Oxford 2 Antiques Roadshow

We've visited some stunning locations over the last 18 months,

but one that stood out particularly for me was Hertford College, Oxford,

a place where I spent four very happy years as a student.

We found enough wonderful finds there to have plenty for two shows,

so tonight I bring you Hertford College take two.

Oxford's home to the Morris Minor, the four-minute mile and the oldest

English-speaking university in the world,

and for me, it's a trip down memory lane.

For four years I studied languages at Hertford College,

which appeared as a hall of residence in the 13th century,

along with Oxford's oldest colleges.

Now there are 39, with 20,000 students,

who have more libraries at their page-turning

fingertips than any other city in the UK, over a hundred.

The most famous is the Bodleian,

which stores around eight million books on 120 miles of shelving.

Who could be in Oxford without

spending some time on the river? I used to love it.

This was the scene that inspired Lewis Carroll's

Alice Through The Looking Glass.

With views like this, small wonder that Oxford sparked the imagination

of many of its former students.

They've written about the adventures of hobbits, Chronicles Of Narnia.

They in turn spawned a movie and TV industry

from The Golden Compass and Harry Potter to James Bond and Brideshead Revisited,

which was filmed at my old home, Hertford College, where I was a student

during the '80s and this quad and the rooms around it were the setting

and inspiration for the author, Hertford old boy Evelyn Waugh.

Today the people of Oxford have made their way to here by

all sorts of cars, bikes,

possibly boats, to join our slow and snaking trains to the experts.

We welcome them all to the Antiques Roadshow.

There's something worryingly odd about these dishes,

and while I try and work out what it is, tell me where you got them from.

These were bought recently at a car boot sale in Northumbria,

and they were £5 each.

Well, what do you think you bought? Have you any idea?

I'm not sure. They stood out because of their size and because of the colours in them,

but I don't know much about them at all.

What we have here are Delft dishes, and Delft dishes shouldn't look like this.

It's the rims that are so extraordinary, and looking round,

feeling the edge of this dish, there's barely a blemish on it.

-It's not chipped and broken.

-No.

Delft is a very soft pottery, made to look like the Chinese porcelain, but

copied in Holland, copied in England with a thick tin glaze.

And that chips off and breaks very easily and so this should have chips

all the way round there, but it actually looks

-remarkably clean and new.

-Yes.

And so when you see these things at car boot sales,

-the tendency is to assume they can't be that old.

-No.

But it's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just survived in remarkably good condition.

This dish was made in London. It was made in about...1780s.

-Right, gosh.

-So back in the 18th century.

And it looks brand-new, doesn't it? It looks extraordinary.

A pretend Chinaman, he's not really a Chinaman, he's a Lambeth Chinaman.

That's where he was made, and he's sitting in a Chinese-style

landscape but painted in the bold colours of London Delft.

This very bright red. And the use of the blue with these little scratched-in lines,

such a typical feature, especially of the Lambeth Delft ware.

-Yes.

-So not just one for £5 but another one, also £5.

-Yes, also £5.

-And another...

-Well, this is a little bit more convincing I suppose, because you've got one chip there.

-Yes.

-That's not bad, is it?

-No, I think they're beautiful.

I don't mind the chips at all, I think it adds a bit to them.

It shows their age a little bit more.

That's a nice design, there's a bird flying there.

A rather comical bird.

The influence here is Chinese

porcelain from the early 18th century,

and that's what this was imitating.

This one, I say this one I don't think is a Lambeth one,

-I think this looks more Bristol.

-Bristol, right.

Delft was made in many places, and it's hard to say just where

but this is even older.

-Oh, right.

-This one is from 1740.

-Oh, my gosh.

-So.

-I didn't realise at all.

And you've got some lovely dishes for £5 each.

I must find out where this boot sale is!

I mean, they're worth more than that.

That one is worth £300...£400.

Right, gosh, that's a good return, yes.

And this one, older, even more, say £500, £600.

Oh, that's brilliant.

I'm really pleased.

So keep hunting for more.

Oh, I will do. Thank you.

It strikes me that you could well be a collector of Art Deco bronzes.

-Would I be right?

-No, I'm afraid not, no. They came from my nan.

She used to keep them in a cabinet and then when she died,

my aunt had all the china and my mum just had these three figurines.

-Did she? That could have been quite a wise move.

-Oh, really?

But from...from the point of view of sculptor, let me just say

that from a hundred yards I recognise these as being by a man called Josef Lorenzl,

-and he was quite prolific.

-Yes.

And he did bronzes of all sizes. These are relatively small for Josef.

I always refer to him as Legs Lorenzl because his girls have got such

fabulous long legs, but looking at them, they're pure sort of 1925.

When I say Art Deco, these

girls belong to that, an age of keeping fit above anything else.

If you think about the Edwardian age, quite stuffy, and then the 1920s

arrived and everybody wants to keep young and beautiful, and

what I find endearing about Lorenzl, he's a good starter sculptor.

In other words, he's not overly expensive, because Art Deco figurines

-can fetch quite often huge amounts.

-Yes.

So, just looking at, say, this little figurine with a girl in the centre,

there is a signature, but it's very, very small, and all it actually says

is L-O-R, because there wasn't enough room to put the rest on there.

To be honest with you, you

really don't need a signature because his style is so distinctive.

Value? OK, your small little figurine,

she's going to be worth in the region of around about £300 to £400.

Maybe a little bit more on a good day.

This lady over here, who's a little bit larger,

is going to be worth £400 to £600.

Oh, goodness, yes.

And this girl over here who's obviously not shy, with her arms

raised in gay abandon, you might say, she's going to be worth in the region

-of £500 to £700.

-Oh, goodness me.

