Tatton Park 2 Antiques Roadshow

We found so many treasure at Tatton Park we're back for more

and this is one of Tatton's very own antiques,

and I don't mean you, Graham.

What a great way to start. Off we go.

Welcome back to Tatton Park in Cheshire,

a stunning estate left to the National Trust

after being owned for 360 years by the Egerton family,

and Maurice, the 4th Baron Egerton of Tatton,

used to own this marvellous car and he used to tour around the estate in it.

It's called a Benz Comfortable Motor Carriage

and this wonderful film of Maurice Egerton driving it around

in his stable yard was taken in the 1920s.

In 1903, he'd been the first to register a car in Cheshire.

Maurice had chosen the distinctive numberplate M1,

which he now proudly showed off.

Maurice had gone in for personalised numberplates long before they became fashionable,

certainly he could never have anticipated anything like today's demand.

It was agreed that the M1 registration plate should be put up at auction,

sold in 2006 to raise money for things like conservation here at Tatton.

A businessman in Cheshire made an anonymous bid for that M1 registration plate

for over £300,000, a world record at the time.

What's even more remarkable is it's understood that he bought it for his six-year-old son.

Lucky boy.

I'm guessing his name begins with M.

So when he's old enough to drive, you may well see that M1 numberplate out on the road,

but for now Maurice's car can still use the original M1 numberplate here in private on the Tatton Estate.

Thanks very much, Graham.

I wonder if anything else will register that kind of value at today's Roadshow.

Let's find out.

Now, is it true that you put flowers in this vase?

-Yes, I do.

-And how long have you been doing that?

25 years. My grandmother had it and just before I got married...

And she used it for flowers.

She gave it to me and I've used it for flowers.

Oh, incredible.

You know, and I thought you were sophisticated

here in this part of Cheshire.

It's just that for me, you know, this is a piece of sculpture.

You know who made it, and I know who made it.

A mark on the base tells us that it was made by Rene Lalique.

No surprises there, but I have to say that this just happens to be

-one of my favourite, favourite Lalique vases.

-Ah!

And where do you have it on display?

-It's literally in a glass cupboard.

-Oh, not such a good idea.

-Do you have a cat?

-Yes.

Get rid of the cat and bring it out, OK?

Because if I can just show...

-This is called Violettes.

-Right.

And it dates from around about 1930.

And it's just such a lovely shape, and the opalescence,

if I can put it against my jacket, look.

You can see how it sort of, how it just works, doesn't it?

It really does work. So it's an inheritance.

It is really.

So what price? A piece of Lalique, you know, the prices vary

dramatically depending on the particular design.

Well, let me just say that if I wanted to buy this,

and I've wanted to buy one for a long time,

I don't think I'd get away with paying

less than £1,200 to £1,500 for one.

Oh, my God! Really?

-Oh, I don't mess around where money's concerned.

-How many have they made?

Well, at the last count I think it's 1,323 but I could be out on that one.

I've no idea how many they made, no,

but I think this is a classic case of less is more.

Wow, thank you very much.

It's very rare to find such a fabulous conversation piece.

Oh, good.

Now tell me a bit of history.

Well, my father bought it about 50 years ago

in an antique shop in Derby, as far as I know,

and when he died it came to me, and it hangs above the fireplace.

All I know is it's perhaps by an artist called Hayllar,

who I believe was Victorian,

and it's a group of cottagers sitting outside,

perhaps three generations,

looking on while the young son reads a newspaper,

which I presume was quite a rare occurrence then.

Absolutely.

So you know a little bit about James Hayllar.

I don't really know where he came from,

other than that he did a lot of paintings of cottage scenes.

Well, let me help you there. Hayllar was born in Chichester in 1829.

-Right.

-Now I see your picture is signed and dated 1890.

-Yes.

-So he's 61 when he painted this picture.

-Oh.

-But by this stage, in about 1870, he's living in Wallingford near the Thames.

-Oh, right.

-And what I notice on this particular painting...

-Yes.

..is that the paper the little boy's reading, it reads "The Berks and Oxon Advertiser".

