Dundee Antiques Roadshow

We like each Roadshow to be a voyage of discovery

and this week we've come to a place which has close ties

to some epic journeys of exploration.

Welcome to Dundee.

Here's an interesting little fact. Did you know, at one time,

there were more millionaires in Dundee

than any other part of Britain?

It's all down to this - jute, harvested from a plant in India.

Now, it may not look like much

but it was one of the most familiar products of the 19th century.

This is how it came out of the plant in its natural form,

and it then went through a variety of processes

to be used in all sorts of things like string, rope, cloth, sailcloth,

flooring, clothes and it was all made here in Dundee.

Some 50,000 people worked in the industry.

Not surprisingly, it made some individuals very wealthy,

including jute baron Sir James Caird.

Caird, like everyone in Dundee,

watched the exciting launch of this ship, the Discovery,

on its maiden voyage in 1901 to Antarctica.

Below deck, it's easy to imagine life on board.

Basic with few home comforts.

This is the captain's cabin.

Robert Falcon Scott was appointed expedition leader.

Scott of the Antarctic, of course, and he was immensely courageous.

It's incredible to think that on its maiden journey,

this ship was stuck in the ice for three years before it was rescued.

Sir James Caird was so impressed

by the bravery of the men on the Discovery

that he later helped fund Shackleton's epic journey

on the Endurance to the Antarctic via the South Pole.

As we know, it became one of the most incredible adventure stories

of all time, when the expedition became stranded on the ice.

Just when things looked hopeless,

Shackleton launched a heroic mission to get help on a lifeboat.

That lifeboat was named after Sir James Caird

and it saved their lives.

Sir James Caird left many legacies here in Dundee.

He funded the construction of this magnificent hall, Caird Hall,

which is the venue for our journey

into the uncharted waters of today's Roadshow.

Here we are, Edinburgh Castle Peep Show. Absolutely splendid.

In three languages - the chateau of Edinburgh, in French,

Das Schloss, in German,

and the castle of Edinburgh.

So, it was designed for tourists, really.

Now, I'm going to ask you to help me open this

because it's a lovely peep show.

Let me... I've got it open.

You hang on to the bottom.

And, if we go through it,

we can see the whole streets of Edinburgh,

and it's vibrant in its colour.

And I can see somebody in what looks like a kilt at the end, there.

Is that right?

Yes. Yes, that'll be in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh.

I was there the other day, and I have to say,

I don't recognise this building here on the left.

I don't recognise that

-but the others are completely clear. That's the back of the castle.

-Yes.

That's Castle Terrace here and the old High Street goes down from here.

-Yes.

-Towards Holyrood.

-The Royal Mile.

-The Royal Mile.

-The Royal Mile.

So, tell me, where did you buy this wonderful thing 40 years ago?

I got it in...more of a junk shop than an antique shop, in Perth.

-Yes.

-And when I came across this, I just couldn't resist it.

Well, I couldn't resist it either.

I mean, apart from the box being rather tatty,

the inside is as bright and as vibrant as ever -

that's because it's been kept out of the dust

and it's been handled with care.

Nowadays, something like that,

you'd be paying somewhere in the region of £600 or £700.

-Really?

-Yes, absolutely.

I didn't expect that!

-So, there you are, you've done rather well.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you for bringing it in.

So, what is a nice lady like you

doing with an extraordinary carriage clock like this?

Well, it was part of a collection my father had.

All his pieces were not naughty pieces like this,

but it just happened to be the nicest one

I liked to look at and play with when I was young.

Later on, I was able to take only one piece

from our house with me

because things were getting very dangerous in Germany where I grew up,

close to the end of the war,

and my parents by this time were no longer with me

and I just grabbed this and fled.

How extraordinary! And were the Russians advancing at this time?

-Yes, yes.

-Were they really?

-Very close, yes.

How did you manage to get out?

Well, we just stood by the end of the road and hoped for a lift,

which I got eventually from a German military bus.

And this being a small little carriage clock...

-Yes, I had it in my coat pocket.

-Yes, fantastic.

-Yes.

-And do you remember it in your childhood?

-Yes.

As far as I remember it never went,

I mean it was never looked upon to get your time,

it was just a piece, an ornament, you know.

-It has the most extraordinary enamel panels.

-Yes.

Yes, my father must have fancied the panels.

Yes, it's got a little bit of a male...

My daughters, they tell me now that when they were little,

they used to look at it and giggled and thought,

"We'd better not let Mum know

"we're looking at these naked ladies," you see.

I think that's terrific.

-Well, it's a very pretty little Swiss carriage clock.

-Yes.