Now I think it's safe to say, your mother almost certainly came off best

by leaving the crockery and taking these three ladies in Oxford.

She did. Thank you.

So what is this Oxfam walk business?

Well, I was 16 years old.

-Yeah.

-A mere 40 years ago.

You mustn't tell everybody.

And went on the first charity walk

for Oxfam, and at the same time my father was

filming at Pinewood Studios, a film called Anne Of A Thousand Days.

My father was director of photography on the film, Arthur Ibbotson.

And he took my sponsor form in and he asked the technicians to fill

it in, and then lo and behold he came home with

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor having filled it in.

There it is, Richard Burton.

And then further down, he also managed to persuade Richard Harris.

Oh, is that Richard Harris? Good heavens!

So he sponsored me as well, and then

after the walk I had to go and collect this sponsor money and...

-Burton and Liz owe Julie £28.

-In the local Watford Observer.

That was an awful lot of money really, wasn't it?

It was. The total was about £140 in the end, a lot of money in those days.

-Good heavens.

-And then, yes, I went and got my money

from Mr Burton, who very kindly posed for a photograph and signed,

"To Julie with best wishes, despite your blisters, Richard Burton."

Which were significant.

I reckon that would sell for about between £150 and £200.

But I also found, in your collection, this, of the Beatles, signed.

Now, how did you get that?

Well, my father's cameraman at the time was working on the Beatles film.

-Yes.

-I think it was A Hard Day's Night.

We went to watch him filming at one of the London theatres, the Beatles actually performing,

so we met them, my sister and I, and they very kindly signed a postcard.

But I was much younger then, I was only about 12 or 13 then,

and yes, we came away with...

So you actually saw them sign it?

Yes, and it was signed, "To Julie, love from the Beatles",

so I feel very honoured that it's actually personalised.

I think that's splendid,

and it's got to be somewhere in the region of £2,000.

-Gosh.

-That's better.

Well, it's in our family so it's a bit of heritage from my dad.

Twenty years ago, I worked for Minton in Stoke on Trent and at that point

I did a lot of work around their history, and therefore I know this

is a Minton figure, and although I've never seen that particular

model, I saw it in a pattern book and didn't actually know it existed.

It was modelled by a chap called Richard Bradbury,

probably in the 1930s,

but clearly all this seems to relate to it.

-Yes.

-Help me, help me get there.

My grandmother and grandfather worked for Minton.

My grandfather used to do a lot of work for the bosses at Minton

and they knew he'd got a little girl of about three or four, and they needed a model.

-Right.

-And they asked if she would model for it, which she did,

and she was given this suit and also the figure, for doing the modelling.

-So this is your mother?

-That's my mother, yes.

-Good heavens. It's a wonderful story

because one sees the finished product often, I'm familiar with things like this,

and it never occurs to you that there was a human start.

I just think the modeller sits there, works away, does what he does.

But to actually say, "Well, I need a four-year-old child, who's got one?

"That'll do, come here, get these clothes on, stand still and off I go,"

I think that's wonderful. Has it been worn since?

It's been worn by myself and also my three children.

-Now do we have any evidence of that?

-Yes.

-There's a picture

-of me, unfortunately.

Unfortunately? You look wonderful.

I was probably... A little bit older than her there.

-So this is Butlins?

-Yes.

-So you were in the dressing-up competition?

-Yes.

-Did you win?

-I can't remember.

-You probably had the best costume of anybody there.

-Well, probably.

-The only professionally-made costume. You were that jester.

-Yes.

Right, I think it's a lovely story because it really fills out the background to how figures were made.

A figure like that by Bradbury is still going to be £250-£300.

What's the costume worth? It's priceless - it's the whole story.

-Yes, yes.

-It just brings your family to life in a wonderful way.

-Yes.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

So tell me, is this a family member?

No, no,

I saw it at an antiques

centre about three years ago and I just fell in love with him.

He had such a lovely face.

Your eyes met across a crowded room.

Yes, yes. His sort of friendly, laughing eyes.

When you took him home, was he framed like this?

No. When we bought it, it did have a very narrow stainless-steel surround.

It was about an inch wide, but it just didn't do justice

to the painting at all so we had it reframed and then we noticed

that on the back there was a compliment slip.

From Fort Dunlop,

so I did a bit of investigation work on the internet and came up and

found that it was actually John Dunlop, who invented the tyres.

-I was quite pleased really.

-Absolutely.

To find that there was, you know, he was somebody, not just a Victorian

old gentleman, as it had on the ticket in the antique centre.

Well, of course, John Dunlop invented, as you say, the pneumatic

tyre, which was patented in 1888, and is really, I suppose, one of

the most important people in the automotive industry.

And he was obviously a very nice chap.

-Yes.

-And it's lovely to have a picture like this,

and in retirement he went to Ireland.

We know from a date point of view

that this was painted there, because by 1907 he was in Northern Ireland.

But the artist's name is a chap called Lafayette.

Lafayette is actually the pseudonym

of an Irish artist called John Scott Lauder.

So it is an Irish picture painted in Northern Ireland in his retirement

as a wealthy old man.

I would imagine that a picture like this at auction,

without being able to think of a great institution or

a big automotive company to sell it to, would make just

you know mid to high hundreds, so still a jolly good turn on your £80.

-Yes, yes.

-But I think if one could find an automotive institution that

would like a portrait of somebody as great as he was, I think you might

find it would make even more.

Yes, well, we shan't be parting with him, I don't think.

-I think he's quite happy with us.

-Yeah, I'm sure he is.

So you've been on the bottle, I see.

-Mm, looks like it.

-They're a little older than that.

-A little older than me.

-Tell me how you got hold of them.

