Oxford Antiques Roadshow

It's happy birthday to our Roadshow mascot...

the Morris Minor - it's 60 this year and far from fading into memory

it's enjoying something of a revival as an icon of British innovation.

Welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from its birthplace...Oxford.

Hertford is one of the oldest colleges in Oxford,

dating back to the 13th century,

and it was one of the first to welcome women students.

Good thing too - I spent three very happy years here.

It was like suddenly being transported

onto the set of Brideshead Revisited.

I was continually struck by the sheer beauty of the place.

In the grandeur of the Bodleian Library

I could read any book I wanted, from Dickens to Dante.

I could stroll through the Sheldonian where I finally graduated

and my student essays might have been thrown together

at the last minute, but I could scribble them in the splendour

of the Radcliffe Camera right next to my college,

before seeking vital refreshment in the pub of course.

One of my abiding memories of my time here

is being asleep in my room, usually till about midday,

and then being woken up by hordes of tourists right under my window.

They'd all come to see the room

of the famous author Evelyn Waugh, just here.

And he wasn't the only well-known alumnus.

There's been a bit of a rash of newsreaders here...

Natasha Kaplinsky, Krishnan Guru-Murthy...

I've been known to do a bit of that myself.

Must be something in the water.

And yes, here I am, looking proud as punch with fellow students

at the end of my first term.

OK, bad hair, but it was the '80s.

All in all, this has the promise of a nostalgic day

as we welcome visitors to the quad at my old college, Hertford.

With the help of the people of Oxford,

it should bring back a few memories.

A dear aunt always had it on her sideboard

in all my years of growing up and we called it "Auntie's Beetle Vase".

She came by it in about 1937.

She took in lodgers from Oxford University and some of them

I believe were quite well-to-do

titled gentlemen and as a means of thanking her, when they left

and went down from the university, they gave her gifts

and I'm thinking that perhaps that was one such gift.

That fits in because this has never, ever been a cheap piece of glass,

this has always been frankly an outstanding piece.

It's art glass by the Daum factory in France.

We know that, it's no secret

-because the name of the factory, Daum...

-Right.

-..is the name of two brothers who founded the factory.

-Yes.

Nancy is the town where they worked.

-Yes.

-And this was made about 1910 in Art Nouveau style.

It's a complex piece of glass.

A series of layers of glass were formed, blown together

with successive layers,

one colour dipped into a furnace to pick up another colour.

-Right.

-And then repeated to kind of get a gobstopper effect...

-Right.

-..of concentric colours.

It was taken out of the mould and whilst it was still hot,

these moulded forms of beetles were placed onto the hot glass,

so the beetles were heated up,

a little bit of foil has been placed on the glass...

-Right.

-..and then a second piece of glass laid on top, and all of these

-differently coloured beasties were laid onto the hot glass.

-Right.

And then the whole lot was cooled.

All together, a pretty swanky piece of glass and a very nice present.

Daum is a highly sought-after factory and its value today

would be in the realms of

- you selling at auction, this is -

-£5,000.

-Good heavens!

How about that then?

Well, she'd be very pleased if she were alive, to know that today.

She had no idea, I think, that it was valuable,

-we just loved it as children.

-Best thing.

I spend quite a bit of my time going around charity shops

because you never know what you might find.

I know you work in a charity shop.

-Don't tell me this is from the charity shop.

-It is.

-It is.

Where did it come from?

I actually went to buy a few bits of china to sell in the charity shop.

-Right.

-And I went to a local little auction

and bought a box of miscellaneous china for £3.

Including this, for £3?

-That was in the bottom of it.

-When was this? 1940-something or...?

-Oh, no, no, it was about March this year.

-Right.

Afterwards can you tell me the name of this little auction place?

Well, I'm amazed, it's a lovely piece of Wemyss pottery,

which I think you know, it's clearly marked on the back "Wemyss Ware,

"RH&S" - Robert Heron and Sons.

And it's just really a super piece.

What made you think this shouldn't go in the charity shop at £3.50, say?

-We didn't.

-Somebody took an instant dislike to it,

and came up to me with a broken heart

and said, "I'm sorry I can't fit it in the bin,"

and I said, "Well, you can't just do that,

"we need to research and see who... where it's come from,"

so I went on the internet and found out who Wemyss are.