With silver gilt construction of case,

-made around 1915, 1920, that sort of period.

-Yes, yes.

And of course the great feature about it

are these lovely enamel panels with the semi-naked women.

-They're not erotic, they're very lovely.

-Yes.

So, as I said, Swiss made.

-Yes.

-With a nice white enamel dial and a silver gilt case,

-but most of the gilding has come off the silver.

-Yes.

-Obviously too much polishing.

-Yes.

Well, it's still a highly desirable clock, in this sort of condition,

-a little bit less than normal.

-Yes.

But still every collector in the market

-should pay between £1,500 and £2,000.

-Really, really?

-Oh, I am surprised.

-That was worth pinching off the shelf

-before you ran for it!

-Yes!

-Thank you for bringing it in.

-It's fantastic.

-It's been a pleasure, thank you.

When I initially looked at this, I thought,

"Another writing desk," and they come in quite regularly,

but this is something really special,

because not only is it a writing desk,

it's the world's first copying machine.

-Is it yours? Is it something you bought?

-It's a colleague of mine,

he has a special interest in writing slopes - we're both journalists.

So let's have a look at it, let's have a look, so we open this,

and a standard writing slope.

What's in here?

-Oh, couple of candlesticks.

-These... That's right, go on there.

Like so...

And then, like every writing slope, it has some secret drawers...

..and in here we have...

a brush...

-..and a handle.

-We need that.

You need that.

Thank you. This goes in here, like so.

Just wind there...

There we go.

So what we have here is something that was invented by a Scotsman.

That's right, Sir James Watt.

James Watt, you know all about him.

Um, and then when he was working

between his Birmingham factory and the mines down in Cornwall,

he was travelling backwards and forwards a lot,

and he obviously needed his documents copied,

so the only way to do that would be to sit here writing the letter

and then write a copy,

send the letter off and keep the copy for his files.

-Very time consuming.

-Very time consuming.

Being a great engineer, he thought,

"I want to find something simple that works,

"then I can actually copy my letters

"without having to hand-write them again",

so he developed this, and it was patented back in 1780,

and this came into production about 1790.

So it's well over 200 years old, and how it works is,

although I haven't got a letter,

I have got a great Antiques Roadshow brochure here.

You would have written your letter in a special ink,

and then you would have wetted... wetted the tissue,

and I think we've got some tissue somewhere, probably at this side.

There we are, there's some... Ooh, there's some letters here as well.

The drying book.

You would have wetted the tissue

and then you would have put the letter and the tissue together,

put it on here, and then you would have wound the handle.

Hopefully it would go in, and inside here

there are two rolling plates, and you pressed the two together

and you would get an offset of the actual letter

you had written in the first place.

-Mm-hm.

-You turn that around, and then you get a fair copy,

-so you could actually read it. A fabulous invention.

-Ingenious.

Absolutely ingenious, simple, but it worked and, you know,

this was invented way before, obviously,

photocopying or even the typewriter,

so it's an extremely ingenious

and beautifully constructed bit of engineering,

-and it's also a piece of furniture.

-Absolutely, yeah.

It's extraordinary that in my whole career, which is, I hate to say it,

but it's coming up to 30 years, I've only seen three examples,

one of which I actually handled, and we saw one at Ascot,

slightly different design, earlier in the series, so like all things,

you never see one and then two come along together.

-Yeah.

-But, extraordinarily rare.

I think in the first year, they only made 150.

The last one to sell at auction sold for £26,000.

-British sterling?

-British sterling, yeah, not guineas, £26,000.

-Oh, right.

-The one that came up at auction, I have to say,

had a great provenance, that it came from the Watt family,

so that added quite considerably to it

but, without a doubt, I would see this at auction

at £12,000 to £15,000 and it could easily make more

because it's in fabulous condition.

-Wow, there you go.

-Great fun to use.

It's a fabulous piece, thank you so much for bringing it in.

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

This is a little rectangular blue leather box

about three inches wide,

and on the lid we have the letters "MV Clytoneus"

that's "merchant vessel".

-Yes.

-Clytoneus.

Launched 9th of the 4th, 1948.

-Clearly not by you, ma'am.

-No, certainly not.

So who did launch this vessel?

Um, it was my great aunt who launched it, um...

Did she talk about it at all? I mean do you know much about it?

Well, um, she did mention it once or twice,

but, I mean, I was only about 11 when she died, so...

-Oh, I see.

-Yes, but she left this to me.

Well, it's quite a small box, quite clearly,

and therefore it's not going to have a grand, opulent content,

-but the contents are incredibly pretty, aren't they?

-Yes.