They were given to me as a gift. I did some work for an antique dealer.

I was a collector of bottles early in the days, and I bought from him

and he was very pleased with all the work.

He said "Here's a very special present for you, look after them.

"I think you'll find them quite valuable at the end of the day."

And I managed to get them out of the attic last night after 25 years.

The wine bottle is a particular collecting area.

It evokes wine history and the people who

collect them tend to be wine lovers, and these date from a similar period.

You can date wine bottles quite easily through the progression of their shape.

This cylinder shape came in in about 1780.

It was one of the great breakthroughs in packaging history.

You know, the Tetra Brik that we get our milk from.

I mean that's an important breakthrough in packaging history.

but this bottle has effectively remained the same.

It's been stretched a little and it's the modern Bordeaux bottle.

Go into any wine merchant and you'll

find bottles of this shape. What's amazing about it,

that differentiated it from its predecessors

is that you could lay it down.

-Right.

-Every bottle before that,

-you'd have to tilt it or stand it upright.

-Right.

Because it's a cylinder shape, you could lay down your wine,

and that still remains with us today.

-Yes.

-So in a way, this is the perfect bottle. It's never

been bettered, and most of these date from the late 18th century.

-There's one that's different.

-Right.

All of these are made in a dip mould.

You dipped the glass into a mould, you blew

into a baked bean tin, a glorified baked bean tin,

and you pulled it out and you've got your shape.

At the top of this bottle, there is a slight ridge around there,

-which is the top of the mould.

-Yes.

You can see it, it's plainly there.

The one that's different here is this one.

Now that has some lettering on it and it says "patent".

Oh, really? Yes. I noticed that.

And it says "Ricketts patent" and in 1821 Ricketts of Bristol,

bottle works in Bristol, invented a machine

which got rid of the hand-made element of bottle making.

-Yes.

-That was the next breakthrough. So we had the most important bottle

in glass making - in wine history, really, here,

bettered by this breakthrough here.

The seals are interesting in that they link to owners.

I've been told that some of these are Oxford college bottles.

I can definitely say to you, they definitely are Oxford University,

but I don't know which college.

This boosts their value. You'd need an Oxford historian to tell you what they are.

We're talking probably £100 each for them. The one that is actually

worth a bit more is the Ricketts one, because it is quite unusual to have

the full patent on the shoulder and beneath it, and so we're

-talking about £200 for that one.

-Isn't it interesting?

But what you've got here is a little time capsule in bottle-making history

-and as a bottle collector, you're on the button, it's great.

-Well done, that's really nice.

So this is the catalogue description of it. So the estimate was £400 to £500. Which price did you pay?

Seven fifty. Was that too much?

Well, we'll see.

Now we know clearly what it is, anyway. A Dieppe ivory mirror.

Dieppe is a natural harbour on the north coast of France,

not that far from Le Havre on the entrance to the Seine.

So you've got all the ships coming from the French East Indies and the West Indies,

all coming back towards Paris, bringing their wares in,

and this school of carving started in Dieppe.

It is a fantastic part of social history of France,

started carving in the 17th century.

This very definitely is ivory.

Is it? I thought some of it might be bone.

Well, you do see bone, and

rather unfortunately, historically, they did use human bone sometimes.

Oh, did they? Oh, right, yes.

But the Dieppe School still

flourishes, and in the 19th century, I think this is when this was made.

-So have you got the missing lion from here?

-No, I've never had it.

-Does he come out?

-He does come out, usually.

Stuck in, oh, right.

Well, I think that if I was keeping this, which you

clearly are, and treasuring it, I would get that remade.

I don't think it would be difficult to get done in Dieppe.

-In Dieppe? Oh, right.

-As far as I'm aware, it's still going,

the school of carving there, for 300 years or more,

and I'm pretty sure you can either send it, or why not take a boat trip?

-Why not? Yes, I'll do that.

-And have a little holiday in Dieppe and see if you can get someone to do it.

So you bought it in the '70s for that ringed price of £750?

Yes.

What would you pay for it today?

Well, I doubt I'd buy it today.

-That's an interesting point. You don't like it?

-Yes, I do like it, but it's just...

It wouldn't be on my list of priorities.

It wouldn't... OK. Well, if you sold it today,

I think you would expect to sell it, at auction,

for between about £2,000 and £2,500, something like that.

-Yes, yes, that's very nice, isn't it?

-With or without your lion.

Yes, so I'll have the lion made just to complete the picture.

-I think so, yeah.

-Thank you very much.

-It's a wacky piece of furniture...

-Wacky, yes, yes, it's wacky.

I've been given two items made by a rather interesting designer,

so I'm off to see our ceramic experts, to see what they make of them.

-Hello, you two.

-Hello.

-I've got two things for you to look at.

-Oh, yes.

Now what do you make of these?

Ooh, well, er, I like blue and white for a start-off.

They're not very old.

-I don't know what, what you know.

-OK.

-Oh, that.

-That is.

-Well, it's not.

-Well, the shape is.

The shape is, it's 17th century

-blanc de Chine from China.

-Right, but what do you think about the...

-The decoration is modern, he's imitating transfer printing.

-Yeah.

-By hand painting.

-But that shape...

Strange thing to do, bought-in blank.

That shape is actually...

I know that shape is in the Ashmolean, round the corner from here and it's...

-because Worcester used it.

-Yeah.

Worcester used it ...You're almost on the right track...

these are in fact done by an esteemed colleague of yours.

-Ah, yes.

-Really?

-We don't have any esteemed colleagues.

Ah, now you're talking about yourself!

I'm going to go and talk to him to find out a little bit more about them.

Gentlemen, thank you very much.

OK, thank you.