So that would have been that part, northern part of the Thames.

-Absolutely.

-Right.

Now Hayllar was a great technician, fabulous figurative artist.

-He exhibited 20 times at the Royal Academy.

-Right.

But what I love about this particular painting is the subject.

These type of Victorian paintings

-really tell a story about everyday life.

-Yes.

They are obviously pretty content,

and the thing with Hayllar is that he breaks down his subject by...

In fact, you've got several portraits going on in this picture

and actually if you look on the left hand side,

you feel that Granny is looking at Mum, and Mum is sewing,

but you get a real sense of the cycle of life that

Hayllar's almost painted the mother's face in a way that you get the sense

that she is becoming Granny eventually, a real cycle of life.

Yes, yes, that's very true.

And the gentleman on the right hand side, again a portrait in itself.

I think that possibly the gentleman seated next to the young boy could potentially be the boy's father.

He's obviously worked incredibly hard but I think you get a sense of pride

-from all three gentlemen.

-Yes.

And of course what's happening here, it's very unusual,

is that the young lad is reading the news

to a group of adults who probably can't read.

Yes, of course.

And so there you sense the great pride

that the family hold for the young boy,

but this is a fabulous picture and it's in lovely original condition.

Now in terms of value, have you ever thought of what this might be worth?

It was bought, I believe, for about £200 40 years ago,

but I've no idea what it would be worth today.

I could see this painting making

at least £15,000 in the present market.

Wow, gosh! What a surprise. I'm amazed.

"Thomas Sapwell, Officer.

"1 Farrers Rents, Ward of Bishopsgate."

Do you know what this is?

Yes, I think it's a silver-gilt tipstaff.

The High Sheriffs used them in London before the police force,

and the warrant was inside,

and you would touch the tipstaff and arrested.

That's right, absolutely, and where did you get it from?

-I saw it advertised at Asprey's in London.

-Oh, really?

It was advertised at approximately 350

and I bargained with them over the phone.

I was later told, "You don't bargain with people like Asprey's".

However I saw something later I was interested in,

and I rang them again and asked to speak to the gentleman I dealt with

and they said "Oh, no", he was no longer with them,

so I hope he didn't lose his job on behalf of me bargaining with him.

Well it's an absolute beauty.

It's got the arms of the City of London engraved on the front here,

and the motto for the City of London underneath.

Thomas Sapwell and his initials are on the bottom here,

lovely script, "TS", on the base.

On the front, we've got hallmarks here for 1803

and the maker's mark is not quite visible.

It's "M" something, it's not one I recognise,

but I love these things.

I think the whole symbolism behind them.

They developed out of the mace,

and we've all seen the mace at the Houses of Parliament

which is one of the great maces of the 17th century.

But out of the mace which, the mace by the way, came out of an old battle club,

and originally that's how maces developed, out of 14th century battle clubs.

But by this time they were very often ceremonial, but these tipstaff,

which is like a mini mace, developed from that.

So we've got the crown at the top like a big mace

and we've got this lovely engraving on it.

And I think it's absolutely gorgeous.

I love it, I love the history behind them.

What did you pay for it?

-In the end I paid £300 for it.

-300?

-Yes.

-Can you remember what you bargained them down from?

-Yes, I think it was 370.

-Oh, very good!

I'm very, very pleased to tell you that something like this now

is worth between £2,000 and £3,000.

Thank you very much.

Very saleable, very collected, and a great object.

-Bless you, thank you very much.

-Thank you.

All these items in this diorama are like the most wonderful day

at the Antiques Roadshow all put together.

-Right.

-Tell me the story about it.

Well, this was made by my great grandfather for my grandmother

in 1859, when she was two years old, as a present.

And it's, to my knowledge, it's never been...

That glass has never been taken off.

I've known it all my life but I don't think the glass has ever been removed.

Well, it is absolutely a fantastic documentary piece about that period.

-Yes.

-We see all this doll's furniture would have been made in Germany at the time,

that was the big centre for making doll's furniture. Very high quality.

There's Venetian glass, all in miniature,

and daguerreotypes on the wall.

I've never seen them that small.

