mean, all these ones here,

-they're so exciting I could actually sit down and read them all over again.

-It's a good read.

-It's like a dentist's waiting room gone mad, isn't it?

-That's where I collected them from!

And to think that all these years,

I've been putting them out for the recycling,

but they are, and you're quite right, I can see it, they are a sort of,

a chronicle of the time we live in.

Well, I do know that over the internet,

certain numbers, you know, things, an Elvis number,

would certainly go for £10 or £15.

-I would imagine that Charles and Di would do the same, wouldn't it?

-Yes.

-But I think that you've got £5,000 worth I reckon.

-Very good.

These two lovely watercolours by Mary Fedden, are you a fan of hers?

Yes, I am, really on both occasions you know,

they more or less jumped off the wall of the gallery

and I decided in a matter of minutes that I would buy 'em.

And did you buy these in the years that they were painted, 1999,

-and 1998?

-No. No.

In each case I bought them about two years, I must be the second owner.

-She's a wonderful artist and very much in vogue now because she was born in 1915.

-Yes.

-And she's still painting as we're talking now.

-Yes, yes.

And lives in London and she was married to Julian Trevelyan, another artist.

Yes, I know she was married to Julian Trevelyan and she didn't paint very much during that time.

What is so interesting at the moment, the way the market taste has changed,

at the moment, people love these sort of modern images,

it's very whimsical this one on the right.

Yes, it's almost allegorical I think.

-Wonderful, and the one on the left here looks a bit Cornish.

-Yes.

-Do you know where it was painted?

-It was painted, it's called Lostwithiel.

-Is it?

-So, er, I assume it was painted there,

it was in a period when she was ill and she'd gone to Cornwall

to recuperate after this illness

and I think she painted a little bit, but not very much.

The one on the left here is a watercolour and actually it's got a bit of gouache on there,

heightened with gouache, and the one on the right here is watercolour with gouache, mixed media really.

She's actually an important artist now and as these artists get older, people are looking at their work,

-and certainly Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan, and they're considered very important British artists.

-Yes.

She taught at the Royal College of Art.

-Mm.

-She did murals for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

-Oh, right.

-Yeah.

-I didn't know that.

-And you know, she is considered important today.

-Mm.

What did you pay for these?

-Er, I think I paid about £1,500 for this one.

-Yeah.

And I paid about £3,000 for this one.

Well, what is interesting about what you paid for them then, and what's happened now, because,

-in the 21st Century, the taste has gone very much for the modern and also onto abstract artists.

-Yes.

-Right up to the contemporary with her...

-Yes.

And she has also gained huge popularity in the last few years.

The one on the left here is certainly worth...

in auction today £5,000 to £7,000.

-Yes.

-At least.

-Mm.

The one down here, on the right, I think is most unusual for her,

I'm sure you've seen many of her still life paintings.

Oh, yes, I have, a lot of you know, bowls of flowers in windows...

-Absolutely, and these...

-..and cats and, er...

-These are out of the ordinary for her, aren't they?

-They're different subject matter.

-Yes, they are.

So the one on the right here, I think would make certainly £6,000 to £9,000.

Yes.

-Well, I'm not thinking of selling them.

-Good, I think they're a very good investment,

-but you didn't buy them because of that.

-No, I bought them because I liked them.

There are many times on the Roadshow where I'm confronted by a collection that...

stops me in my tracks, this is one of them.

This is the crown jewel in the camera world I think, for me, I have never seen a collection of Nikons like this

in one place at one time and I suspect I'm very unlikely to ever see a collection like this again.

Where have they all come from? What started you off?

Owning a Praktica 35 years ago.

-A Praktica?

-Yes.

-You see to me, that's a real workhorse, isn't it, that's the basic of basic cameras.

They were great cameras, I mean you could knock nails in wood, but...

having said that, they weren't very good, very reliable and the picture quality wasn't all it could be,

so, er, and the next step was to buy something half way decent,

-which was a Nikon F.

-A Nikon F.

Well, let's look at the history a little bit of Nikon because

-the company started as a manufacturer of military lenses and things, didn't it?

-Yes.

There was something like 25 factories, with 23,000 people working for Nippon Kogaku,

-which means the Japanese optical industry.

-Right. And in that period,

they were producing for mainly gun sites, all kind of optical instruments for military use,

but the end of the war came, and the allies forbid them

to produce anything for military purposes.

They were virtually bankrupt at the end of the Second World War,

and they were looking for a market, and the market was cameras, and they went with this product.

To me, when I think of Nikon,

I think of photo journalism, and we've got the F Series.

Well, the F has become a legend. It came out in 1959,

and has photographed every major incident around the world. It was there when Kennedy was shot,

-it was there when man walked on the moon.

-Let's pick out an F series.

Um, there are various ones, this one for instance,

a very early F, very basic.

Photo journalists wanted to use these cameras,

they were a good robust camera, the main people that we know, people like Tim Page,

photographers in the Vietnam War used these kind of cameras and would often say they were bullet proof.

-They were.

-I don't know how many Nikon Fs saved people's lives.

Quite a few, I've seen a few pictures of Nikon Fs where they've

been hit with a bullet there

-and the camera and the lens has stopped the bullet.

-Really?

-Yes.

-So there is a bit of reality in that.

-Of course, yes.

-It's not just an urban myth.