It must be pretty daunting living with a hundred or so faces of

eminent Victorians looking down upon you every day.

Um, I've got used to it.

-My mother couldn't stand it.

-Could she not?

-No, no.

-So was it your mother's?

No, it belonged to my grandfather, her father actually.

How did he come by it?

He bought it for two and six when they were clearing out the Jockey Club, pre-war.

Did he buy it because he liked it?

No, he actually bought it for the glass to make a cold frame with.

He bought it for the glass, so where's the glass now?

-I broke it on the way here, put my knee through it.

-Nice timing.

Let's talk about the image though, because it represents all the eminent members of the Jockey Club

and the date is written at the bottom, 1878.

But it's not just faces of the members.

Around this roundel in the middle

are what look like genuine watercolours of scenes of racing...

-Have you had a good look at those?

-Yes, yes.

They're done in watercolour and gouache.

Watercolour being transparent, gouache being the rather more obvious whitey, flaky bits on top

and they're signed by John Sturges

who was a reasonably eminent horse painter, often illustrated

in the magazines of the day.

So you've got an amalgam here of art and photography.

About this time photography was taking over, so in a sense it's

a rather poignant reminder of just where art was going, it's being pushed out on the edges.

But the interesting thing is that, although photography could capture

people and could photograph horses, art had yet to realise that horses

don't look like rocking horses when they ride like that,

and it's an interesting sort of transitional point.

Imagine how difficult it would have been for this photographer to have gone round,

photographed all of these, worked out the head shots, worked out who to have in profile,

worked out who are the key guys in the middle...

it was really quite a piece of craft, so, although photography

in some senses is seen as a lesser art form, this is a real virtuoso

example of the medium.

So, he bought it for two and six.

12½p.

So what do you think it's worth now?

No idea whatsoever.

Well, I would be comfortable valuing it around about £3,000.

-More than 12½ p, isn't it? That's a good investment.

-Good investment.

Well, I take one look at this and there's only one continent you can possibly think of,

and that's Africa and here we are just getting ready to, you know, do the recording,

and I have to confess I've no idea what it's called, and then who should appear

-but this gentleman here.

-Who I have no idea who he is,

-but he's come to see this.

-Roadshows can be a bit like that.

Because he tells me...

you've seen it in Rhodesia.

I was born and bred

in Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe and that is the African mbira, M-B-I-R-A,

which is played with thumbs.

-Aha.

-To make music.

-To make music.

To make the sound, yes, the buttons are meant

to amplify the sound of the thumbs.

And these, all these sections here are made out of flattened nails, aren't they?

That's right and the length of them is actually to give specific sounds.

Do you want me to...o sound it?

Yeah, yeah, why not?

This is how it was played.

Fantastic, thank you so much.

You've informed,

given me information because this was brought back 120 years ago.

But so what exactly was the story? What's your connection with Africa?

Er, my father-in-law, because he,

he prospected for gold there at the same time as Cecil Rhodes.

And did their paths cross in any way?

Yes, yes, they walked together, camped, and my father-in-law

always carried a Bible,

because nobody would ever read the Bible and he cut a hole in the Bible

and so his precious things were kept in there, inside.

-So he wasn't necessarily a religious man?

-No, no, no, no, no and he also kept his toothbrush in there,

which was only a piece of stick that he'd shredded the ends of,

and on the campfire he used to put the stick, he said, round the soot

and clean his teeth, and his teeth were perfect white, beautiful teeth.

And how does the bronze monkey fit into the picture then?

Well, he carried this on his back, now it doesn't look very big

and we thought it was bronze, but we're still not sure because it

weighs nearly a stone in weight, it really is very, very heavy.

And it's my door stop to keep my kitchen door open.

But it's a horrible looking thing, frightened my kids to death when they crawled, but, um,

we want to know what it's made of because it's so heavy.

Well, I think what you normally associated with bronzes is

the European bronzes that you see, many of which are actually hollowed

out and so they're not as heavy as a solid lump of bronze like this would be.

Do you have any idea what this meant to him? Why did he carry it with him?

Well, he said it came from King Solomon's Mines but he must have

thought a lot of it to carry it on his back, it's so heavy.

This would be like having several bricks in your back pack.

-Oh, definitely.

-As you walk the length of the African continent.

It must have had some huge significance for him.

But I'm afraid to say that you know, its value is, is almost nothing,

I mean it's worth probably, you know, maybe £100 but it's not...

it's not finely made, it's not beautiful to look at.

Oh, no, no, no, it's a hideous- looking brute but anyway it's...

We were hoping you were going to say it was gold, that's why I brought it, just in case,

but if not, well, it'll still go on being my door stop in the kitchen.

Yes, yes, well it's just completely baffling, isn't it?

And then I suppose the mbira, what would the commercial value?

If you to buy something like this, and I don't suppose they're ever for sale

because the idea is you make them yourself?

It's very difficult to put a price to it,

because they were made traditionally

for entertainment. You never get these on the market.

-No, I've never seen any.

-This is very unusual here.

And they stay within a family?

They stay within a family and there are people who are specialised in playing the mbira.

Absolutely revealing on every count.

-Exactly.

-Thank you for bringing it in, and thank you for adding your tremendous knowledge

-to everything we've said. Thank you. Thank you.

-Thank you.

I can now reveal that the designer behind these pieces is none other than John Sandon.

So, John, this is a bit of a surprise, how long have you been doing this?

All my life I think I've had an interest in porcelain,

really inherited from my dad.

When I was a schoolboy, Dad was the curator of the Royal Worcester Porcelain factory,

and so I spent more time with him on the porcelain works than I did at school,

learning how porcelain was made.

I know for Henry, his big thing is Worcester

and you swang away from Worcester primarily into other interests as well?