-Tiny, aren't they?

-Tiny.

I understand that these, all of them,

are my distant relations in the past.

Well, I've looked at all these fabulous little dolls, all dressed so beautifully.

-This is high Victorian, high society at its most luxurious.

-Right.

It is a wonderful glimpse of an interior of that period

and very important because of that.

Not many little girls of two in 1859 would have this.

The father was a gold worker, according to her birth certificate.

So did you know your grandmother?

I did, I did and I have a photograph of her here, on the right hand side.

-This is you?

-Yes.

-How old were you then?

-About six, yes.

And this is your grandmother?

-My grandma, yes.

-This was made for her.

-Yeah.

That's a lovely piece to have,

and rare and unusual as this is, have you ever thought about value?

I don't know, not really.

Can you put a value on it?

I would be really comfortable in saying

you would certainly have to pay £2,000 to £3,000.

-How much, sorry?

-£2,000 to £3,000.

-£2,000 to £3,000.

For this, but very difficult to find.

Oh, indeed.

Anyway, it's going to stay in the family so it's not going on the market.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Do you have much concept of the number of pairs of cuff links

we have brought into the Roadshow?

I haven't, actually, no.

You cannot believe it,

how many pairs of cuff links.

First World War, 1920's, 1930's, gold, engraved,

plaques, ovals, hearts, the lot.

Never in my career have I ever come across

a pair of gold plaque cuff links

which are decorated with little pictures of nursery rhymes.

Well, these were given to my father

for his christening off one of his uncles,

and then they were given to me when my father passed away,

when I got married, to wear on my wedding day.

-Shall we go through them together?

-Yeah, we'll go through them together, yeah.

Um, we've got Tom, Tom, the piper's son.

Tom, Tom, the piper's son.

-Old Mother Hubbard.

-Old Mother Hubbard.

-I'm thinking of the nursery rhymes.

-That one's blackbirds in a pie.

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

-And that one will be...

-Simple Simon met the pie man.

-Met the pie man.

And they are enamelled in different colours,

and incidentally these were made in around about 1910

so I think they're pre-First World War.

The enamel is pristine,

the gold is unscratched, the designs, you can't stop looking at them.

These must be worth, to a collector, £1,500 to £2,000.

Oh, she's going to love us. Me mother wants...

There's a jewellers in Chapel, offered her between £100 and £120.

That's all they were worth, he said.

A little gentle on his estimate, wasn't he, don't you think?

A bit of a stranger to the truth.

There are people who are aficionados, love cuff links,

collect nothing else but cuff links,

and when they were looking, they'd think, "My goodness me!"

As someone who loves his cuff links, yes, they talk to me.

-These are special. Look after them, they're great.

-Thank you.

In the 1960s, I was very, very excited by Art Nouveau.

I discovered it for the first time,

as many young collectors did, and of course great names to me then were

Alfons Mucha, Sarah Bernhardt,

and here we have that magic combination of those two names.

Did you feel the same?

Not exactly, not at the time.

We were quite sort of dedicated Art Deco collectors at the time

and we lived in the Thames Valley.

We saw this nice gallery and were captivated

immediately by this new,

sort of more charming aspect of the poster.

I mean Sarah Bernhardt is obviously an extraordinary name.

I'm sure you know as much about her as I do.

She was born in 1844 so when she did this poster, she was 60.

I mean it doesn't quite look like that.

Her life is fantasy, extraordinary things.

She slept in a coffin and she was a great actress.

We mustn't forget that above all else, she was a great actress.

She met Mucha in 1894, and they formed a sort of bond.

I don't know what sort of bond, let's not go there,

but they both liked the macabre.

But more important, he became in charge of her image

and in a modern sense, he marketed her.

1894, she was at her peak, but she was 50.

So things were beginning to change, and he projected this extraordinary

sort of vampish, sensual image for the rest of her life.

Mucha Bernhardt, you know, became an image for posters of all kinds.

Now do you know what this poster is about?

I think it's connected with the theatre that she played at, and it's a promotional poster done by Mucha.

-That's my thought.