Thank goodness you did - this could have gone in the bin?

Yes...because it wouldn't fit.

-Too small a bin.

-Thank goodness for small bins in Oxford.

-That's exactly what I said.

-Well, it's a gorgeous piece.

It isn't signed but I'm confident it was painted by Karel Nekola,

-the main artist at the factory.

-I thought it was.

The way he's painted the bird and the leaves and this very free style

he's done is typical of him.

It was made for a "Nellie"...

Nellie could be anybody

and it's something which is going to be worth a little bit more than £3.

-We thought it might be.

-So I am quite confident,

in a specialist Wemyss sale,

-this would be making somewhere in the region of £800 to £1,200.

-What?

-That's great.

-Wow!

So now you know it's worth a little bit more than £3,

-what are you going to do with it?

-Well, maybe into an auction.

-And then?

-And the money, Helen Douglas House, every penny.

So that's a good profit on £3. What does Helen Douglas House do?

-It's a children's hospice.

-That's a very good cause.

I'd better give it back to you, in that case,

and don't put it back in the bin.

-I won't drop it, thank you.

-It's a pleasure.

-These are two pieces of jewellery, they're both brooches.

-Yes.

But they are so extraordinarily colourful, they're so vivid.

Tell me a little bit about them.

Well, I think I was given that one from my mother, she had it first,

but she didn't wear it actually, and I've worn it a great deal.

This one I haven't worn so much because it's very heavy,

it's rather bad for the clothes as well, makes a hole, you see.

Let's just have a look at it and discuss what it's made of.

Um, the immediate response when you see it

is that it's a painting, but it isn't,

-it's a prime example of 19th-century mosaic.

-Yes.

It's Florentine mosaic and we have a name for it, it's called pietra dura.

-Dura, yeah.

-And what they're made of, all these little coloured stones

are individual hard stones - chalcedony, sard, lapis lazuli...

-that's the blue ones there.

-Wonderful.

Now they've inset them artfully, skilfully, in black Belgian slate.

Oh, really? How interesting.

And then they've taken the plaque and they have mounted it

-in a bright yellow gold frame, 1865-1870.

-Right.

Can I just turn it round and you can see that the gold

is a solid gold plate at the back.

-Yes.

-In a dish-shaped frame.

-I see.

-So this is a good piece of jewellery.

-Yes.

-Can I move on to the next piece?

-Yes, please.

Tell me a bit about this brooch.

Well, I wear that quite often when I have something it looks right on,

which I haven't for a little while.

Well, in about 1825-1830,

this was the era of very gushy jewellery, where you would have

-these wonderful expressions of sentiment and love.

-Yes.

So for instance things like hearts, keys, padlocks,

little cupids with bows and this sort of thing...

and they're supposed to convey the great love and sentiment

that I feel towards you.

-Yes.

-Each gem has its own particular resonance...

turquoise for forget-me-nots,

rubies for passion, marigolds for jealousy...

the language of flowers, you see.

Now if you take the first letter

of each of these little gem-set drops, starting off with ruby...

R-E-G-A-R-D...

so ruby, there's a diamond at the end,

-there's a smattering of colourful gems...

-Yeah.

..all with their own significance,

so, you know, a lovely message of love and sentiment, "regard",

or it could be "dearest"

-or it could be your name spelt out in gemstones.

-Really? I've not seen one.

Turn it over, there's a tiny little locket-backed compartment there

to put a little tiny plume of hair, so it's got all the ingredients.

-Yes, yes.

-Have they been valued before?

-No.

I think that the mosaic brooch today, in that condition...

£1,500 to £2,000.

-Good, yes.

-Now that's good.

-Yes.

-But then you look at this piece here.

-Yes.

-And this is so charming and so delicate, and so sensitive.

-Yes.

-I think if this was sold you're looking at about £2,500.

-Right, yes.

-So you know you say that you wear it all the time?

-Yes.

-Take care of it.

-Oh, yes.

-It's a beauty.

-I am very careful of it.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

This was fast turning out to be a day of surprises

for visitors to Hertford College and for me too.

It's years since I was a student here but across a crowded quad

I spotted my French tutor Anne

-chatting to one of our specialists.

-Yes, I think...

Now, sorry to interrupt but here is a face I recognise, my tutor.