-What we have in the box is a sweet little bow-shaped brooch.

-Yes.

-In platinum and diamonds.

-Right.

Now the style of the brooch is interesting,

because, now - can we just come back,

-reel this back to the year that this launch took place, 1948?

-1948.

Well, may I tell you that there is no way

that that brooch was made in 1948.

-Really?

-No. I don't think so,

I think that the retailer who have put this brooch in the box

have bought maybe a second-hand brooch

and they've put it in their own case

and they've put the, you know, little motif...

-Embossed the...

-On the front.

The brooch itself is very strongly of a period

of around about the First World War.

Now, the diamonds in the frame are what we call pave set,

they're in touching formation,

but the key to this brooch, which I know it's only very, very little,

but the key to this brooch is that when you look at it

with the lens through the side, you notice that engraved

on the centre, at the side,

are the magic words "Cartier Ltd."

Now that's a whole new ball game.

-Yes.

-So the value changes dramatically.

Now, all right, we're not suggesting

we've got a large important-size Cartier diamond brooch.

-No, no.

-But I don't know about you -

-I think it's incredibly pretty.

-It is, yes.

and wearable... I don't know whether it's something you wear.

Not usually. I wore it at my wedding but I don't think I've worn it since.

Well, I think that such a brooch,

if it was sold on the open market,

-not that it will be, I appreciate that.

-No.

-It would be...

-Sentimental value.

a lot of interest in it, actually because it's so small and so sweet.

-Yes.

-So what are we talking about with prices?

The fact it's by Cartier means that if you were selling it,

it would fetch in the region of a couple of thousand pounds.

-Right.

-Nice piece that she gave you.

-Yes, yes, beautiful, yes. I love it, thank you.

-Thank you.

It's amazing being up here in Scotland

and looking at a watercolour like this,

because it's like one of the Scottish artists.

-Yes, the Glasgow School.

-The Glasgow School.

At the bottom here we have a signature

and it's by Johann -

and an almost unpronounceable middle name,

which is Zoetelief Tromp.

He's an artist that was born in Indonesia, so Dutch East Indies,

and came over and studied in Holland, in the Hague.

Because he was born in the 1870s, this would have been painted

probably about 1910, 1920,

but it's extraordinary to find this picture,

which is so like the Scottish watercolourists,

really, of the Glasgow School over here,

so how did a Dutch painting like this land up here?

Well, according to my uncle it was bought by his father, my grandfather,

probably in the 1930s.

It was certainly bought in Dundee but we know no more about it than that.

I just love the composition. I mean when you look at it,

it's a little girl on the swing, there,

-and on the left here is the sister, dying to have a go.

-Indeed.

But she's got to wait her turn.

-And I think she's rather impatient, looking at it.

-Yes.

But you know, when you look at a picture like this,

-which is impressionistic...

-Yes.

Look at the way that's constructed. it's very broadly painted.

You stand back to look at it for it all to come together.

-Indeed.

-But it's so cleverly done and I have to put a value on this,

because this is your heirloom,

and I think at auction that would make certainly £4,000 to £6,000.

Heavens, that's a surprise, I didn't think it would be as much as that.

Oh, my uncle will be delighted,

I can see him buying a high definition television now.

Well, that's rather sad. I think I'd rather have that.

Now, quite rightly in Dundee,

we've talked quite a bit about the Discovery,

you know, and the crucial role it played in Antarctic history,

but there is more to that story, isn't there?

-And you're from the Discovery Point Museum.

-That's right.

And I think you want to explore with me, a lesser known aspect of this.

That's correct, and what I have here, really, is an example

of the starting point for Captain Scott's Antarctic career.

-So what is that? That's a cigarette case.

-It's a small cigarette case

which was awarded to him in St Kitts

in the West Indies in 1887.

-He won a cutter race, in other words an oared rowing race.

-Yes.

And was awarded this small cigarette case.

The key point about this cigarette case is it happened at a time

when another interesting Antarctic character, Sir Clements Markham,

-arrived on the scene.

-Yes.

He was invited by the Commandant of the West Indies Squadron

-and was in St Kitts at the same time.

-So he saw Scott perform.

He saw Scott perform and recognised in him the qualities that he thought

might be useful for a leader of an expedition.

Right, so Markham was a sort of talent scout.

His job, unofficially, or officially, was to go round,

look at young cadets, trainee officers, and say "he's going far".

That's exactly what they did.

-So without that...

-It wouldn't have happened.

Nothing would have happened, no Discovery.

-No, no, we wouldn't have Captain Scott.

-No story. No, we can go home.

-Exactly.

-So what's the book?

The book is probably one of our star items in the collection.