-I'm going to ask you,

-have you ever been in a French supermarket?

-Yes.

Have you been to the biscuit counter?

Um, yes, I think I have.

Well, does that mean anything to you? "LU".

Not immediately.

Right. You can still buy Biscuit LU and LU, Lefevre Utile, was,

-and still is, a famous biscuit company.

-Right.

So this is not theatre, although she did lots of theatre,

but she did advertise all sorts of things.

She was such an image, she was bought by companies, like you might buy

David Beckham or whoever now to be their image, to be their ambassador.

This is a biscuit poster. What it actually says is, "I'm feeling very good today,"

or, "I'm feeling better today because I've had one little biscuit

"and I'm feeling even better if I've had two."

-It was an advertising campaign.

-Right.

And I have to tell you, therefore, this is not a signature.

-Ah, right.

-It is part of the poster.

-Right.

It's her promoting the biscuits.

It doesn't matter. It's a great image, it's a classic Mucha poster.

-How much did you pay for it?

-We paid £400.

-When was that?

-1984.

I don't think that's bad. I mean, Mucha was already a famous name.

He was beginning to fetch money in poster sales.

I think that was fair enough.

There is damage. The signature, obviously is part of the image.

But it's still a great poster. It's still Mucha and Bernhardt which is

a magic combination, so I'm going to say it's going to be £800 to £1,000.

-So you've done all right.

-OK, that's great.

But I'm just amazed that in whatever it is, 20 years,

-you didn't think about biscuits.

-No.

HE LAUGHS

This is my aunt, my late father's sister, and her eldest daughter.

-And this is where?

-In Venice,

taken in about 1935, I think... and this is...

-one of the daughters, again, with her sister...

-Right.

..taken in Brussels, where they lived,

where they were being educated, and this is their son, Freddie.

Oh, lovely, lovely photo.

They were all living in Brussels during the war and in 1939,

my father was afraid for their safety and they came back to Manchester,

but when Chamberlain said, "Peace for our time,"

they went back because of the elder daughter's exams.

Sadly, it was a terrible decision, because they ended up in Auschwitz.

-They were taken to the camps.

-Oh, my goodness.

These cards here that you have. What are these?

These are letters that my aunt wrote to my father and his brother during the time they were in France.

They were sent to a relative in Morocco because they realised

if you sent them directly to my father and the Germans crossed

the Channel, they would come directly to our house

-and take our family because we were Jewish.

-Goodness. Right.

Then he didn't hear anything for the next few years.

-The next few years?

-Yes.

-So he waited for...?

Yes, he waited, not only till the end of the war, till the Red Cross

got in touch, 1945, and they found out what had happened.

-That they'd been taken to Auschwitz and gassed, burned in the crematorium.

-Oh...

-And so he...

-With the children?

-With the three children.

-With the three children as well.

-Yes, they were all taken.

-Oh, goodness.

So my father could have claimed reparation money but he didn't want

to take money for life,

but what did happen was a neighbour of my aunt got in touch with

my father, my aunt must have left a phone number, and she brought all the jewels that had belonged

to my aunt and, sadly, my father was so distraught at the time,

-he never kept a record of who she was.

-Right.

And now, my brother and I are going to go to try to find...

See if we can find this lady, or her descendants.

Because somebody will know the story and we would like to thank them

-for being so honest.

-And this watch here is one of the collection

that was then given back to your father by this neighbour, this lady.

That's my very precious remnant of the story.

The watch is dated 1925, so the Art Deco period.

And this shows such a wonderful example of that era.

It's made of platinum with diamonds, circular-cut diamonds,

and you can tell that these exquisite little piercings

of the foliate designs on the shoulders are so intricate and detailed, and this is because

it's platinum, rather than before, it would have been silver,

and silver's very soft and you wouldn't be able to get

the fine delicate lines that platinum is able to give you.

This is just such a wonderful example and you have on the side,

a little cabochon onyx, black onyx on the winder as well,

so lovely little attention to detail there.

And it's on its original strap too, so it is such an elegant watch,

which goes with the elegance of your aunt in the photograph

that you showed us. Did your aunt come from round here?