Oh, hello, Fiona, fancy seeing you.

-How nice to see you. Goodness me.

-Wonderful to see you, yes.

I'm amazed you remember me, I was a deeply unremarkable student.

I remember you very well, no, no, that is just not at all true.

-Is it not?

-I remember the papers you took

-and how well you did.

-Oh, that's very nice of you.

I always guessed that you were going places, and I was right, wasn't I?

That's very sweet of you to say so,

not with French, as it turned out...

What about Italian, do you use Italian more or...?

I used it when I was a reporter on news programmes and Newsnight,

but no, not that much.

I'm sure it was helpful to have it, wasn't it?

It was helpful to have it.

-Wide culture and all that...

-How amazing to see you.

-..Oxford provides.

-I've got a little confession

which just comes to mind now I've seen you.

I remember once...you were always so kind when I was a student...

and I remember in my first term,

I hadn't done my essay and I was really upset about it

and I went in and I was a bit tearful and you said...

you were so nice, you said, "Is it problems at home?",

and I thought, "That sounds better than 'I haven't done my essay',"

so I said, "Yes," and I've felt guilty about it ever since.

Well, I remember that you suggested

the college should have a woman's tutor who looked after the women.

-Yes, I did.

-And now the college does...

two in fact, for undergraduates and graduates,

it's become a great industry, I mean, a great thing.

Those were my "radfem" days as they say.

You felt that the person's tutor shouldn't be the person you went to

with your troubles... I know you did, but those were minor troubles.

When you had big troubles you should have someone quite different and so

we instituted that and I remember

-you asked me if I would be that.

-I did, yes. Ah...

And now it's in all, you know, it's online and everywhere.

-So I started something.

-You started something.

-Oh.

So you see, you were a remarkable student.

No, I certainly wasn't... but it's very lovely to see you.

Well, it's lovely to see you, absolutely lovely.

Well, he's wearing a crown, but when you look at him,

he's hardly the king of bears.

He's the tiniest, sweetest bear,

which sits very comfortably in the palm of my hand. Now do you love him?

Well, I love him and I have known him for a long time,

-but I've never owned him and he's not mine now actually.

-Oh.

-He's in my care.

-Now tell me who owns him then.

Well, my sister, who's older than I am, and the story is...

and I know it's true because I was very young at the time,

she actually found him and, um...

-In what circumstances?

-Well, she was walking along,

I think it was about Broadstairs or Ramsgate, along the coastline,

and he was in a Kilner jar.

No! A message in a bottle. Sort of.

Well, there was a piece of paper evidently

but the writing had gone, so that wouldn't...

And in the family he's been known as "Kilner".

So he's got a bit of a chequered history, we don't know, but...

It's interesting because looking at him, first of all,

he's wearing this crown but he's also wearing something else

which is sort of faded green and yellow striped braid

and on it is something that looks remarkably like a BP logo...

British Petroleum...

Now I'm not sure whether BP ever made a sort of promotional bear...

maybe they did.

Well, my sister assumed it was BP petrol, and it gets better,

because she actually took that to a BP petrol station

and went in and asked if anybody knows about BP bears,

and in doing so, she actually met her husband.

-No!

-It was absolutely incredible

and the bear brought them together and they were together for 43 years.

That's the most remarkable story.

In a way he shouldn't be called Kilner, he should be called Cupid.

-Yes.

-So this must have been in the '50s that she found him.

-Yes, it was about...

-Well, he would have been new then.

-Yeah.

-He's a bear dating from the 1950s,

he's made by a company called Schuco, a German company

who made all kinds of toys

and may be part of a little-known BP publicity or advertising campaign.

I would have said that the value's going to be around £200,

perhaps between 200 and 250.

-Really? How lovely.

-And who knows, if there's a soft-hearted somebody

-out there who loves the story, it could go for even more.

-Incredible.

But a dear little bear-shaped cupid...

-How lovely.

-..with a wonderful story to tell.

It's a big autograph album.

-It's a heavy one.

-And roughly how many autographs are there in there?

-There must be at least 500.

-Really? And where did it come from?

My father collected them for the whole of his life,

from the 1920s...early 1920s in Calcutta where he was born.

-Right.

-He was Indian, and then he moved on to New York...

-Right.

-..and then...