It's Sir Clements Markham's personal photograph album,

and on the first page, here,

the ship that took them all to Antarctica, the RRS Discovery,

which was built at Dundee, is here being launched.

-This is the launch?

-That's the actual launch, 21st March.

There she is going down the... down the, down the slips.

So he assembled... what - it's like a scrap book?

It's a scrap book, exactly that, with all of the photographs

that he acquired over the period of the National Antarctic Expedition.

Right, so it covers the ship, what else does it cover?

It covers also... Just have to open this a little bit more.

And this is a particularly interesting photograph,

this is a Who's Who of Antarctic exploration.

-They're all in it.

-They're all in it, you've got Scott in the centre,

-you've got Edward Wilson, the famous zoologist...

-Yes, yes.

You've got Lieutenant Royds, Armitage and then right behind there

in pride of place is Ernest Shackleton.

-Of course.

-Who everybody knows.

-Now what's happened here?

-Ah well, um, William Shackleton, same name, but...

-No connection.

..but no connection, was the physicist,

the original physicist on the expedition,

except he did upset quite a few people within the crew

and it was decided to take him off the ship.

-Yes.

-And Sir Clements Markham being who he was,

decided that he no longer fitted in with the expedition.

-So he just cut him out.

-Cut him out.

-It's like Stalin, isn't it?

-Yes.

-He doesn't exist.

Left the body and the legs.

Thought crime - along those lines, yes!

So, that in itself is a wonderful piece of history,

as you say, that is Antarctic history.

That is, it's the Who's Who.

-And what else?

-Turn it round again.

-So what's that?

-This is a particularly

-nice image of...

-A lovely shot.

-the Discovery leaving Lyttelton.

-So the beginning of the voyage?

-Yes.

Setting off from New Zealand.

Yeah, after having been in dry dock,

having been repaired, and off she goes,

-in a trip, really, which is a trip to the unknown.

-Yes.

-It's like going to the surface of the moon.

-Yes.

Well, all those trips were - the last great frontier.

-Yes, it was the last great frontier.

-I mean, I find these so exciting,

because I try to put myself in the mind

of people at that time, setting off on these voyages,

knowing they'd be away for years, possibly,

knowing...no idea about what was going to happen -

it's fantastic stuff.

I think this is a clear case where objects that superficially

have no particular significance, are very significant.

-Yeah.

-A cigarette case like that, without that inscription,

in that condition is £20.

-Yeah, that's right.

-Add that component

-and you're dealing with a vastly superior sum - hundreds.

-Yeah.

Because, as you say, without that, there would be no polar expeditions,

no Discovery, no Scott, no nothing.

The book is a different issue -

it's clearly a good provenance,

we're looking at thousands of pounds.

-Yeah.

-Because this is such a rare association of images,

material, ephemera, which tells a very personal story

from the person who made it all happen.

Yeah, we were very, very excited to get it, obviously.

-I think so, I would be. Thank you.

-You're welcome.

I bet these have pride of place in your dining room.

Well, they're actually in my mother's dining room,

on either side of the sideboard.

Right. What do you know about them?

Not very much at all. My grandfather bought them

and he was told at the time they came from the Duke of Hamilton's palace.

Right, right, that's a grand start, isn't it?

The Duke of Hamilton's palace, well, it was called Hamilton Palace.

It was sold, the contents were sold in 1882.

-It's a very famous auction.

-Right.

One of the most famous auctions in the 19th century.

Oh, I didn't know that.

These candelabra are clearly, to me, what's called Rococo Revival,

which started in popular taste in about the 1820s, 1830s,

but for a big, very wealthy noble family like the Hamiltons,

who were in London buying all the best French things,

they would be buying French early revival things

in the 1810s, 1820s, so, when he got married,

or almost certainly in 1819 when he became the Duke.

Just to explain very quickly

how I can date these - they look like French 1730s or '40s

but they're a little bit more clumsy

which takes me to England possibly, or France,

in the 1820-1830 revival period,

but the most charming thing - have you noticed the dragon?

No, I can't say I did.

You haven't had a good look at them, have you, ever really?

They've just always been there.

Gathering dust on mum's shelf,

there we go, but there's a lovely - you can see the tail

-here and it works all the way up into the dragon's mouth.

-Right.

-Do you know what they're made of?

-No.

I don't. Honestly, I don't know anything about them.

Are they gold?

I don't think so, but I don't know.

Well, they're gold plated, if you like - they're what we call ormolu,

which is actually brass or bronze which has had a coat of gold paste

put on with mercury and then it's fired and it just burns

itself onto the brass underneath.