Yes, I left school at 16 to go into the world of fine art auctions

and so I've learnt a bit more than just Worcester, I discovered

there's wonderful porcelain made at Meissen and the Chinese and Italian and everywhere.

Tell me about these, your influences and what brought you to this?

Well, these started me off when I was 12 years old.

Dad found a little cupboard in the factory at Worcester containing

old moulds from the 1920s, and so I had a go at casting from those moulds.

The potters at Worcester let me watch them work

and taught me about all the skills of porcelain potting, throwing, painting.

That was an amazing education.

It was great because they were such skilled men and women too,

I would watch them work for hours, and they made it look so easy.

When I tried it...I tried to cast this horse and he kept going wrong,

I had ten attempts and they all split or fell apart in my hands,

but then I got one right, just

the right thickness and it's now beautifully cast, I glazed it and

-I fired it and so to me, as a little boy, when it came out of the kiln...

-Oh, must have been very exciting.

-Yes, it got me hooked on porcelain.

-What about these? These aren't things that you've done?

-No.

-No, well they taught me interest in blue and white, because Dad loved

archaeology and he did excavations on the site of the old porcelain works

at Worcester in the 18th century, and I found these, I was 14 then,

when I dug these two saucers up from the ground, and these are ones that

were made in 1770 at Worcester in that blue and white.

This one is painted in blue with cobalt oxide, which is actually a

-black colour, painted straight onto the unglazed porcelain.

-Beautiful.

-You dug it up in this condition?

-It went wrong in the making, got a chip on the rim,

and so they threw it away in the grounds of the old factory.

If it hadn't had that chip they'd have covered it in glaze, it would

have then been fired and would have come out like this one, which turns blue,

the cobalt changes colour in the glaze,

so finding these taught me how porcelain in blue and white was made.

So this is what you've done, so tell me about...

David Battie was very impressed with this one... He thought this was a beautiful freehand here.

So your inspirations for this?

That's based on a pattern that was done at Worcester,

who themselves were copying Chinese.

I don't like to directly copy the Chinese or Worcester patterns...

I like to do my own slight variations, but on porcelain shapes made at Worcester,

fired in the factory kilns to a very high temperature.

So my part is doing the painting in blue, and it's sealed there for all time.

And this lovely...

nasturtiums are they? What are they?

-They're lotus.

-Lotus, ah.

-They were growing in the park in Hong Kong.

I always like, whenever I'm travelling, I take a sketch book

and I do little sketches and then I work them out into porcelain designs afterwards.

They're beautifully drawn. What do you do then? You keep them? Are going to sell them?

This is really a hobby at the moment.

One day I think I'd like to have my own kiln and make porcelain

but at the moment I just enjoy doing it, and again,

continuing to learn from it, how difficult it is to make porcelain.

-It's always fascinating to find out what our experts do in their spare time, thank you.

-Not at all.

These are called comports.

I don't know how much you know about these but they are strictly speaking, table decoration.

-Yes, they're not epergnes then?

-They're not epergnes.

Epergnes tend to have lots of baskets hanging off them.

-Oh, I see.

-That goes on top of here, as you probably know.

And then they're spread across the table.

-You need a pretty impressive dining table...

-That's right, yes.

..to display all these. And I gather they were your grandfather's?

My great-grandfather, after he'd been Mayor of Reading for two years,

-this was presented by his grateful fellow councillors.

-He must have been a good mayor.

Um, that's also... what you've got in your hand there...

I had a quick peek at earlier...

is very rare to see... this is the original photograph from the manufacturers.

-Yes.

-And there's a mark down here.

-Oh, yes.

-Which is the mark, a silver mark for Barnard Brothers.

-Yes, that's right.

-Which appears on your comport.

-Yes.

So this must have been taken in the factory, as they left the factory,

so in actual fact you have...

the story of these manufactured till now, you've kept them in the family all this time.

-That's right, yes.

-They're fantastic, they...

you've probably seen all the scenes, they're sort of

-pastoral scenes.

-Pastoral scenes, yes.

To make people feel more connected with the rural countryside,

which they weren't, when these were made in 1870 and made people

feel a bit more at home if they could see... we've got a sheep...

-Yes.

-..a little boy tending a sheep here, we've got another boy over

here who's looking after his turkey, a young goatherd girl.

Yes, with her grapes.

I gather that there is another one.

There...yes, there is.

Four together

-make an awful lot of difference, it's more, much more valuable than two pairs.

-Yes.

If you were to walk into a shop in the West End, which is the only place

you would be able to buy such grand-looking things,

you would have to pay for the whole set of four,

today about £35,000.

Mm, of course they'll stay in the family.

I couldn't give them away.

Well, we're looking at perhaps one of the most iconic cartoon images of

the 20th century, Snow White.

Where did you get her?

Well, my great-uncle, Arthur Crooks Ripley.

-What a name!

-I know, it's a good name, pretty memorable.

He bought it from the Leicester Galleries, in Leicester Square, London, at the time, in 1937.

-Yes.

-And it was the celluloid used in the actual filming of Snow White.

Right, because the film was actually released in America and in the

UK I believe, in that year.

-Exactly.

-'37-'38.

-I'm sure it had a big profile as a sale

because it was the first time Walt Disney wanted to sell any of the art work from any of his films.

And you can see that it is celluloid, and the colours

are put on, obviously on the back.

This, of course, isn't actually by Walt Disney.

He did the original design and he had a studio with hundreds

of people who would then do the celluloid and hand colour them all,

and, of course, they must have needed tens of thousands of images

-to make a long cartoon. Now it's laid onto a natural wood veneer.

-Yes.