South America and then finally London,

so he travelled all over the world

and this never seemed to go far from him.

If we open it up to some of the people that are in here,

-we have Mahatma Gandhi.

-Oh, right.

Can you tell me, do you know how he got Gandhi's signature?

Yes, I do, this was one of his favourite stories.

I gather he spent three whole days outside a hall

where Gandhi was in a conference and failed for the first two days

-and I think a security guard took pity on him the third day...

-Yes.

..and let him stand by the door where Gandhi was coming out

and Gandhi then said he didn't sign autographs, so my father...

rather rashly...pointed out he had the Earl of Lytton who I think

was the Viceroy of India, and the Governor General...

two earls...and Gandhi's reply apparently was,

"Then you don't want a scavenger like me in this book,"

and signed in Sanskrit,

which did disappoint Dad and he asked him if he'd sign in English,

-but he said, "I'm not English, why should I?"

-Absolutely.

But he compromised on the date, the date was in English.

Yes, 5th November 1924, and if we just go on a few, a few more further,

we have here a collection of British Prime Ministers, well-known ones.

Jim Callaghan on the left, Winston Churchill obviously from 1932

above Edward Heath, and then, if we look over the page...

..here we have Margaret Thatcher.

Dad wasn't well by then, this was his very last autograph,

my brother went to Downing Street to do this.

-Right.

-But the story is that he had given firm instructions

to my brother to get Margaret Thatcher to sign here...

-four British Prime Ministers.

-Right.

When it came back...he thought it was something to do with not signing

by a Labour politician, a Labour Prime Minister.

I think...my hunch always was that

she didn't want to sign opposite Edward Heath.

-Yes, nothing to do with him.

-That's my feeling,

so anyway, opposite, she could sign opposite FDR instead

which might... she might have preferred.

And from here we go forward

to one of your father's great disappointments, I understand.

This was.

He asked...he took it to the embassy to get John Kennedy to sign,

and Jackie, and Jackie signed and he did meet her

and she said that she was really sorry,

the President had heard about the book,

thought it was wonderful, was going to sign it

and then some crisis and couldn't

but that when they next came to London, which was due quite soon...

-Yes.

-..to contact her rather than the secretary,

and she would make sure he signed it...

-and of course in the meantime he was assassinated.

-Yes.

-So, um...

-So it's dated 1961.

-Yeah, mm...

What a shame!

One of the few he missed out,

-but you've still got 500-odd signatures here.

-Yes.

Musicians, politicians, historical figures, literary figures as well.

There are some very important and some valuable signatures in here.

Churchill's signature, on its own, for example,

is worth £300, £400 or £500 just on its own.

-Oh, I didn't realise that.

-A Gandhi signature, likewise,

can be worth £400, £500, £600 on its own,

but, overall, what you're looking at probably is somewhere in the region

of £4,000 to £6,000 if you were to sell it at auction.

A beautiful piece of carved wood.

Where did you get it and what's its history?

It's my father's and it was my grandfather's before that

-but I don't know how he got it.

-Do you know what it is?

-No.

That's why I'm here.

Glad to be of service.

Well, as soon as you pulled this out of the bag,

I thought, "That's a wonderful bit of carving,"

and it comes from a culture

that's perhaps one of the most warlike of cultures

and we're looking towards the Polynesian peoples, New Zealand.

-Right.

-The Maori.

So how did it get over here?

I was hoping you were going to tell me that,

-but you don't know.

-No, I don't.

That's the wonderful, speculative quality

of many things we see on the Roadshow.

-And where do you keep it?

-I keep it by my front door.

-Ah, useful.

-To ward off unwanted visitors.

-Fair comment.

The reason I knew it was Maori

-was because of these very distinct, tight scrolls.

-Right.

The Maori settled New Zealand some sort of 3,000 years ago

and, of course, their art is extremely powerful

and they have incredible, supernatural sort of mythologies

about the creation, about the creation of woman and nature,

and they put all this force and energy into their art.

But, of course, being warlike this has a very specific function.

It's sadly for clubbing people so the choice of timber is crucial.

It's tight-grained hardwood,

which would obviously take a nice, crisp carving,

but it was designed to literally bludgeon somebody on the temple,

perhaps you'd take somebody's jaw off with it,

and the pointed end for perhaps going into their ribs,

-so it is pretty nasty.