They're fantastic things, I mean they're just great.

I think you're going to have to pay at auction

-a minimum of £2,000 to £3,000.

-Really?

And I think if you could ever prove the provenance,

ie the history of them,

I think you should double it.

Very good.

I usually talk about military items,

war items, but you've brought along a few items today that are anti-war.

-I have indeed.

-Tell me something about them and who they belong to.

These refer to my grandmother's brother.

His name was Bernard Douglas Taylor.

-This is him?

-That's him, yes.

Was he a Friend, was he a Quaker?

He was a Quaker, the whole family

had been Methodists but turned Quaker before the First World War.

Prior to the war starting, he took part

-in many anti-war committees and so on.

-Oh, did he?

And once the war had started, he helped out with other

conscientious objectors and so on.

When the time came for his drafting, he appeared before a panel

and pleaded his case for not having to join the military.

And what's this hand-written letter about?

That's his declaration to the selection panel.

-Oh, this is dated January 26th, 1917.

-Yes.

Um, he's written here, "I am not" -

underlined - "a soldier

"and no amount of coercion can ever cause me to become an instrument

"for the slaughter of my fellow man."

So quite clearly he,

he was a very intense man and definitely not one to, er...

-He was.

-go against his morals.

And whatever else he said to the panel,

they came to the unanimous agreement that, due to his statement

and his eloquence and his intensity,

that he should be fully exempted from military service.

Interesting. Now this photograph here puzzles me somewhat,

because this is, I guess, him, is it?

-That's him, yes.

-Well, why is he wearing military uniform?

What happened was, he decided that

the help he was giving out to dependants of "conchies" and so on,

he could perhaps do more, so he decided to go to France

to help out there.

Was this while the war was in progress?

It was still in progress, yes,

but what happened was, when he got off the ferry in Calais,

a gendarme came up, asked him his business and when he explained,

the gendarme said,

"What I suggest to you sir, is that you go to the nearest tailors,

"have yourself a uniform made and put it on immediately,

"because if the women of France

"see you in civilian clothes, a young, fit, hale man,

"they're going to tear you to pieces

"because their men have been dying at the front," and so on.

Yes, yes, that's extraordinary.

You've also brought along an armband. Tell me about this.

I know nothing about it.

I presume it's part of a Quaker voluntary organisation's motif.

Well, in fact, I do know what this is.

This is the Quaker star.

-Oh, I see.

-And it's the badge of the Quaker relief organisation.

-That's good to know.

-And so he would have worn

the Quaker star on his arm.

As far as I know, he had no other form of insignia on the uniform,

-solely this.

-Yes, he would have worn

this armband to show who he was, to show that he was a Quaker.

-Right.

-And also, of course, to support the other Quakers who were

-also over there.

-Yes, indeed.

Because he wouldn't have been alone.

But it must have been the most appalling thing,

actually, to be the subject of people's ridicule,

because he would have been ridiculed at home, in Britain.

I don't know that ridicule is the word.

I would say disliked to the point of being hated.

Hated? It's a strong word.

Yes, but the feeling in the country against conscientious objectors

was very, very strong indeed and in fact, if you open that,

-you'll perhaps see what I mean.

-This envelope?

-Yes.

What's this dated? 1916, it looks like from the postmark.

Oh, it's a letter to him.

You'll see.

Oh, my oh, goodness me,

it's a white feather.

It's a white feather - as in the Four Feathers film.

It says, "Noble sir, if you are too proud or frightened" -

underlined - "to fight, wear this".

-And the white feather.

-And this has been kept.

It's been kept, yes, it was kept by my grandmother

just to show the feelings that some human beings have

towards others, so...

-He obviously was a man of deep beliefs.

-Absolutely.

But how must he have felt when he received this?

How would you feel if you'd received this?

I don't know, I think from what I've read of his background

that he would have accepted it

as an example of how human beings can look upon

each other and feel sad and sorry for perhaps, for the person who wrote it.

Well, that's an interesting perspective, isn't it, I suppose.

And I have to say that I've never seen another

-white feather letter, ever.

-Yes.

Because I doubt whether anybody kept them. I would have thought that...

I think most people would have been very anxious to get rid of them

-completely, very quickly.

-Exactly.

I actually feel quite privileged

to be able to see it, to... it's quite incredible.

And I wouldn't mind betting

-that if this was actually sold - I'm sure you don't want to do it.

-No.

But if this was sold, at auction today, you'd get a number of people

willing to pay probably £500, £600 for it, because it's most unusual.

-I think this is an indictment on war itself.

-Oh, quite.

And also an indictment

on the sort of person that would have sent that letter.