She grew up in Manchester.

She went to Withington High School and then went on to the Northern College but then she met her

husband, who was Italian, and then they moved from Milan to Brussels.

-Right.

-But she was a Manchester girl, so...

-Oh.

-You don't expect a Manchester girl to have died

-in the Holocaust.

-No, of course not.

That's a very sad story and my father could never talk about it.

He was just heart-broken and so it's left to our generation

to keep the memory of it alive and their memory.

I wish you all the luck to find the neighbour or the descendants of the neighbour.

-Yes, we will try.

-It would be nice. It would be lovely to be able

to thank her, or thank them, yes.

Yes, yes, somebody might know the story.

You know, the value of the piece is probably

between £2,000 to £3,000 but I know that's

totally immaterial and irrelevant, but it's just such a wonderful story

-and I wish you all the luck for pursuing...

-Our ambition.

-Your ambition, yes, exactly.

-Thank you very much.

Well, amongst the most desirable, and therefore most expensive, pieces

of 18th-century English furniture that we have today are serpentine chests.

And they're pretty rare. Most of them are in mahogany but it's very rare

to have them in walnut, let alone in burr elm that we have here.

This fantastic combination of burr elm on the drawers which is figured,

almost like a marble, exotic timber,

and then with the walnut, cross-banded top as well.

Where did this come from?

It came down through my family.

There was a family trust which finished when my father died, and so it was divided up

between myself and my two brothers and my sister,

and this is one of the pieces I chose, simple as that.

I don't know anything about it, apart from that.

It's a fascinating puzzle.

It's obviously had a bit of a life in the past.

It's got, as you can clearly see,

the shadows of previous handles along the front.

-They would have been larger drop handles.

-Right.

Which are stylistically the sort of handles you would get in the 1750s,

1760s, and certainly having a serpentine-fronted commode with this

-fantastic figured burr elm drawer is consistent with that sort of date, the George II period.

-Right. OK.

What I particularly like, if we take out this drawer here, is that the drawer linings, instead of being

-in a soft wood or indeed in mahogany, are in solid elm as well.

-Elm?

-So you've got elm sides and elm base.

-Right, OK.

Particularly nice is this rather wonderful brand at the bottom of the drawer saying "House"

which suggests an illustrious house they originally came from,

and they must be branding between "house" and "estate."

Probably a house not unlike Tatton in terms of scale and proportions.

-Right.

-There's certainly a lot of grandeur in that.

So, that all sounds very promising, doesn't it?

But the combination of burr elm

and then having walnut banding and the walnut on the top,

as well as the fact that the feet themselves,

-which are in walnut, are later replacements.

-OK.

-And the back boards.

-OK.

I'm afraid tells a slightly different story, because originally

this burr elm chest was the top of a serpentine tallboy.

-So what we're missing...

-Oh, no!

..maybe it was split with the other members of the family - is the base.

No, it was always like this as far back as we remember.

When do you think it was bought?

I would guess the middle of the 19th century.

Right. Now if this had been the great burr elm

George II serpentine chest, I think you'd be looking at 30, 40, £50,000.

As a slightly made up part of something with the alterations

it's had, I'm afraid we're looking at a rather more sober £1,500.

-Fine, didn't cost me a penny.

-Didn't cost you a penny.

-But it tells a story, doesn't it?

-Yes, lovely, yes.

This is glowing in the sun.

It's a really nice thing and I got

-the impression you've known it a while.

-I have.

I left school at 15 and I went to work in a junk shop,

what they called them in those days, and my job was to wash everything that came in.

And one day I picked that up...

and I'd never seen anything like it before, so I thought, "Oh, that's unusual."

-I thought, "I think that's mine".

-How brilliant.

I went and had a word with the gentleman I worked for at the time and I said "Could I buy it off you?"

and he said, "Who's it for?"

I said "It's for me." He said, "You can."

He said, "It will cost you sixpence."

Sixpence? So that's two-and-a-half pence.

-Two-and-half pence.

-And when was that?

-It was in 1947.

-Just after the war.

-Yes.