And obviously all these sort of scoring, circle, frame, the title,

have all been done as part of the sort of presentation of the piece.

Unusual thing to buy in the 1930s.

I should imagine so, he was a writer and a very keen amateur painter,

and he had friends that were artists and I know that he collected a lot of art

and I would imagine he'd like going up to London and obviously the exhibition caught his eye

-and he thought it was something quite special.

-Yes, yes.

It's one of the few celluloids that are just Snow White on her own,

we've got the original sale documents so you can see...

Let's have a look, let's have a look.

I believe it's number 43.

Number 43, let's have a look...

-Oh, yes, oh, there's quite a lot you could buy.

-Yes.

There we are, 43, Snow White...

the grand price of two guineas.

-Quite something.

-Animals pulling Snow White

sixteen guineas, so that was an awful lot of money, isn't it?

Well, what's it worth?

There's a huge market in America for this sort of thing.

If I was putting this in a sale,

it would go in with an estimate of between three and five thousand pounds.

-We'd easily achieve that.

-Gosh, amazing.

It's a very rare original item with the original purchase document...

you've got the lot.

-Just before, before 1912...

-Yes.

But I don't know exactly when, my in-laws set up home in Pangbourne and

they went to a house sale in Reading and they purchased the table

and four chairs that went with it, and sideboard and a sort of flat-top desk,

and I always understood that they paid £12 for it.

For the whole lot?

Yes, I've no doubt that that was all they had as well.

And where are the chairs now?

Well, the desk and the sideboard went to a nephew of mine, the chairs were

perhaps a bit rickety and I burned them because they were...

You burned the chairs?

They were the kitchen chairs and they were a bit rickety and...

What did you have to say about this?

That happened in those days, didn't it, really?

It's a good job you didn't burn the table.

Yes, well, we had a use for the table.

You had a use for the table. But no use for the chairs.

And where does this table reside now?

Well, when my mother-in-law died in 1968, it came into my possession and

we've used it as the table ever since. They used it every day.

-My mother-in-law cooked on it.

-She cooked on the table.

-She cooked on it.

-Prepared on it.

-And with a blanket on it, she did the ironing on it. We don't iron on it.

-We don't iron on it?

-No, no, I don't prepare vegetables on it,

but we use it obviously as our dining room table, it's used for mealtimes.

This is quite pretty, this border, this is satin wood.

Do you know what the main wood is?

-Any idea?

-No.

-The main wood is rosewood.

-Oh, yes.

Even though you use it for your suppers and things like that,

-it's really a breakfast table.

-Oh, really? That's interesting.

So this would have been in a breakfast room of a grand house.

Around the edge, I like this ...like beadwork.

-Yes.

-And then it's repeated again on the central shaft.

Now this is a good quality table because the central shaft is

actually solid rosewood, this is rose wood veneer, and then when we

get down to the base, that's again veneered, and then you've got these

highly decorative brass feet.

Very, very pretty, very, very pretty.

This table's made around about 1825, it's Regency. It's a tilt top

and so when the table wasn't being used,

it would have been tilted up and then pushed to the side of the room

and so you can use the room for dancing and things like that.

If, if you were going to buy this in a retail shop,

all fully restored, you wouldn't get much change out of £15,000.

How much?

This is a very nice table.

So I'd love to have seen those chairs because they would have

been valuable as well.

-They were chairs and...

-Good job you didn't burn the table, wasn't it?

-It was, wasn't it.

We've got this lovely little card

and a beautiful pendant here and on the card it says, "With all my love to my dear wife,

"God bless her and make her happy always, Vincko".

And then on the reverse it says, "With kind regards, Mr Vincent A Weeks"... Who was he?

He was my husband's grandfather and he married my husband's grandmother

in 1913 and I think that was a gift when they got married.

What a lovely gift, but how bizarre that he's also put on there "with kind regards",

when it is a romantic gift and giving this beautiful necklace.

-Yes, yes.

-It's from the Art Nouveau period

which dates from 1890 to 1910.

It's set with moonstones and made of gold, solid gold.

Beautiful piece showing all the right qualities of an Art Nouveau piece of jewellery,

it's extremely well made,

its got lovely sinuous lines to it,

beautiful natural elements as well in the floral motifs.

-The moonstones I think are the most romantic stones because they have a lovely shimmer to them.

-Mm, yes.

Now when you look very closely at the piece, you can see that it

did have some enamel on it, and it's not signed, which is a real shame.

This, because of having the enamel on as well, could have well been by

an extremely good maker, but without a signature and without

having more information, it's difficult to know.

So, do you wear it?

My daughter has it now and she wears it occasionally.

Excellent. Well, if it came up to auction, despite the fact that it is

-missing the enamel work, it would fetch somewhere between £1,500 and £2,000.

-Really?

-Well, that's very nice to know that.

-Good, yes.

-Thank you very much.

It was a gift from a very old friend who I've known for many, many years

-and when I retired he gave it me as a present.

-Oh, very nice.

What it is, is Chinese provincial,

and it was painted in underglazed blue

with this phoenix or ho-ho bird amongst rocks and foliage.

The glaze is very thick and in places has run into globules over it

and that's made the whole thing slightly fuzzy and undefined and

actually rather romantic.

And I love the way they just concentrated in the middle here

and left all this blank.

That's quite unusual

to see that and I think it works extremely well.

The back we have got is covered in grit...

This is to stop it

sticking to the floor of the kiln, you dust the bottom of the kiln with

this, and put the dish on it, and what's happening is the heat has

actually blown it upwards and it's got stuck there.

Unusual here we've got

these ribs, I've never seen that before as far as I can remember.

Did you think it was very old?

I suspected it was old from the markings on the back because

it just looks an old item.

You can't go on that.