Yes. The whole country felt the same way at the time.

Of course they did, we were very patriotic,

but I find this in today's world, I find this very moving.

Thank you for showing it to me.

Thanks very much.

This beautiful stars and stripe dress, obviously fancy dress.

Tell me the story of it.

Well, it was designed and made by my grandmother for my mother, in 1926.

Mummy was aged 18 but Granny was very thrifty

and she was a superb needlewoman. They both designed and made clothes,

so you can see how she's used this red and white and blue cotton sateen

fabric, cut the red into stripes and put the whole thing together.

I think the headdress looks rather like something

out of a Lyon's Corner House waitress's outfit.

Well, it certainly looks a bit like Wonder Woman, doesn't it?

-Doesn't it?

-But I mean what's fantastic about

this is that when I think when I was sent off to fancy dress parties,

I always used to go as a pirate or a nurse, because it was easy.

This is something quite more delightful.

And I wore it to a fancy dress party in 1981, I wore it with silver lame

Mary Quant tights and I danced the Charleston in it.

-Wow.

-It was such fun.

The wonderful thing about this dress is that

at that period, mid-1920s, women, after the First World War,

women were partying, they were smoking, wearing much more make-up.

-Mummy wasn't allowed to smoke.

-Mummy wasn't smoking, well that's...

-And no nail varnish either.

-No nail varnish, either.

It's a wonderful example of something from the 1920s,

just before the Crash, people were still partying then,

it got very much more sombre after that,

but this is fabulous and just beautiful,

thank you so much for bringing it.

-Thank you.

-Valuation of these things is, is so difficult because really

it's a very personal thing,

I mean, it would certainly be of great interest at auction,

I could see it making £150, £200.

Well, I mean I treasure the fact it's still in the family

and I love having it, thank you so much.

Our jewellery expert John Benjamin

was seen coming off the plane last night at Dundee airport

staggering under the weight

of something very, very heavy in his suitcase.

I found out today what it is, because we asked him

if, heaven forfend, his house should go up in flames,

what two objects would he rush out with, clutching one in each hand,

and John you brought along...

this, I know, is very heavy.

neither of the bits you brought are jewellery, which intrigues me.

-No.

-But let's start with this one. Why have you brought this along?

All right, well this is a bowl that was fashioned -

it's actually called "The Greedy Squirrel".

The story behind this bowl was this.

When I was 17 I left school.

No qualification to speak of. I was very lucky to get a job

working in a jewellery shop located in Bloomsbury called Cameo Corner.

Cameo Corner was started by this man. I'll show you a picture.

-There we are.

-What's his name?

Moshe Oved a mystic, a sculptor, a jeweller

started the shop up with nothing, and by the time he died,

some of the customers of the shop

were extraordinarily important people including Queen Mary,

who had her own armchair in the shop,

that no-one else was allowed to sit in.

For the four years I worked at Cameo Corner,

this squirrel sat on the counter

in the corner, right next to where I worked.

When I left Cameo Corner, that, of course, I left.

About, I don't know, three or four years ago,

the thing appeared at auction, and I was told about it and I thought,

"I have to have the squirrel".

That squirrel had been winking at me for four years, so I bought it

and it weighs a ton, doesn't it?

Ooh, yes, it does weigh a ton. I've got to say, John,

if you don't mind, it's not the most attractive thing

-I've ever seen.

-You don't like it?

-I'm not wild about it, but obviously

it means a lot to you.

It means a great deal to me because it represents my young life

in the jewellery industry, so there we are.

-And what about this object here?

-Well, that is a silver sugar sifter.

12 or 15 years ago, a telephone call from one of our branches.

Could I go down to visit a local client,

who it turned out had a large box of jewellery.

I went to visit this client,

sure enough the jewellery was astonishing,

and it turned out that the collection was owned by her father.

He had made it all.

He was called Henry George Murphy.

Henry Murphy was a goldsmith and silversmith who owned a shop

in Marylebone called The Falcon Studio

and in 1928 up to his death in 1939 he churned out the most amazing

jewellery and silverware.

Well, how did I come by this?

I researched the man's life, we photographed all his jewellery,

the client said that up in the loft

they had the entire archive of the Falcon Studio.

-It was a time bubble upstairs.

-What a find.

And what happened was that we recogn... I say "we",

because I collaborated with one of our own colleagues

on the Antiques Roadshow, Paul Atterbury.

We wrote a book about Murphy

and they gave me the silver sugar caster.

They gave it to you?

-Yes, they gave it to me.

-And what's it worth, this?

-Do you know?

-Do you know something?

I don't care what it's worth.