-And how much were you getting paid at the time?

-£1, £1 a week.

-Oh, I see, so it wasn't even that much for you, sixpence to a pound, in '47.

-No, no.

Well, I don't need to tell you that it's the work of Emile Galle.

-That's right.

-Because his name is written nicely and boldly here.

The star next to the signature means that it was made after his death.

-Right.

-In 1905, so it's just immediately after his death.

None the less, it's a nice piece of French Art Nouveau glass,

acid cameo with pansies and stuff

-and you're still as keen on it now, as you were then?

-I am indeed.

-I bet you are.

-Very much so.

It's a little bit tired, we've got some question marks of condition here.

As it stands, I guess your two-and-a-half pence

has been transformed to about between £600 and £800.

If you spend about £50 having this restored, I think you're going to add

about £200 further to its value, pushing, nudging it up

towards £1000, which for two-and-a-half pence...

Well, I'll give you seven pence for it, if you like.

You're instantly recognisable here, sitting outside your Wendy house

with your dollies in a line, and then there's another picture,

not of you, but with a whole lot of teen dolls,

presumably this one, and this is what, a childhood friend?

Yes, this is my friend Heather with her dolls as well.

OK, what's your first memory of getting this doll? I'm not going to say what she is yet.

I remember at Christmas seeing the box and knowing what was in the box and being so excited.

-Which year do you think that was?

-I think it was 1965.

-Brilliant.

Well, now we'll do the reveal and to say that she's not Barbie,

she's not Sindy, but she's a doll that I had too, a doll called Tressy.

And I tell you, looking out over all these assembled outfits and accessories and booklets and so on,

I feel as if I'm back in the '60s again. And I have to say, I wasn't a dolly girl.

I played with Meccano and with Dinky Toys and with construction toys

and all that kind of stuff, and I never considered myself a dolly girl.

But Tressy wasn't about being a dolly girl. You could live your life through Tressy, couldn't you?

-Yes, very much.

-And looking at the Tressy glamour book,

at the back here, she could be in the office, she could be on the beach,

she could be in her baby-doll outfit, and the great thing is,

you look as if you've almost got all the outfits.

Yes, quite an avid collector of them at the time.

Why did you want a Tressy?

Well, in the '60s, everyone had really straight hair and it was always beautifully styled.

My hair was really curly and I could never do anything with it.

And then I got my Tressy doll

and I could live out my fantasies of hairstyles through my Tressy doll,

-so it's a very deep psychological thing for me, the Tressy.

-I can see.

Of course, there was the jingle, wasn't there, that went with Tressy.

"Tressy's got a secret, be the one who knows, her hair grows",

and there was a little line that went with that.

You pulled the central section of Tressy's hair out

and it came into a long sort of ponytail

and then there was a key in the back - there's the key -

and you could wind it back in again.

-We also have a friend here for Tressy, her sister, Toots.

-Yes.

And Toots had a different sort of life, but also rather a fun life.

-She did a lot of baking, I seem to remember.

-Yes, and bowling.

Baking and bowling and going to school, exactly, and we've got her various outfits here.

I think it was a brilliant idea.

It started, I think it was first produced in '64, in America,

and Palitoy is how we know it here in the UK.

I would love to say that you and I are in possession of a priceless heirloom

which would mean that I can retire from the Roadshow

and go and live on a desert island for the rest of my life.

-Sadly, that's not the case.

-No.

The Tressy that you have here, she's going to be worth £30, £40,

Toots perhaps a bit less, and the costumes, the various accessories,

I would say that that will add perhaps another £150, £200, perhaps, to the grand mix.

So yes, it's not a fortune, but you know, there is my childhood.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Thank you.

Lennox, I've got to show you this, because we can't bring it to you,

-because we're not allowed to take dogs into Tatton Park.

-Right.

Not only the chest do I want to show you, and Pam the owner, but the mode of transport.

You've been dragging it along. You're exhausted now, aren't you?

-What's his name?

-Denzil.

-And what kind of dog is he?

-A Bouvier des Flandres.

-A what?

-A Bouvier des Flandres.

You've had this harness specially made for him

so that he can pull things along?

Yes, but there is quite a lot of dogs who do carting, so it's just a standard dog harness.

-He's been pulling your chest along all day.

-Yes.

Well, he's absolutely flat out now, isn't he?

So Lennox, what do you think?

This is interesting. It's a 17th-century oak coffer, and where do you keep it?

In the dining room, actually, and as you can see, with flowers on.

-Right.

-So, you know, really, when was it made? And, in fact, it's got all sorts of interesting bits.

-Right.

-Which hopefully you can tell me about.

It hasn't got the original hinges and I don't know what it's lined with.

OK. Originally, you keep it in the dining room, it was a bedroom piece.

-Yes.

-To put in your clothes.

These were family pieces to keep your clothes which you treasured.

It's made of oak, it's made about 1690, so it's 17th century.

It's beautifully carved in the front, and let's have a look inside.

-If we lift the top up, which is a one plank coffer, this is linen, so it's lined in linen.

-Oh, yeah.

-At one end there would have been a little box for holding the candles.

-Yeah.

So a little candle box. Interesting hinges,

so whether they're original, but the main thing about it, I love the carving in the front.

It's got this wonderful warm, rich patination, which is really dirt, but it works terribly well. Value?

It's worth between £300 and £500.

Oh, good. I didn't want it to be worth a fortune because I like it and I'll live with it.

-Lovely.

-I was frightened to death

you'd say it was worth a fortune and then I'd be worried, so I can take it back and put the flowers back on.

-And he's going to walk?

-Yes, he's going to take it back, I hope.

I think he's too tired, Pam, look at him. He's tuckered out.

Yes! Yes!

I'm sure you must be as much a lover of pots as I am.

This is only part of your collection, is it?

Just a bit of it, yeah.

I've got a lot more at home.

-Have you, really?

-Yes.

-And what set you off in collecting pots?

It all started, really, years ago.

I got sent across by me mum when I was about eight or nine

just to a little fair across the road,

with some money to buy some sweets, and ended up coming back with a bag full of pots.

I can't even explain why, to be honest.

That's just exactly like my son John did.

I did a bit of research into the ones I'd got.

-Yes.

-And then from then on, I just kept buying more and more and more.

These are incredibly interesting.

-I know this one because it's in a great book about Solon's collection, isn't it?

-Yes.

Solon was one of the great decorators of the late 19th century,

a Frenchman, came over to work at Minton's and studied pottery like mad at Stoke-on-Trent.

He knew more about Stoke-on-Trent pottery than probably anybody else, and when he retired finally,

he sold his great collection on, so it's marvellous.

I've got the catalogue with all the prices, but I can't remember how much this went for.

It was £10 and 10 shillings in 1912.

Ten guineas. Ten guineas, yes.

I say. One always used to worry about the date on this.

1571 seems an impossible date for a puzzle jug.

In the 19th century, some of these were reproduced by Castle Hedingham in Essex.

You have to cover up these little holes and nozzles and drink from one of the nozzles.

-It's easier, perhaps, to see on this one.

-Yes.

This is a creamware puzzle jug with a gorgeous scene of Gretna Green.

This is ready for patterns to be put on, decorations on it.

Dated around about 1790, 1800.

-Yeah.

-But this one has puzzled me always when I saw it in the Solon collection as being that date.

-How did you acquire this one?

-I bought that off the internet.

Off the internet? Good God! How much did you actually pay for it?

When I bought that, I paid quite a lot for it,

because I knew it was quite a rare piece myself, so I paid £500 for it.

£500. That's really nothing at all. And these other ones...

This is German stoneware.

This one's a German stoneware pot and these are English tea caddies.

And two little English birds. You're still going on buying?

Oh, yeah, still buying now, yes.

It's nice to talk to someone who's really interested.

I try and trace all the history back,

as much as I can find out about 'em and so on.

-Yes, of course.

-Most of my things I paid very little for.

When you say "very little", I mean what...?

That one was 99 pence.

-This German stoneware.

-99 pence, yeah.

-It should have a cover on top.

-Yeah.