-You can't?

-No, big trap that one.

-So it's not old then?

-Yes, it is.

Oh, right.

It's just that you can't rely on it looking old.

-OK.

-Actually it's dating, I think, to the Jiajing period.

-He reigned from, 1522 to 1566, so it's 450 years old.

-Gracious.

-We've got a crack here.

-Yeah, I have seen that.

Which will affect the value,

but it's a rarity, I mean it's a rarity and a lot of people would...

like you...love to have it, I think, and I think they would be happy to

pay somewhere between £1,500 and £2,500 for it.

-Lovely.

-So it was a very nice gift.

-It certainly was.

-This is a message form dated 11th November 1918.

-Yeah.

And it says, "Following from 5th Army begins.

"Hostilities will cease at 11 o'clock today, November 11th".

What an incredible message to have received!

Tell me all about it.

It was taken down by my great-uncle, Sapper Leopold Jacobs, who was on the

Western Front and he'd been there for most of the First World War.

-He was a signaller.

-He wrote this down?

He wrote this down, yes.

I wonder what his reaction was.

I've been thinking about that...

I suspect it was not quite what we think it was,

because for a month the German army had known the game was up,

and the German army had been retreating, the British army had been

advancing, and I suspect that they knew that it was going to happen,

and after all he'd been through in four years, I suspect his reaction

was, "OK, good, that just confirms what we all know anyway".

Well, that's quite incredible because you know something,

I think if I'd written this down after all of the horrific carnage

that I'd seen of things that had happened over the previous three or

four years of the First World War, I think I would have gone, "Yes, it's

over, it's over finally!" but you don't think that's what happened?

-No, I think that's what we would think today.

-Yes.

And what we know about it,

but what he knew was this was just the conclusion of what...

as I say... I think they knew anyway.

Well, clearly he thought a lot of this bit of paper, this little brown

piece of paper, because it's framed, he framed this, I guess.

Well, it was either he, or my father

who framed it, but it's been in the family ever since.

Well, of course, it isn't a unique item even though your great-uncle

actually wrote this himself, that makes it unique to you, but there are other examples known.

The Imperial War Museum has got a number of these, but if you bought this in a militaria

dealer's shop then I guess you'd be paying something like £300, £400 or

-maybe even £500, because it is an historic document.

-Good gracious.

Oh, I hadn't expected that.

Tom, you're six, aren't you?

-Yeah.

-And you like watching the Antiques Roadshow.

-Yes.

-So do you watch it every Sunday night?

-Yes.

In your pyjamas after your bath? And what do you like about it?

That you can make things and...

-..and...

-Make things you've seen on the programme?

-Yeah.

-Oh, like what?

-Like boxes and brooches.

Once when I was about three, I made a brooch out of a glue top and

some silver foil.

-Because you'd seen something like it on the Antiques Roadshow?

-Yeah.

Tell me about these candlesticks, you've brought these.

-Yeah.

-What do you know about them?

-I know that my great-great-great- grandfather

found them in Clearwell Castle and then my great-great-great-great...

no, no, one great, took them to bed.

-He used them.

-Oh, used to walk along like this?

-Mm.

-With the candlesticks.

-And do you ever do that at home?

-Er, no.

-No, might be a bit dangerous, mightn't it? They're beautiful, aren't they?

-Mm.

So you want to find out more about them?

-Mm.

-Well, let's find someone who can tell you.

Whilst we do have a bit of sunshine I think

really we could do with just a little bit more to show this

to its absolute best.

I've only come across a couple of these in my time

and I've always debated where they're from and who made

them but I'm hoping you can shed a little bit of light on it for me,

tell me, how did you come to own it?

Well, it came to me from my grandfather. I've always known

it because ever since I was tiny, it was in my grandfather's house.

He came to own it because he did some private work as an accountant and one

of his clients was not able to pay and he took this in lieu of payment.

I think what may not be immediately apparent to the viewer is quite how

this is made, because whilst we have what I can best describe as

a simulated rosewood frame, the interior of this is made up

of glass beads,

and not just a few glass beads.

-Just before I came I did some quick maths.

-Yeah.

I've done the surface area, then I've done a small square,

beads per square and I reckon we're looking somewhere between 180,000 and 200,000 glass beads

just within this panelled screen.

And I mean even now as the sun's coming out, it just sings.

That's why I used to love it, because it sparkled.

It does sparkle, it's the little girl in you, that's what it is.

This is classic sort of post-Edwardian, 1920s, round that early part of the 20th century.

As far as we... my father can remember...

-it was at the end of the 1920s, early 1930s.

-Oh, it's all adding up.

I think this is a piece that would

attract interest all over the world, I think it's an international piece,

quite how you would then ship it all over the world is slightly worrying.

But I think when you find that right client, I actually have no

hesitation in saying that on a good day in the right sale,

with other glass, with other

similar like items of this quality, I'd be very happy to put an auction

estimate of £3,000 to £5,000, £4,000 to £6,000...

-No problem.

-Thank you very much.

Aren't these delightful?

-They're superb.

-Couple of frogs.

-They're not frogs, they're toads.

-Why are they toads?

-Because toads have got toes, frogs haven't.

-Oh, right.

Oh, well, I will stand corrected on that one, but what's their pedigree?

Well, my grandfather bought them at an auction sale

when I was a little girl and gave them to me as a present, so they've

been with me all my life. I can't remember how old, but very young.

The actual age of them, you can see hallmarked there. A lot of muck in there.

It's a job to clean them with one arm.

Well, I'll forgive you with your arm the way it is, but let's just have a look.

Maker's mark we can just see there, that's Alexander Crichton,

very good London maker, and date letter the "e" there, that's for 1880.