I have something that means a great deal to me,

because that is a thread in my life,

and for me, that is a very personal piece.

-John, thank you.

-Thank you, Fiona.

This is the kind of thing I could only have dreamed

would arrive at my table today. Here we have perhaps, how can I say,

one of the legends of golfing history.

And this is Old Tom Morris. Can you tell me where this came from?

It was, um, in my father's house after his death,

and when we cleared the house out, we found it.

-Right, so it wasn't hanging on the wall?

-No.

OK, well, let's talk about Old Tom Morris because essentially here

we have a superb photographic image of Old Tom Morris

on the course at St Andrews.

He's in a bunker,

which actually is probably not that usual for old Tom Morris,

because Old Tom Morris was an exceptional golfer,

he was regarded as absolutely invincible on the course.

He actually won the Open at Prestwick four times,

starting in 1861 I believe, and here he is at St Andrews.

There's a slightly more poignant history to Old Tom as well,

because he had a son, Young Tom Morris,

and Young Tom Morris won the Open four times as well,

but the sad thing is that he died at the age of 24.

So we have two generations of a family, both exceptional golfers,

both exceptional Scottish golfers, and Old Tom here lived to, I think,

around about 1904, 1905 - sadly his son died in around about 1875.

And it's a very poignant story,

but added to that we have a man here who,

to collectors, is literally the god of the golfing world

-and what is more, we have a signed photograph here.

-Yes, yes.

And I wonder, had you ever considered a value

-on this photograph?

-No idea.

No, well this picture is worth £2,000 to £3,000.

I've been offered £1,000 for it.

-You haven't been offered enough.

-No.

Because it's an absolute classic of its time and, to be honest,

-to come to Scotland and find it in Scotland...

-Yes.

-..has kind of made my day.

-That's what I thought it would, yes.

Thank you, it's great.

-Thank you ever so much for bringing it along.

-Thank you.

-This bowl, I love it, I really, really love it.

-Good.

It's fantastic, a visual feast of best pottery folk art you can get,

it's a gorgeous thing,

-everything's going on.

-Yes, it is, yeah.

It's lovely that it's dated, 1862. I mean, what's that?

I don't know, but I love the fact that the top hat was coming off.

-I mean it's extraordinary, man in a top hat on a bucking bronco.

-Yeah.

It's an assortment of random images,

we've got this wonderful steam train here, we've got

two ships. It's a fantastic slipware bowl.

-Uh-huh.

-Technically about slipware, it's pottery which is then coated

-with a very, very thin layer of another coloured slip.

-Right.

Which is basically liquid clay, which is then carved into

this sgraffito effect.

-The history of slipware...

-Yeah.

Goes right back into medieval times.

This, being a 19th century piece, it became popular throughout,

really, the UK, North Devon is very, very famous for slipware.

-Yes.

-Barnstaple and so forth, but we're up in Dundee.

-Yeah.

Where did you get this one?

This I found in my mother's attic when I moved my mother and father

to a smaller home this year,

and Margaret Morren was my great-great-aunt.

Fantastic, so this has gone down from person to person to person.

-Yeah, it has indeed.

-And lives in the attic.

-It was in the attic.

I think I shall be displaying it now.

Would Margaret Morren have made it?

-Have designed it?

-It's very unlikely.

It's more likely it was made perhaps as a present for her birth.

-Oh, for her birth?

-But I mean your family records may be able to

-tell you something about her.

-I need to look into it.

-You need a genealogist in the family.

-I do, I do.

-I think it's a gorgeous thing.

-Good, thank you.

I suppose got to think about what it might be worth.

I suppose in auction, £2,000.

Is it as much as that?

Oh, goodness, no, I'd no idea,

no idea at all, just thought it was a family piece, great.

It's lovely, it's really, really nice.

-I'm sure I shan't be selling it.

-I covet it.

Good. Oh, well, I'll take it to my home.

-You could come and look at it sometimes.

-Thank you.

Thank you very much, thanks.

The first thing I'd love to ask you is what did you have for breakfast?

-Was it toast and marmalade?

-It was, yes.

-It was.

-It was.

And did you turf the bread out of the bread bin first

-before you put the clock in? Did you really?

-I did.

That's fantastic, I love that.

But we're not here to look at a bread bin,

we're here to look at this extraordinary machine inside.

-Can I take it out?

-Yes.

There we go.

Well, it's terrific fun, love it to bits.

I saw it poking out of the top of the bread bin

and I thought to myself, "Please let that be what I think it is,"

and it's exactly what I think it is, which is great.

So it's called a skeleton clock.