-Yes, it is pretty nasty.

-But the one thing

that really lifts this is the fact that it's dated and...1844

and, of course, any Polynesian carvings that carry a date are rare.

-Yes.

-Many aren't dated, there was no tradition of writing

for the Maoris until the sort of Western settlers came,

and, of course, there are names on this.

We have Sanit 1844, J Watt Gabit

and, on the other face, J Gash and the date 1844,

and various other sort of references.

Somewhere in the records, perhaps in New Zealand,

these names and the dates will all come together.

These were worn ready for use on the waist by the Maori tribesmen and...

so it's a powerful thing, but what's it worth?

It's just a bit of old carved wood.

If I was putting this in a sale, I'd put an estimate of £2,000 to £3,000.

-That much?

-That much.

-Gosh.

If you've been paying attention this series, you'll notice

I have throughout asked experts if -

heaven forfend - their house went up in flames

and they had to run out clutching two precious objects,

what would they be? I see what you've brought,

this is clearly cheating, so let's come to this in a minute.

Tell me about this one first of all.

Well, this is a Chinese bronze which I spotted in an auction house.

I'd never looked at bronzes seriously,

and I picked this up and I thought, "This is just fantastic."

Just look at these t'ien-lung, which are sea dragons, sinewy dragons.

This one's got a phoenix's head.

There's one round here with a horse's head and so it goes.

Um, and I thought, "That's... I've got to have that."

It dates about 1680, somewhere around there,

and I love it, it's fantastic.

Is this one of your chosen objects just because you love it,

which is a good enough reason, or is there more to it?

There's more to it because it set me off

in a completely different direction, which was to look at bronzes,

and I started buying them, often for not an awful lot of money.

Are you trying to sell me this idea

that this is all a whole of some kind?

-This is the scholar's table.

-The scholar's table?

These are small objects which the Chinese scholar would have about him.

He divorces himself from the hurly-burly of life

and he goes off to a mountain retreat and there he looks at the sunset

and the mountains and the pine trees and then he comes back

and he writes his poetry, you see,

and he has on the table a weight to hold the scroll down, he has...

..to rest his brush on,

and he has objects to put powdered incense into his censer

and there would never...

no scholar would ever put this number of objects together.

-I mean, oh, dear, no.

-Too cluttered.

A few very carefully selected objects. But I'm a Westerner.

-This is my second object.

-Oh, right, OK.

He is a paperweight,

he's made of bronze and he's a dog, a sort of slightly odd-looking dog.

-And what is it about him that makes him so special?

-Do you love him?

-Does he appeal to you?

-He's snarling at me, David.

-No, he's not.

-He is! Look!

-No, he's not, he's arrogant.

But what is it? So why is he your second item?

Because I love the way he sits there beside me,

because these sit beside my PC when I'm working,

and he's got his nose in the air and he's looking down at me

and saying, "What do you think you are? I've been around for 450 years.

"You're nothing!" So he's absolutely perfect, I'll take him with me.

-Thank you very much.

-Not at all.

It's most unusual to get American pop art at an Antiques Roadshow.

How come you've got these?

Well, my mother gave them to me for my 17th birthday in 1970.

She got them from a London art gallery and she was interested

in modern art and she was also with Dennis Bailey,

who was a really good graphic artist at the time.

But when I was splitting up from my boyfriend, he wanted a heart,

and so I said to him, "OK, you can have one,"

so I gave it to him and then my mother said,

"You've got to get it back. What are you talking about?"

I said, "Look, I have to have my heart back,"

and so he did, reluctantly,

but since then I never would split them up.

He broke your heart, so it's mad to have given him your heart.

Yeah, it was, yeah.

Well, I'm very glad you've got it back.

Jim Dine was an American pop artist,

perhaps now not considered in the first rank with people like Warhol,

but in his day he was absolutely up there with the rest of them

-and he was also a member of the neo-Dada movement.

-Yeah.

-And he certainly, certainly...

-True surrealist he was, yeah.

True surrealist, exactly.

He also was a man who did a lot of graphic art

and the lithographs that you've got here

are part of a series of hearts.

-He stuck with hearts and skulls and...

-Yeah.

-..clothing as well.

-Mmm.

-And tools.

-And tools.

-One wonders why he got fixated on all these things but anyway he did.