Wow!

So a bit of age to them.

And there of course is where the pepper will come out.

Have you ever had them valued?

Well, about 20 odd years ago, somebody offered me £25 for them,

but I refused because they were worth more to me as sentimental value.

-Right, right, I think that was probably a wise decision.

-Wow.

I think we're looking at about £2,000.

What!

They're rare anyway but a pair is amazing. Don't croak.

Wow, I would never ever have believed that, thank you very much.

So what's this?

Um, I'm told it's a theatre ticket.

-Ah.

-Yeah, it was a gift from a friend whose father collected coins,

that was among the collection, I was finishing drama school

so appropriate gift,

and I'm told it's an 18th-century theatre ticket.

I don't know whether that's true.

Well, I don't know, I'm no expert in theatre tickets but I think the 18th-century date's right.

-OK.

-This lettering, the actual letter forms

are perfectly right for that period.

Actually this shape

you'll find on

-Bullock, George Bullock's furniture of the early-19th century.

-Right.

So again I think that suggests that we're looking at a date

somewhere between perhaps 1795-1810 something like that.

But I'm not sure that in the late-18th century we were calling

that bit of the theatre the "pit", it was the stalls.

It would have been stalls by then, right.

So we have to think

what other kind of pit might you have needed a ticket for, right?

-OK.

-Cock fighting.

Right.

And dog fighting.

And I think that's what this is for...

it's a cock fighting, or a dog fighting, ticket.

-So I'm afraid that your theatrical school was wasted.

-But I could start a dog-fighting business.

You could start a dog-fighting business.

-Brilliant.

-And I would use this to come and see you with it.

-Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Oh, I suppose we ought to put a price on it.

-How much does one pay to get into a cock fight?

-A cock fight. Oh, Lord knows.

I think somebody, a collector, would probably give you, um

£100 to £200 for that.

Good Lord, well, thank you very much.

This is a typical Victorian...

sometimes called a horse's-hoof box because it has that appearance.

19th century, covered in this wonderful aquamarine blue velvet,

slightly worn off the surface now, isn't it?

So whenever I see a box like this, the first thing I think is what is going to be within?

What is the content? And one would never be disappointed

when you open up a box lid like this, and there within you reveal...

that.

Let me know as much as you can tell me.

Well, it's come down in my husband's family, his great-great...

no, his great-grandfather was a man called Peter Vriler who was given it

by Empress Elizabeth of Austria.

He was... Peter Vriler was a Greek living on Corfu and he had a lovely old house which she wanted to buy.

After being pressurised to sell to her, he finally gave her the house

and the land, and after it was all completed, she sent this for his

wife, and to go down to the wife of the eldest son. My husband was the...

-Just like that.

-Yes.

It's a very complex piece of jewellery in many ways,

because the main body of the piece is this centre, oval centre,

but here we have the Empress's own diamond crown motif and then there's

a very complicated monogram underneath it studded with

diamond chips, but the main fabric of the piece, the main core of this,

is this wonderful arrangement of big fat diamonds around the outside...

-Yes.

-..each diamond weighing in the region of three quarters of a carat,

each stone.

-Yes, yes.

-And then, as if to reinforce the fact that this is

a serious piece of jewellery, it's mounted on a mesh of gold

that is so sinuous in its articulation

and the condition is impeccable.

Now what do we know about the Empress herself, known as Sissi

in her lifetime? A very interesting woman, wasn't she?

Yes, she was, um, she was a young, very young princess when she was

married off to Franz Joseph of Austria.

I think it was... her elder sister was intended for his bride but he was taken by this young

girl who was quite wild, where he was much more conventional.

Her high spirits could have even become a bit unbalanced

in later years and she took to sort of roaming round the Mediterranean to escape from the court life.

This nomad of going round, so doing things that an Empress

simply didn't do.

Going to visit Greece, going to Corfu, building a palace in the

middle of Corfu. An unhappy woman.

Very unhappy.

-Lonely, isolated.

-Yes. Very beautiful.

But her end was awful.

She was walking along the promenade at the side of Lake Geneva

and a young man approached her and apparently took out a file

and shoved it

into her.

And... because she was dressed in so many wonderful clothes, she didn't

actually realise at the time that she'd been stabbed, and calls out

"What is happening to me?"

and collapses and dies.

So I think it's one of the most

tragic stories of European royalty in the 19th century.

All right, now coming back to the piece here, stylistically I think that the piece was probably

made in around about 1865-1870.

And in typical fashion in the 19th century, you could also find

individual little fittings that would be housed, locked away,

under a velvet cover within the box itself,

so we have the feature that you can detach the centrepiece by means of

these little grips at the side, and

convert it to be worn as a brooch. Have you worn it as a brooch?

No, I've only worn it as a pendant but never as a brooch.

Well, look, there's the original pins, and there's the centrepiece,

so typical practicality.

-Yes.

-You can break it up and make it into something else. Value...

Have you shown it someone at all?

I did have it valued for insurance by an auctioneers about

twelve years ago, I think...

about £5,000 they said, for insurance purposes.

Not enough, not enough. £15,000 to £20,000.

-Right.

-Got to be...

it's a great story, fabulous piece of jewellery.

-Thank you.

-Fabulous, thank you.

It's been wonderful being back here at my old Oxford college...

though it never looked like this in my day. It's been a real treat for me personally,

but also for what has to be one of our youngest viewers, Tom, you're six.

You brought along your candlesticks, our experts looked at them, so what were they worth in the end?

-They were £80.

-£80 well that's not bad for a bit of pocket money.

-So did you have a good day?

-Yeah.

Yeah, we all had a good day here, so from Hertford College in Oxford,

-bye, bye.

-Bye, bye.

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