The reason it's called a skeleton clock

is because the movement plates have been pierced out so that you

can see straight through them and you can examine the wheel work

in between the two plates, whereas normally with a clock you'd have

-brass plates and you couldn't see any of the wheel work.

-Right.

So we call this a skeleton clock. So how is it such an extraordinary

machine arrives here in Dundee?

Well, it came into our family in the Second World War. My grandfather

was a farmer in Dumfriesshire and a local businessman approached him

at Christmas time - he wanted some geese that my grandfather had.

-Geese?

-Some geese to give to his workers at Christmas time,

but he couldn't afford to

pay my grandfather for the geese so he said "I'll give you a clock"

on the condition he could have a look at it every now and again

on the mantelpiece and we've had it ever since in the family.

What a fantastic story - did your father have an interest

-in clocks, in horology?

-No, not that I know of.

But he had a good eye, obviously, he was a canny Scottish farmer.

He was, yes, he was.

And what sort of date was that? Second War?

Yeah, I think it was 1941 that it came into our possession, uh-huh.

Was it? 1941? Well, I'll tell you a little bit about the history of it.

Made around 1830, that sort of period.

On the front we've got a maker's name of R Hess of Liverpool.

-Right.

-Now it's my belief that Mr R Hess

never made this clock, I suspect he was a jeweller

and it was his shop clock,

or shop timepiece,

and it would have been a wonderful looker

and it would have attracted people into the shop.

They would set their watches by the time on the clock.

-Oh, right.

-A lot of jewellery shops had a shop's regulator

or a shop's mantel clock, sometimes in the window,

but often they wanted to draw people into the shop

so they had a clock sitting on the table, or as a long case clock.

People would come and regulate their pocket watches

every day, or every week,

and they were very useful at bringing people in.

But what is particularly fun about this clock is the balance wheel

that oscillates backwards and forwards just there.

That has this lovely snaky which holds the spring which keeps

the tension for the balance wheel to oscillate backwards and forwards.

Now the faster the balance wheel oscillates,

-the faster the second hand goes round, OK?

-Oh, right.

And you can make the balance wheel go faster and slower

by adjusting the balance spring,

this spring that's coiled down that the snake is holding.

But what is even more wonderful about this

is the way that the two plates of the movement

have been pierced out in this lovely geometric design,

and when you turn the clock around it becomes even more apparent

because it's pierced out at the back,

but it's the layered design that particularly appeals as well.

It's just beautifully laid out

and the one last thing that's really good quality is when you look

at the quality of the wheel work, you will notice I don't know whether

-you've seen it, but each wheel has six spokes to each wheel.

-Right.

Now the average clock has four

spokes to each wheel, a good quality clock has five spokes,

but a really good quality clock has six spokes,

it's a sign of exceptional quality.

-Good.

-So, now...

the last question I have to ask - did it ever have a glass dome?

Not as far as I know.

-We've actually had a dome made for it.

-You have?

-You just didn't bring it with you.

-But didn't bring it with us.

And you don't, you didn't have the original base with it at any time?

-Wasn't original, no, no.

-Well, that's a shame

because the original base and the original dome is important to have,

you know, it's just a lovely thing to be able to have with it,

and, you know, that's life, they break.

My wife will kill me for saying this,

but she was dusting some bits and pieces off a shelf

-and an ornament broke my skeleton clock dome the other day.

-Oh, right.

And she rang me in tears. I was slightly in tears as well.

they're incredibly difficult to replace.

OK, well, much collected, this is...

a skeleton clock collector's dream.

I'd love to own it, a fantastic clock, so it has a market value.

Um, from a flock of geese.

-A good deal.

-I wonder how many it was -

and they would have gone by Christmas,

whereas here this clock is now.

-I've still got it.

-Um, open market value for this clock,

take a little bit off

for the fact that it's missing its base and its dome.

-Right, right.

-But certainly a collector today would pay

between £8,000 and £12,000 for it.

-Oh, good news.

-Thank you very much for bringing it in.

-It's a terrific clock.

-Thank you, right.

This is probably my favourite item of the day. It dates from 1602

and it's a pirlie pig. "Well, it doesn't look much like a pig"

I can hear you say, but up here in Scotland a pirlie pig

is what they call a money box,

and it used to be used in the Council to fine town councillors

if they couldn't be bothered to turn up for a meeting,

so it must have had a few bob in it.

They could probably do with something like this

in the House of Commons, if you ask me.

Well, now it's going to the local McManus Art Gallery and Museum here,

and our time here is almost up.

We've had an interesting and eclectic mix of items,

I think it's fair to say,

so from the Roadshow in Dundee, bye-bye.