-Yeah.

When your mother bought them for your 17th,

-do you know how much she paid for them?

-Yeah, she paid... It was 200.

-In London at the time.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Not a lot of money.

-No.

-Maybe it was a lot of money in 1970.

Well, yeah, it seemed a lot at the time, for my 17th birthday.

-"Oh, my God!" Seemed like a fortune.

-Well, and you obviously love them.

-Absolutely.

-They're extremely popular even today and, of course,

a heart motif is perfect for the reasons your mother gave it to you.

And now I have them over my fireplace and one is me,

one is my husband, one is my son.

-Perfect. You wouldn't want to get rid of one of them now?

-No, I wouldn't.

I love them all and really I love them all together.

Exactly. So together, she paid 200.

This one, on its own, makes roughly 2,000 today.

-Yeah.

-So...

you know, the set I suppose would probably sell

for somewhere around £2,000 to £3,000.

-Right, right.

-So a jolly nice...

-Just hold on to them.

Imagine how much they would have diminished

by giving one away to your boyfriend.

Well, yeah, and anyway it would have destroyed the whole point.

Well, I'm glad your mother talked you into taking it back.

This is a slightly odd bowl to be here.

Really?

Yeah. Where did it come from?

It's from Japan.

-In what sense?

-My husband bought it.

Ah, OK, your husband bought it in Japan.

He saw it in an antiques market.

-Oh, did he?

-Yes.

-And what did he pay for it?

-About £50, I believe.

-How long ago?

-1985.

-OK. What it is is not for the export market.

This is for indigenous consumption

and why it's slightly odd to find it here.

We've got a barbed rim, that's come from China

which eventually came from the Middle East metalwork.

It's come all the way through to here.

We've got on the back

six characters.

"Ta ming cheng hua nien chih..."

"Made in the great Ming dynasty of the Emperor Cheng Hua".

-He was a 15th-century emperor.

-Ming?

-That's what the mark says.

-Oh.

You can never trust marks.

This is the Japanese putting on a Chinese mark

to say that this is really a prestigious piece.

This curious cogwheel on here

comes from a class of Japanese porcelain called Nabeshima

which was made only for the Emperor and for the Daimios in Nabeshima.

Why it's on here I don't know,

but it does slightly tie up with the front -

this wonderful gnarled pine tree in underglaze blue,

and the pine tree is symbolic of old age and everlasting life.

They've painted the pine needles here like real pine needles,

but they've filled in the background

with a pine needle stylised decoration.

It's just right. I'm hugely envious.

It's got slight condition problem here

but it's...it is just... it is just a joy, that dish.

-You haven't asked me when it dates from.

-I'm waiting for you...

I'm waiting for you to tell me.

Well, it dates from about 1680.

It's a very old bit of Japanese porcelain made at Arita

-for indigenous consumption and not a common thing to see at all.

-Really?

I think if it was sold here today,

given that the market's flat as a pancake,

you would still get £800 to £1,500 for it.

Really?

So his £50 was very well spent.

It was worth bringing back from Japan.

I would send him back on the next plane.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

"If you these hieroglyphs discover, you fix for life a worthy lover."

This is one of the most charming early-19th-century love letters

that I think I've ever seen.

It's made out of pieces of cut paper and I think it's absolutely charming.

I mean, I can read some of it. Can you read all of it?

No, we've tried many times.

My husband remembers it being in his grandmother's house

when he was a child,

but we've had so many people looking at it, haven't we, Jane?

If we've had friends or relatives round

we've asked if they understand any of it,

and sometimes we get an odd line or a word, but not the whole letter.

Well, it's a fabulous Valentine

and I would put it in about the period of about 1830-1835,

so let's try and read it.

A heart...

T and a hat - that, of-10, often,

-has... This is a purse or a basket of some sort.

-Yes.

Purse-yew-d...

pursued...the...

and this is a chap on horseback so it's probably a knight -

the night dancing of ewer eye...

-dancing of your eye, something like that anyway.

-Yes.

-But it's absolutely charming.

-Yes.

And then finally, the last line reads...

-Cupid's...

-I wonder whether this last line could be grace,

because it's got a G and then people running.

-Could that be a race?

-Race, yes, Cupid's grace then,

and this figure here is Hope.

She's got an anchor, you see.