-And also they were wrapped up in plastic bags after being chased by Viet Cong and,

they were dumped in water and left there for maybe a week sealed in a plastic bag, you know,

with an elastic band around, and picked up later so the photographers would not lose the pictures.

Quite incredible. I'm staggered by this collection,

absolutely staggered. I could talk to you for days

about what is just on this table. Is this the whole collection, or...?

-No?

-No, it's about 5% of what I've got at home.

-5%?

But essentially, if I said there's £150,000 worth on this table,

-I'd be being conservative, would I?

-Very, yes.

-You'd get the half of it probably.

-That's it then! That's enough for me today.

This has got an amazingly ancient look about it.

Yeah, that's because it probably is older than the Dead Sea Scrolls...

Older than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

-Perhaps.

-Well, they were around...nought, weren't they?

-Um, this would be around the Han Dynasty.

-That's right.

Um, like the terracotta figures, a very unusual thing, where did you find it?

Unfortunately, it wasn't in my family, I found it in a flea market

in south east London a few years ago on a Sunday afternoon.

-OK.

-Yes.

-Did they tell you what it was?

Well, it was really unlikely, it was kind of amongst loads of just house clearance things,

and the guy didn't really seem very interested in it and, um,

I'd just finished a part-time archaeology course and my eye was just really intrigued by it.

-Ah, right.

-I knew because it had kind of sandy earth, I presumed it was some type of funeral offering.

-Er, yes, indeed these were grave goods.

-Right.

Almost invariably they were buried and having been dug up,

you get this incrustation and you get all this wonderful colour building up here.

-Is it cast bronze?

-This is, this is cast bronze,

and the copper is coming through,

and that's because of acid attack by the soil.

The thing that worries me is that this would normally be what we call a Bi Disc,

-B-I, which actually has a hole in the middle.

-Yeah, I've seen those.

-You've seen those?

-Yes.

And were they buried under the elbows and above the head?

-They were all over the place.

-Yes.

-And nobody has any idea what they were meant for,

-it's supposed to be for discerning the future and stuff.

-Yeah, I read somewhere when I was researching it,

-the really rich people had like shrouds of jade...

-That's right,

this would have been buried with somebody with, of serious..

-What sort of level of...

-Oh, serious, highly important official.

-Like a priest?

-Probably not a priest,

but a highly important official would have this.

Now, how much did you pay for it?

Well, he wanted like £50, and I had no money and I bartered him down to 30 quid.

OK, now I'm going to put you out of your misery.

-How old is it?

-Couple of years.

Oh, no! You're joking, are you joking?

-Are you joking?

-I'm not.

-Oh, no!

-I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

-Oh!

-I'm really upset.

-But hang on, I haven't finished yet.

-I haven't finished yet.

-Oh, God, my life's over.

-No, it's not.

-I thought it was important...

-It's not.

-OK.

Listen, we are looking to the future.

-This class of ware, this class of ware is coming from China.

-Mmm.

They are casting it, they are carving it...

-Yes.

-..because they still can afford the skilled craftsmen to do it.

-This is...

-Is it cast from an original?

-No, I don't think so. It's a fantastic bit of work.

-This is my prediction for the future.

-Yes.

-Now, you will not normally hear an expert,

-as so called, predicting that a forgery was something to buy.

-It's like a stab to the heart!

But if you can find that for 30 quid, go out and buy them.

Your children are going to thank you.

-Oh, God!

-Thank you for being so brave.

-Oh, I'm so upset about that.

-I'm sorry.

-I love it though.

-I'll always keep it.

-For 30 quid, I would have bought that...

I'd always envisaged, I thought it was like 2,400 years old...

Listen, if this was real, it would be worth close on a million pounds.

Oh, God! Oh, I love it though, thank you for letting me know about it.

It feels like a real party atmosphere today, here we are in the sunshine at the sea front.

-What we really need's a bit of rock and roll, thank you for bringing it.

-My pleasure.

-So, Rock-Ola, Chicago Company, 1960s jukebox.

-Yes.

Are you a passionate jukebox man?

Jukebox and rock and roll, yes.

-I'd never have guessed!

-No.

So this is one of what, several jukeboxes you've got?

I've got two and I've got a third one on its way.

And a whole lot of records, it looks like.

Hundreds and hundreds.

-So there are what, 50 in here?

-Yes, 50.

-50 in here.

And I mean, the thing about this, which is a small Rock-Ola because you know,

sometimes they're much wider, bigger,

is I suppose this fits into a small, more domestic scene rather than a cafe or a club.

Well, this particular model we used to have in the '60s

in the coffee bars in Tunbridge Wells where I used to live. This model was in all the coffee bars.

-So, that's why I got it, as nostalgia.

-So it takes you right back.

-Right back.

OK, so it's a piece of nostalgia, but it's a valuable piece of nostalgia.

I would have thought today we're talking about £2,000, £2,500.

And I think we ought to just let it play out, when what else could it play us out on, except...

-J9?

-J9.

MUSIC: "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran

Can you jive?

I can.

Well, I think that's what's known as a successful exercise.

We have confirmed that modernism is alive and well and has a great future.

I have to admit to a great affinity with this building, the De La Warr Pavilion,

because we were both dreamed up in the same year.

The difference is, the building still looks exciting.

Many thanks to everyone who helped us with this special edition, and from Bexhill-on-Sea, goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd