Arundel Antiques Roadshow

We've come back to one of the Roadshow's most impressive venues -

Arundel Castle, home of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk.

They've opened their doors to us before, so we know what to expect.

Beginners, please.

It still smells of seaweed. Why's that?

It was actually covered with seaweed and full of silt when I found it

-on the beach last week.

-Oh, right.

And I was out fishing at the time,

came across this, and I thought it was just a clump of seaweed on a rock

and when I actually looked under it,

it was covered with silt up to about that area.

-Right. And then you saw there was a handle and...

-And everything else.

-Great jug! So where was this beach?

-In Littlehampton.

Off the seafront at Littlehampton.

Right, well, did you know what you'd found?

I knew it was some sort of jug, but I thought it was...

-I thought it was a special garden feature.

-Yeah?

-But, er...

But actually what you've found is a medieval jug.

-Right.

-We're looking at a piece here that dates from the 14th century.

-That early?

-That early, yes.

Made probably in Surrey.

What you've got here is some painted decoration,

-which is very distinctive of these English medieval jugs.

-Right.

And because of its sheer size when full, to help use it,

they've put a little spout on there, which is always a nice feature.

Underneath the barnacles, which I'm sure will clean up,

you've got a typical bib of green glaze.

That is glaze, is it? It's not seaweed or anything?

The green colour is natural glaze.

-Right.

-This is barnacles and things

but there's the green glaze of a Surrey type.

-So it's actually local?

-Pretty well local.

-Pretty well local.

Yes, and it's pretty damaged but,

even so, I think after a bit of repair and, and work,

a jug like this is going to be...

-somewhere between £1,000 and £2,000.

-That much?

-That's not bad at all.

-Just to think where it's been all that time.

-This heavy clock - somebody brought it in for you earlier.

-Yes.

So I've had a chance to have a sneak preview, thank goodness, because

it doesn't play very well, but it appears to play God Save the Queen,

-or the King. Is that your...?

-It does, yes.

Right. So, it's a bit of a mystery, to be honest with you.

The dial is wrong.

Mr Fisher, Fisher and Sons, exist...

They were working 1790-1810 and that's probably fairly perfect

for this clock, which was just around the end of the 18th century,

beginning of the 19th century. But the dial has been changed.

-OK.

-And I think, if you look at it

and you look at the beautiful engraving and piercing

of this fretwork and then you look at that dial centre...

-Right.

-It doesn't cut it, does it?

It's a bit crude.

It might have been a painted dial.

-Right, yeah.

-And somebody, perhaps 50 years ago, has thought,

"No, I'm not going to repaint it, I'll make a brass dial to fit."

-Right. OK.

-And I think that's what's happened.

-Right.

So, I have never seen a clock,

to my knowledge... I know it plays several tunes...

that appears to play the National Anthem.

-OK.

-And we adopted the National Anthem, apparently,

sometime after the 1750s.

MUSIC: "God Save The King"

-You're right...

-CLOCK CHIMES

..it is "God Save The King",

as it would have been at this time, George III on the throne,

played on a series of bells with quite an elaborate sort of tune.

But as I've already said, I've never seen that before.

Now, when you look at the movement, and I won't go into any real detail,

the style of the engraving,

the signature which we can just make out behind the bell here,

that's all perfectly OK, and it reinforces what I've said before -

you've got a very fine case,

a very nice movement, beautifully finished,

and this rather crude dial.

So I think...I'm afraid I'm going to have to say conclusively

that that was probably white-painted,

the painting fell apart, and they've changed it to brass.

And to be honest with you, if it was mine,

I think I'd be tempted to repaint the dial.

But, sorry, I haven't asked you where you got it.

It was given to my great uncle, apparently from a titled lady

who came from Plymouth, but I've no other history to it.

OK. Value-wise, despite the dial,

which I think would be quite easily spotted,

it's probably worth something of the order of...

£5,000...

-even with the dial changed.

-Right.

-It's got a certain appeal.

-Very good.

This I like,

and I like it particularly

-because it's not what one might expect it to be.

-Mm.

-Now what it is, is Japanese so-called Satsumaware.

-Yes.

And it would date from around the end of the 19th, early 20th century.

-Yes.

-I don't know if you've got any knowledge of...

-Yes, our grandfather was going to Japan at that time.

-Was he?

So I should think that's it, yes.

He was in Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance.

He was the general manager

-and he travelled to Japan all the time on business.

-Ah.

Well, what you might have expected it to be

is by one of the great makers of Satsuma...

Kinkozan, Yabu Meizan or Ryozan.

-Yes.

-But it ain't.

-No.

-It's by somebody one has seen before but doesn't see very often,

-and his name is here.

-Yes.

Unzan.

-Unzan actually means "cloudy mountain".

-Mm.

-And then you've got the Satsuma mon up here.

-Yes.

And Kyoto. So it's not actually Satsuma,

it's Kyoto, and actually many of the Satsuma factories were in Kyoto.

-Yes.

-It's decorated, breathtakingly,

with scenes of warriors in a landscape

and a panel here of a painter.

-He's painted this screen of a dragon.

-Yes.

-And all the characters are coming to life.

-Ah. Fascinating.

-Yeah, that's what's going on here.

-I see, yeah.

And it's separated by this fantastic dragon here.

-Dragon, yes.

-But the bit I love...

These spuming waves are just magical,

absolutely superbly done. Now...

-I didn't notice. I didn't look at it closely enough.

-You haven't?

Well, people don't, you know, nobody looks at their own objects.

Where does it sit at home?

It usually sits on a bookcase in the sitting room.

OK, and who dusts it?

-We do.

-Seldom.

-Right, ah, that's what I want to hear.

Seldom dusting is what I like.

-No cats?

-No!

-No pussy cats, no.

I mean it is in stonkingly good condition

-and it's a wonderful vase.

-Yes.

And I think it would probably make around...

£2,000 to £4,000.

-Would it really? My goodness, yes.

-Wonderful!

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you so much.

Reading these articles,

it's quite clear that this picture scares some people rigid.

Yes, it does, indeed. I mean, it scared a few of our friends.

When we moved house,

and friends came to the house, our friends said,

"You've got that man here again."

Friends do think that his eyes do follow them, definitely.

And you think it might also be haunted.

-Yes, I do.

-Because certainly the

-information that you've handed me suggests that he is.

-Yes.

But before we come to that,

let's talk about the man himself. Do you know anything about him?

Yes, his name's John Whiteley,

but he's otherwise known as John Almighty.

And you can see here that he's the lynx-eyed thief-catcher general...

And...yes, indeed.

For Halifax in 1832.

His followers at the time painted this painting for him.

He was a local dignitary, a local landlord.

He married the local landlady

of The Star public house in Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire.

-He started up a preaching group within the pub.

-Nice one!

-Yeah.

-So, pulled pints and gave religion!

-And a religious preacher as well.

But the picture has a little bit of a past

and it worries people and it haunts people.

-Have you been haunted by it yourself, did you say?

-We have.

When it hung in our Yorkshire cottage my husband and I were downstairs

and recently had our daughter who was three months old asleep in bed,

well, in her cot, and we had the baby monitor on.

Everything was very quiet and suddenly we heard Brahms' Lullaby

being sung over the monitor, and I was really quite frightened.

-I bet you were.

-I sent my husband immediately up the stairs,

I couldn't go up myself,

and I said, "I'll just stay down here and continue to listen,"

and the moment he got to the top of the stairs, it stopped.

I tiptoed and got to the very top stair opposite the bedroom,

and, as my foot touched the landing, the music stopped immediately.

-That's spooky.

-It was spooky.

And reading the articles back here

about the history of the picture, when it used to hang in the pub,

-clearly it's got a haunted past as well.

-It has.

Oh, yes, yeah. There are newspaper clippings there

from the 1950s and this is when the locals starting hearing songs

mysteriously coming about.

-Much like your experience.

-Much like ours.

-Yes.

Well, this is fascinating.

I reckon there's a reason why people think it's haunted, although having

said that, when I touched the glass earlier on, the glass broke.

-It did.

-It did.

-Haunted or what?

-Must be.

About this time, portraiture is very formal,

we're talking about the 1830s and '40s.

Regency glamour is beginning to subside and it's very stiff,

but here we've got a meritocrat,

someone who's not part of society as we know it,

he's a concentrated eccentric, one might say a brilliant weirdo,

so it's allowed the portrait painter, who is no great painter,

-let's face it...

-No.

-And the condition is not great either.

It's a primitive work but it's allowed a little bit of chuckle,

a bit of mirth, and as a result, the character presents itself,

it almost exudes a bit more.

Eyes following you round the room... You've heard of that, we all have.

-Yes.

-This is the type of picture, because the artist is not working

within the harness of society, that sort of reaches you.

It doesn't surprise me at all

that this has got a haunted past, or a haunted association.

It's an unusually characterful work

by a primitive painter who hasn't any of the constraints

that society portrait painters normally suffer from.

Presented with that history, in that frame, with all those ghosts

batting around the place, I'd value it at around about £2,500.

-Thank you very much.

-Yes, OK.

This is a fantastic example of modern political correctness

allied to Victorian commercial expediency.

-Really?

-I'll explain all this later, but what do you know about it?

Well, my grandmother purchased it in a junk shop

in Greenwich in the early 1920s.

Right, I imagine that was a good hunting ground.

I would think it was a very good hunting ground,

and she didn't know what was inside it.

You obviously know what's inside,

I've obviously had a quick look, but let's look together.

And it is spectacular!

Row upon row

of tiny butterflies with identification numbers,

graduating down

to larger butterflies - wonderful colour, wonderful condition...

..to the bottom drawer with the largest of all.

Now, why I say

it's politically correct is, of course, they're not butterflies.

They're made of paper,

they are not actual butterflies, and these were taken from a book

printed in England in the middle of the 19th century, about 1850-1855,

of British butterflies and moths.

They were cut out of the book and coloured after.

-They're lithographs.

-Oh, my goodness.

So it's English book printing paper.

-Oh, right.

-With a lithograph print and later hand-coloured.

So some enterprising entrepreneur somewhere had these books

or had the pages printed and was able to supply any number

of aspiring Victorian gentleman naturalists

without having to go to the trouble of finding butterflies.

The case that it's in is also English but it's decorated to look

-like a Japanese lacquer casket.

-Yes.

Because so many of the painted butterflies were Oriental,

on rice paper, and it's quite

a common decorative and fashionable finish

of the period. It's charming.

My guess is that to a decorative antiques dealer it's worth somewhere

-in the region of £800.

-Really?

Might try and sell it for a bit more, but not a lot.

No.

I think one of those bits of

information that everybody has in school days - I certainly did,

and I'm sure you did - is that

penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming.

-Yes, very much so.

-Graham Bell did the telephone.

-Yes.

-And Fleming did penicillin.

But this material all seems to relate to Fleming,

so where do you fit into the Fleming story?

Well, my father went to work directly from school at the tender age of 14

in the Inoculation Department of St Mary's Hospital,

-where Fleming was working too, as a bacteriological researcher.

-Right.

And my father stayed there until he retired in 1967.

So what date did he join?

It would have been in 1921.

Right, at a very early age indeed.

-Just before penicillin was discovered.

-Right.

-Penicillin, I think, is 1928 or something?

-That's right, yes.

So he was actually there when this great discovery was made?

Initially very much as a general boy, cleaning and that sort of thing,

but in due course, he qualified as a medical laboratory technician...

-Yes.

-And he became a technical assistant to Fleming.

And did he talk about that moment of discovery?

Well, I don't think he was so

much conscious at that time, he was still fairly young,

but it did become part of his life after that.

So it wasn't a "eureka" moment?

I don't think so. Well even for

Fleming it wasn't, really, because it wasn't recognised for about 10 years.

-Yes.

-It was very difficult to

extract the penicillin from the mould itself that produced the penicillin.

-Right.

-And initially they could only produce little odd amounts,

just enough to experiment on terminal patients, and so that,

at least, did have some effect.

-So which is Fleming?

-Fleming is here.

-Is your father in this?

-No, this is just the doctors.

-Because he was too junior?

-Very much so.

-He didn't make the cut?

-No.

-So, that's Fleming?

-That's Fleming.

-OK. And this is Fleming again, isn't it?

This is a portrait, actually endorsed

in original by Fleming to my father.

That's - "To Dan, with best wishes".

-Yes.

-So, it was a sort of acknowledgement of his help?

-Oh, very much so, yes.

-Very much so.

I have an original mould here which is endorsed by Fleming on the back.

-Hang on, so this is the culture?

-That is what the mould looks like.

Fleming was a very untidy man.

And he used to experiment on what are called Petri dishes,

and he went off on holiday one day

leaving a large quantity of these lying around unwashed.

And when he came back, he happened

to look at them and he found that several of them had got odd moulds

something like this on them, and all around the bacteria had been cleared.

-So it was pure chance?

-It was pure chance.

Now, I think we all know the impact of penicillin really, was in WWII.

-Very much so.

-I mean suddenly, ghastly wounds, gunshot wounds

-and so on, could be cured.

-Yes.

"The mould that produced penicillin, Alexander Fleming 1951".

-That's correct.

-So this must be a very rare thing?

It is a very rare thing.

-One was sold at auction for £20,000.

-Good God!

I'm fully aware that with auctions it's up and down,

-you need two people...

-I think all we can say

-is that it's a very valuable, very rare item.

-Yes.

And if you were concerned with medical history,

a piece of the original culture,

endorsed by Fleming, it must be the gold bar - there is nothing like it.

-Are you keeping it?

-Yes.

-Good.

We were thinking of selling, but my son said,

-"You will not!"

-I think he's got the right idea.

So thank you, tell him to hang on to it, this is great history.

-Yes, that's right.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Do you know, I'm tempted to describe this classical female

as a fine figure of a woman.

Yes, I'm sure.

And she's actually looking into

a mirror and I can see from this side, it actually is a mirror.

-I know.

-Incredible! But the detail is fabulous.

So it begs the question - how long has she been reflecting,

and is she a member of your family for some time?

Well, I've grown up with it really,

and when my grandmother died, the ornaments were dispersed.

-Yes.

-And I got these two.

-You lucky lady.

-I'm very lucky.

Very lucky lady.

From an anatomical point of view, she's very, very well carved.

-Isn't she?

-It's, you know, taking the figure into account,

she's patinated bronze,

which is in lovely condition,

and the ivory is good also. These figures, their value is affected

by cracks that often appear,

so be careful with air conditioning and suchlike.

But it's a bit of a compromise, as you've got this classical maiden,

and then you've got this fabulous Art Deco base.

So we're obviously talking 1930s

with something like this, and it's in Brazilian green onyx, OK?

Now I can't pretend to be psychic,

-but if there's a signature on this piece - and there is?

-Yes, there is.

-OK. I bet your life it says "F Preiss".

-Yes, yes!

-Ferdinand Preiss.

-You're on.

Well, she's a fine looking lady and she's probably going to be worth

somewhere in the region of around about £4,000 or £5,000.

-Really?

-Nothing to you people in Arundel, nothing to you people in Arundel!

But as much as I like this girl, I like the twins.

Now let's have a look at this clock,

because this is where we've got a connection between this catalogue,

which is for Phillips and McConnell,

who were the fine art galleries in New Bond Street.

But just looking through, I had a sneaky look and I noticed

that here, we've got a very similar clock.

Not identical but, I mean, I think obviously you had a choice of dial,

but the geometry of the thing is an absolute joy, isn't it?

But having looked at this, as I say, I can't find a signature,

so we're looking at Ferdinand Preiss here,

but here we've got nothing to go by, but...

I make a bee line for the feet, and I check out...

I could have been a podiatrist in a previous life, because

you check out for the toenails, and they're so exquisitely carved.

And I'm looking at the faces and the technique with the eyes is very,

very similar to the work of Preiss.

I can't see this being anybody else at the moment but Ferdinand Preiss.

Who was he? Who was Ferdinand Preiss?

He was quite an interesting character.

He was basically taking an art that had been established

in Germany and in Bavaria, in the way of ivory carving

throughout centuries, really bringing it up to date.

I mean, you would find that the characters were

usually so typical of their age.

These girls, they've got bobbed hair,

so they've got to be sort of 1925-1930 flappers.

By the same token he would often do sort of very Aryan-type subjects,

so you might get sportsmen, tennis players, javelin throwers...

You might even get Amy Johnson, the great aviator of the age.

So the great thing about these figures is they reflect the period.

-You know, from 100 yards away, this is Art Deco, isn't it?

-Yes.

So I think you get a double whammy with the clock -

you get a functional object and you get two very lithe ladies.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see that being estimated somewhere

-in the region of around about £6,000 to £8,000.

-Wow!

Great man, good name.

The minute I saw these lovely milky vellum bindings,

with their original ties, I knew we were in for a bit of fun.

Nobody could do a title page as well as that.

And this is Beowulf and it's designed by Burne-Jones

for William Morris, the Kelmscott Press.

And we've got two Kelmscott Press books

here in absolutely superb condition.

Where did you get them from?

I got them from my godfather, who left them to me in his will.

He'd only had them three years.

He bought them as an investment and then he died,

and left them to my wife and me, and we've treasured them ever since.

And, knowing that they are,

I would say, unique, we've been very reluctant to open them

unless we really had to, because of the fear of damage, even fingers.

Oh, yes, absolutely. Fabulous, fabulous.

-Isn't it wonderful?

-Absolutely fabulous.

-And printed in colours too.

-All in colour.

Red and blue and black,

-but it's so unusual to have the original ties.

-Indeed.

You're very fortunate that we have.

-Why?

-Well, that one in particular,

the ties are getting a little tatty,

and my wife was tempted to replace them.

I don't believe it! You can't go round doing things like that.

-The original ties - I mean, that's incredible.

-Well, all is well,

because she was dissuaded from doing so

and here they are in mint condition, I hope.

Absolutely fantastic. So we've got Beowulf here.

-Beowulf there.

-And this one is signed by William Morris.

-Indeed.

And show me the title page of that one.

This is Love Is Enough.

There it is, quite simply, Love Is Enough, or -

The Freeing of Pharamond: A Morality, written by William Morris.

Yes, it's absolutely superb. Well, I think that's fantastic.

-Now, what about value?

-Oh! Heaven only knows!

We treasure them, but I wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to start.

Well, I think this one, this one which is actually

by William Morris but not signed,

is going to be the best part of £800 to £900,

whereas this one, which is signed by William Morris

and has all the same characteristics

as all his books have, is going to be in the region of £1,500.

Wow! Well, I think my insurer is in for a headache.

Don't tell him, don't tell him!

Not one, not two, but three car mascots.

It's rather like the bus, isn't it?

You can wait for an hour and then suddenly three come along.

And three separate owners for three separate mascots.

Well, let's start with the bird.

-That's mine.

-Tell me about it.

Well, I know very little about it.

I gained custody of it when my husband and I split up,

so I'm very interested to know a bit more about it.

OK, well, the thing they have in common, these car mascots,

is this huge circular button.

You haven't got the radiator cap into which this screws,

but the other two illustrate exactly how that would have happened.

But it also means that we can see that there is a bit of chipping

on here, which we have to take into account when it comes to valuing.

Sadly, some of that chipping

actually eats into the name of the maker.

And the other thing they all have in common

is they are all by the same maker.

Now tell me about yours, because yours is the frog?

I was working on this house and the lady said,

"Clear out the sheds."

And I cleared them out, so it's been in the garage.

And you've kept the original radiator cap?

Well, I thought it was like a...screwed into the bonnet

of the car because it lights up.

It does indeed and if we actually unscrew it here,

let's just do that. There is the place where the electric wire

will pass through into the housing,

and inside the housing there is, or there should be, a little bulb.

And it's under that filter.

But what a shame, look at that, that's really serious damage.

But I suppose once it's inside that housing,

once that goes over the top of it,

-you don't see it.

-You don't, no.

So let's not worry too much about it.

But also on the side of there is the famous name, Lalique.

And then we come to the final

piece de resistance...

not one, but five horses.

Tell me about this one?

Cinq Chevaux, I think it's called.

-Cinq Chevaux, yes.

-It was my aunt's.

I understand it was on a five horse-power Citroen,

which is one of the earliest ones that Lalique made.

-My aunt had this on her mantlepiece and I got a transformer made.

-Yes.

So that she could have it alight in the early evenings.

So even though you haven't got the car,

you've got the whole thing lit up, as it would have been.

But what you've got inside here is a filter, or at least a piece

of two-coloured glass that has the effect of splintering the light,

so it gives you, presumably, a sort of, rather a refracted spooky light.

-Yeah.

-Right. OK, well, I'm going to put you out of your miseries.

The falcon... This magnificent, you know, thrusting along the corniche,

you can see it, can't you, with the light going?

That, in that state, is going to be somewhere of the order of £1,000.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Wow.

That's not too bad, is it?

That's excellent. I didn't even expect...

Well, just didn't, no.

The frog, the much smaller, little baby frog, it is damaged underneath.

If it were in perfect condition, it would be worth a lot more.

But I'm going to say, even in this condition,

we're looking at the region of £3,000 to £5,000.

Cor... I'll throw my tools away!

OK, and what about the five horses?

That is, in fact,

probably the rarest of the trio,

and one is looking at a price

somewhere in the region of £6,000 to £8,000.

In fact, if you all club together, you could buy a car!

Thank you very much.

So would you say bravery runs in the family?

Definitely on my wife's side.

My wife was very brave to marry me,

and she's obviously inherited it from this man here.

This is my wife's grandfather,

-who was awarded a medal for bravery in the field.

-The MM group, exactly.

I mean it's a lovely group of medals here you've got,

and the great thing is, you've got

these bits and pieces that go with it and tell the complete story.

That's right, and we have photographs of him as a young man,

as a man at college...

And what was he actually awarded the medal for?

He was awarded the medal for particular courage

when laying cables under shell fire,

and communications was a very important part in WWI,

between February and August 1916.

I mean, presumably they were blown up on a daily basis almost?

Well, I mean, when one looks at the history of WWI,

-life was very short in those days.

-Exactly.

This is from the War Office - that came with the bravery award,

which illustrates how he got the bravery award.

And we have an invitation from the Mayor of the Ville de Cassel

in France to the victory celebrations.

-How lovely.

-Along with the menu that they sported on that day.

Looks like quite a lunch on that one.

Yes, yes, I've thought of going back there

-and seeing if I could order the same thing.

-This is quite something.

I mean, he's got the war group there

and then the bravery, or the MM medal.

Really with the whole complete package here, it gives

a real insight into what life would have been like.

I mean, you've got the dispatches here...

"Shown particular courage and

"determination while laying cables under heavy shell fire".

Presumably they were telephone cables?

-Yes.

-Which under the heavy barrage of artillery day in, day out,

would have had to have been done

over time and time again, so it really is quite remarkable

what you've got. I mean really, and I know value will be of no interest

to you at all, because to have these is part of your family's history.

But, as a value, you'd put somewhere between £500 and £700 on as a group,

and I'm just delighted to have seen them.

Well, we'd never think of selling them, and particularly

this item here, which incidentally has the Cross of Lorraine on it.

That comes from the earlier Jacobite past of this family,

so maybe they were braver further back in those days as well.

-I mean, obviously his lucky charm.

-That's right.

I understand from reading in the newspapers recently,

that the habit of taking snuff is coming back into fashion

because of the ban on smoking.

And looking in front of us,

we've got a really quirky looking snuff container.

Is it a family piece or what can you tell me about its history?

Yes, it's come down through the family, several generations,

from a Lieutenant Colonel Kinnaird, who was commanding the garrison

in St Helena when Napoleon was in prison there.

-He gave this when they formed the officer's mess in 1820.

-Right.

And then, when it was disbanded in 1836, they gave it back to him.

And since then it's obviously

passed its way through the family and here it is now.

Well, the form of this is fairly well known to me.

They are pretty much uniquely Scottish.

And if we look at it in closer detail,

we can see it's got this great big Cairngorm on the top,

which is very typical of Scottish snuff containers,

or snuff mulls as they tended to call them in Scotland.

But what is absolutely typical is when it has all its tools for making

snuff and taking snuff with it, they're very much regimental pieces.

But what I find particularly interesting,

it's got a stand as well.

That apparently comes from a plane tree that was brought over as a plant

by Mary Queen of Scots, from France,

planted in Holyrood House and was then blown down in 1817.

That's what the inscription relates to.

That's what the inscription says, and somewhere,

I forget the date, blown down in 1817, I think.

So actually from the tree planted by Mary Queen of Scots.

And these sort of lovely feet are typical of the 1820s, and you can

just imagine this sliding along

a sort of mess table with them all taking snuff in turn.

It has got some lovely engraving on the horn itself.

These are the crests, presumably of the Kinnaird family

with a regimental crest there.

Inside, I see we've got a very strange-looking liner or container.

Well, we believe it was from Napoleon's first coffin,

and they discovered that when they

transferred him from St Helena to Paris. He was reburied in Paris.

And when they opened them up,

there was the lead and the tomb inside and he was inside that one.

So we really do have a terrific sort of historical document here.

With a bit of Mary Queen of Scots and Napoleon, and the fact

that it's a pretty good-looking object anyway!

I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that fetch...

£7,000 to £10,000.

Really?

Well, I am surprised.

Well, it's steeped in history, it's got everything going for it.

I just think there are some serious collectors out there that

would be very interested in trying

to buy this for quite a big price, should you ever come to sell it.

Which I won't.

What would we do without pockets?

I mean, I've got glasses and a mobile and a handkerchief and...

The Japanese had a real problem back in the 18th and 19th century -

no pockets.

So they had a little box called an inro,

and in the inro went medicines, spices, seals,

little objects which they needed to carry round with them.

And then, from the inro,

which could have a number of different cases to it,

you had a string and a ball with a hole through it

which tightened up the cases.

And that's called an ojime.

And on this particular one,

it's been inlaid in mother of pearl,

in tortoiseshell, in stained ivory,

with flowers and an insect,

sort of locust or mayfly, I think that is.

That's the bit I used to love as a child, the little insect on the bead.

-You've known this all your life?

-My father was a self-made businessman

who sent my mother out to buy a present for a client,

and she went to the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells and purchased this.

-Really?

-And, very unlike her,

she didn't give it to my father to give to his client, she hung onto it.

And years later, when I was grown up,

and started to be interested in antiques, I discovered, you know,

that it was an inro, that was about as far as I knew.

-And you nabbed it?

-Well, I did actually, I did.

And I took it, yes, I did.

And this bit is called the netsuke and goes under the belt,

and acts like a toggle, so the belt's there and it hangs like that.

So not between the fingers? I always assumed they carried it

-between their fingers.

-No, under the belt.

Right, right, thank you.

Now this is in the form of a gourd, or a double gourd really,

and is made of lacquer, which is not a common material

for making netsuke from -

they're usually wood or ivory,

occasionally bone.

That netsuke is worth around £600 to £1,000.

That? Really?

Oh, dear... Gosh.

The ojime which you so liked, with the insect on, is worth about £500.

-Heavens!

-Which leaves us with the inro.

Pull back the ojime like that

and we are able to separate this into sections.

And if we put it back again,

we can see that it's decorated

in mother of pearl,

stained ivory,

tortoiseshell,

coral,

coconut shell

and probably lacquer there,

on a burnished gold ground,

within a silver rim,

on a ground of very finely-sprinkled gold dust.

Gosh, amazing in something so small, I haven't...

It is extraordinary, wonderful work, in a technique we call Shibayama.

We've got a scene here of a festival cart with flowers.

I think it's probably spring.

Wonderful, but...

-that's the real joy.

-Oh?

Believe it or not, it says, "Shibayama, Kasuyuki".

Now I don't know Kasuyuki, but he's one of the family,

so this is actually made by

-the Shibayama family.

-Good.

-Very exciting thing to find.

-Gosh.

It dates from about 1880, somewhere around there.

So your childhood love,

your mother's decision to hang onto it, rather than give it away...

She told me what she paid for it, incidentally.

-Go on, go on, go on.

-£12.

-And this was in...?

Well, it was about 50 years ago.

£12, 50 years ago, was a good punt.

-It was a lot of money.

-Quite a lot of money.

-Yeah, yeah.

On the other hand, it has gone up a bit.

It's not gone up 10 times which would make it £120,

it's not gone up a hundred times, which would make it £1,250.

It's actually worth about £5,000.

5,000! Gosh.

-Oh, I wish she was still alive.

-Yeah, she would have loved it, wouldn't she?

She would have loved it. And my dad would have specially loved it because

he didn't appreciate old things, he always called them "second-hand".

Great stuff! This is the kind of second-hand I like.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you very much for bringing it in.

Thank you for telling me so much about it.

So these are children's book illustrations by Annie Anderson.

Now, when you first brought these to me, I thought,

"Oh, prints, prints, prints."

I see so many of this kind of thing. And then I thought,

"Better check..." So we're going to check.

While I'm tearing the back off this...do you mind?

-That's fine.

-While I'm tearing the back off this...

because the only way you'll ever know

is if you actually take the glass off and have a proper look...

you can tell me how you came by them.

My dad bought them in Hampstead in the early 1980s.

And they've been in my bedroom, and now

-they're in my daughter's bedroom.

-Ah, I see.

But there are five, but my mother

had four and my dad had one, and now finally they're together again.

Oh, that's great.

So what you have to do is, you have to take the back off,

and straightaway you can see that they're inscribed on the back.

Now that's interesting because it says,

"Mrs Alan Wright, Little Audrey".

Now I know that Annie Anderson

was married to another illustrator called Alan Wright,

so straightaway that's great,

and it looks to me like it's the bottom of an artist's board.

So first of all, I think that we may be looking at original works,

which is exciting, actually.

And then if you take it off and away,

you look in a sort of raking light,

you can actually just see that there's a texture

to the thing, that wouldn't work if it was a print.

There's a sort of shine on a print and this is very matt.

And you can also just see the sort of slight sheen on the graphite

that he's used as well.

-Have a look for yourself.

-Thank you.

It's quite good.

-Do you see that?

-Yeah.

-So you're looking at original watercolours.

-So you had to take it to bits to find out.

-It's the only way really.

-Yeah.

-But I think that's great because,

you know, I know this artist so well from reproductions.

We have to assume the rest of these four are originals.

Can't be certain, you may want to, you know just...

-Take those to bits as well.

-Yeah, yeah.

I was about to send you away and say, you know, they're worth...

-Forget it!

-Yeah, well, you know,

"Decorative value, madam, might be sort of £20 or something like that".

But she was such a good illustrator, and I think these are lovely.

What about this one, this little one here? It's rather sweet.

Probably worth about...original,

going to be worth about £300 or £400, which is quite nice, isn't it?

That's just for the little one,

which is rather good, and then, and then this one...

do you like that one?

-I love it.

-It's so sweet, isn't it?

I mean that, that's really a sort of children's thing.

You grew up with that, didn't you?

-Yeah.

-I think that that one's

probably worth about £600 or £800, that sort of thing.

And then this one, which is very pretty actually,

it's a sort of fairy sweeping clouds away.

They are quite girlie, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-They're really nice, nicely done.

Luckily my brother didn't end up with them!

-Yes, exactly, they're sort of more pink than blue...

-Yeah.

But that's probably about, oh, I don't know, £800 to £1,200,

I would have thought, something like that.

-You're serious?

-Yes, of course, I'm serious...

Deadly. And then down here,

this really pretty one of the little girl sitting on a bubble,

well, I think that the audience would go crazy for that.

I really do. We're probably talking about £2,000,

that sort of thing, upwards maybe of that.

It's all right, I'm not doing this in an aggressive way, I promise.

-It's just nice to know that these things you've loved.

-I love them.

But I'm just so glad they're not prints.

-It's a real thrill to find that they're not.

-Yeah.

-Well done!

Thanks very much, that's excellent, thank you.

An extraordinary thing about Arundel Castle is that although

it is huge and imposing, it has been a family home for nearly 870 years.

So thanks again to the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk for having us.

And for now, from West Sussex, goodbye.