Hope a... Then what about two cows?

-What...?

-Cowed...

-Cows, cows.

-Cowed.

-Cowed reply, which I think is absolutely charming.

It's quite glorious and the work is incredibly detailed

and he used a pin, as you can see in this purse, U.

There's a U. I think that is very humorous

and absolutely lovely and very typical of its period.

Um, where do you keep it?

-In the bathroom, isn't it?

-Yes.

What's it doing in the bathroom?

-It's just a novelty piece if we have visitors.

-Oh, come along.

That is going to get damp.

-I'd take it out of the bathroom.

-Right.

-I wouldn't have it in there.

-Value. Any ideas?

-Well, it's a fun thing.

-Not at all really.

We've had so much fun, I should think at least 100.

Well, I think we can probably do about two -

£200, and it is one of the most charming things I've seen.

-Yes, yes.

-Thank you.

So here we have a German enamelled beer beaker from 1716,

the written date on it, which I'm sure is absolutely right,

gloriously enamelled but with a huge amount of damage on it.

Did you do this to this, you hooligan?

No, it's in better condition than it was when I bought it.

It looked as if it had been stuck together with chewing gum.

I took it to pieces very gingerly and I have stuck it together...

-..but you can see the sticky tape.

-It could do

with a bit of a wash, a careful wash.

-I have cleaned it!

-Well, give it a better one, then!

It's beautiful, it really is a lovely piece of glass.

German, the Hapsburg eagle here, all the emblems of various families.

It's all done by powdering densely coloured glass,

mixing it with lavender oil and painting all this onto the surface

and then firing it on. So other than... I normally say

you can't damage enamelled glass

unless it's chucked under a steamroller.

This has clearly been chucked under a steamroller

but still survives to tell the tale

and I'm sure that everybody

can see the very, very rich quality of that piece.

So how much did you pay for it?

£10 in a sort of junk shop in Colchester.

Ten pounds in a junk shop in Colchester becomes,

because of its quality, £400 to £500 today.

-Oh, really?

-Well, that's not bad, is it?

-No, no.

-Lovely thing.

Well, I think it's lovely, yes.

On the right we have what looks like a distinguished English aristocrat

and on the left we've got a Russian worker, or peasant.

What's the connection between these two people?

The only connection between these two people is that both pictures

belonged to my late aunt and uncle.

-Ah, so you inherited them?

-I did indeed, yes.

The picture on the right, signed C Pollock -

now do you know who C Pollock is?

Yes, he's the eldest brother of Jackson Pollock.

He was known to my aunt and uncle in America in the early 1930s

and I think he was doing other work like that at the time,

I seem to recollect having seen some,

so he just drew a picture of my uncle.

Well, the name has such huge resonance

-but unfortunately it's the wrong first name.

-Absolutely.

Isn't it extraordinary that a man who's known for squidgy paint,

that abstract expressionism, whose family can produce

rather more lucid, traditional images like this?

Now let's have a look at the man on the left.

You grew up with this, did you, with your aunt?

Yes, yes, it was above her fireplace for all my younger years,

in fact most of my life.

-I always admired it.

-It looks like it's been above a fireplace.

-Yes.

It's pretty filthy, isn't it?

It's, um, not had anything much done to it, no.

-You've seen the signature in the bottom right...

-Yes.

-..which is of course Cyrillic, being a Russian signature.

-Yes.

-And you know the artist?

-Er, yes, it's Ilya Repin.

The way you say the name suggests you do know

that he is quite a significant artist.

I know he's particularly well known in Russia,

he's regarded there as, I think, as a Russian master

and painted mostly in the second half of the 19th century,

this being a rather later work.

In the 19th century he was what could be described as

a great realist painter,

he's someone who embraced society,

who expressed it for all its terse realism.

And he spent some time in France as well, he knocked around with Manet,

he was influenced by Delacroix, so there was a fusion

of quite a lot of Russian realism and a certain amount of French spice

-in his work.

-Right. Yes.

If we look at the date in the bottom right-hand corner, 1919,

he was in Finland.

Finland was part of the Russian Empire, but it's the date

that's so interesting, 1919.

This is one of the most emotive moments in Russian history.

The Communist Party has just got going, civil war is raging

and the proletariat of course were at the core of it.

This is the new Russia.

And this figure

- I'm trying to work out what he's doing and what he's holding -

seems to be a worker of some kind.

Yes, I always saw it as steelworks or something like that.

What looks like a rather rough sketch

I think can be explained for two reasons.

I think it's an unfinished work,

I think it relates to something probably rather grander

and rather more ambitious,

and the technique used, the thick impasto on the face, is very typical

of the sort of work that Repin was doing,

again influenced by the French impressionists

and it's almost as if he's using the paint

to express the emotions of this painful birth of Russia.

Well, I think that the Pollock

is a charming example of Pollock's brother,

but it's a good, solid drawing and it's worth £200 to £300.

-OK.

-Er, I think the painting on the left,

well, you've got to remember now that Russian painting is all the rage.

We used to talk about American millionaires making a difference,

it's now Russian oligarchs who are fuelling the market.

This painting on the left is worth up to about two hundred -

£200,000, that is.

Oh, wow!

I had absolutely no idea it was worth anything like that.

I'm shattered, I don't know what to say, I just don't know what to say.

Photographs of the Beatles,

but not photographs of the Beatles that I recognise,

and actually photographs of the...

looks like sort of, I don't know, floor staff

in a television studio filling in during the lighting run-through.

Well, it was a show done at Teddington Studios.

You were involved with the studios?

-I was employed there, yes, in the sound department.

-Right.

Um, and I worked on this show.

They'd just come back from America, I think,

and it was a sort of, like, "welcome home" type of show, I think,

so I took my camera along with me and I managed to get these shots.

We've got photographs of Ringo and of John and George.

Oh, this is nice because this is actually in the studio itself

and you can see the cameras there, the lights and so on.

Yes. But the big thing was that

the little girls were all outside in the road outside the studio...

-The Beatle maniacs, yes.

-..completely blocking the road.

The gates were locked, we were locked in for the day.

-But how did they get in?

-Teddington Studios has river frontage

with the Thames,

so they brought them up the river

-and we featured that in the programme.

-Fantastic.

As far as I can see, you own the copyright on this.

Well, I presume so, yes.

It was your own camera.

-Yes.

-It was your own film.

-Yes.

And you've got how many of them?

There's 20 there altogether.

OK, and these obviously are just prints but from the originals...

-From the original slides, yes.

-..which are these.

-Yes.

Let's just open these up.

And on the top up here we can actually just see,

-very small, it says, "February '64."

-Yes.

Now I've seen a lot of Beatle photographs over the years

and, you know, a lot of the images are known,

they're published, they're not terribly exciting.

Interesting to come across something that hasn't been seen before.

These haven't.

You own the copyright, which then means that you can use them

for anything you like, in theory,

you could make calendars out of them, you could make posters out of them,

you could use them for anything,

and that makes them very interesting financially.

Have you gone into the likely value at all?

No, I haven't, not at all. In fact they've been in my loft for 40 years

and it was only when I mentioned it to my son-in-law that he said,

"Well, why don't you go and find out how much they're worth?", you know.

OK, so this is the dowry, is it?

Well, that's right. Yes. In a way, yes.

-He's hoping this is going to be the dowry.

-Yes, yes.

Without copyright, these are interesting but not exciting.

They would be worth perhaps £100 each,

probably less than that actually.

But with the ability to use these for anything you want to,

ie with the copyright, I would put them up to around £500 each.

-For each picture?

-Yeah.

-Gosh.

Now I don't know how good your maths is, but I make that around £10,000.

Yes. Crikey, I hadn't expected that much at all, no.

Well, they're great images, they are very rare

and you can do something with them.

It's a magic and a very successful mixture.

The sun has shone on us at Hertford College, Oxford

and we've had some amazing discoveries.

What about the painting that hung over a fireplace for 50 years

and you thought it was worth what?

£10,000, maybe £15,000 if I was lucky.

And it turned out to be worth...?

-£200,000.

-So what did you think? That's amazing.

Well, I was gobsmacked, I think is the word. Very difficult to believe.

I've really not got over the shock.

I bet! What will you do with it?

Well, I've been advised to wait a few weeks

and think about what I'm going to do, so nothing for a little while.

-It was certainly worth you coming in today.

-It was indeed.

-I'll say.

From the Antiques Roadshow in Oxford, bye-bye.