Even without the cover, I mean, one's looking at, I suppose about £200, something like that.

I think the little birds are wonderful,

they must be about £200 or £300 each,

and this puzzle jug is gorgeous with the Gretna Green decorating on it.

Must be, I don't know, £500.

The two caddies must be heading towards the £600, £700 a piece.

But I suppose the most fascinating one of course is this puzzle jug.

Because it belonged to Solon, even though it probably is a later piece,

I think it's now worth £600 or £700.

Congratulations and thanks so much for bringing them in.

Shall I tell you what the most incredible thing about this is?

-Oh, yes, please.

-The fact that it's survived.

-Well, that's right, yes.

-Where have you kept it?

-Well, it's probably been in the loft for 15 to 20 years.

-Seriously?

-Yes.

-Maybe that's why it's in such pretty good condition

because it's only made of tin plate.

It's a very basic thing.

It has, for instance, a paper dial.

It's not a quality object.

Now, do you know who might have made it,

because there are crossed arrow marks there.

-Oh, no.

-That is the trademark of the Hamburg American Clock Company.

-Right.

-Nowhere near Hamburg or the States, but actually in Wurttemberg,

and I see also it slightly gives it away, because it says "Made in Wurttemberg".

Now it has a patent there dated 1900.

-Have you done any research on that at all?

-Well, we have.

-My husband wrote off to the patent office and we got this back.

-Oh, that's fantastic.

And it's got the plan of it and everything on the back, so...

Let's just have a look at that.

It has, it's got the plan, it's got everything and it even shows how it is linked to the movement.

-Now do you know much about Ferris wheels?

-No.

Nor do I, but I can tell you that there was a very large one

in the Paris Exhibition of 1900,

so that ties in with this exactly, and it was then disassembled some time later

and sold to the Austrians

and that is the wheel that then went to Vienna.

-Right.

-This is obviously to mark that occasion of a fantastic Ferris wheel in 1900.

-And you haven't seen it working?

-No. I just didn't think it worked.

Let's just very briefly look. It says, "the connecting driving cord is preferably made of

"a very light endless helical metal spring which is very flexible

"and at the same time elastic and durable".

It's still there. Look at it, it is still there, that flexible helical spring,

and let us just start the balance going...

and he's ticking and there goes the wheel.

So it's obviously been lying on its back for ages at home, hasn't it?

-Yes.

-If it was valuable, would you ever have it out on display?

I may do, yes. It wouldn't go with my house, I don't think.

Yes, but I'm going to stick my neck out, and as a novelty item say to you £1,500 to £2,000.

Oh, you're joking!

I nearly threw it.

It is a lovely, lovely thing.

As I say, for a clock man, it's not that exciting,

but it's a great piece on its own.

-Ooh, my goodness me.

-So, is it going to come out now?

Oh, it may do, yes.

Oh, I'm going to sit and watch it go, that's for sure!

-Now I know you're not related to one another.

-Correct.

-But did you know your jugs are?

-No.

-No. Definitely not.

This is your jug isn't it?

-It is.

-And this is yours.

-Yes.

-And before today, you never met?

-No.

Your jugs sort of did, because they're both from the same area.

This one is from Sunderland

in the north-east of England and so is this one.

My neck of the woods, although I'm from Newcastle, which is a big difference in football terms.

This, I have to say, is the biggest Sunderland jug I have ever seen.

And it's very magnificent.

How did it come into your life?

My father purchased it about 35 years ago, from a jewellers in Crewe, actually.

It was a family jewellers and I believe it was sitting underneath a bench.

He saw it, asked them if they wanted to sell it.

They said no at the time and he went in two or three times until he persuaded them to sell it.

-Wore them down.

-Yes.

Well, you could hardly miss it, could you?

I mean that sitting on the floor. It's enormous.

Normally a Sunderland jug is that size, or at the most, that size,

and to make something of that size.

This is hand thrown, so they've taken a huge ball of clay, thrown it on a potter's wheel,

cut a piece out to add the spout, added the handle on,

it's been transfer printed and painted in colours and lustred.

Its value is in the size and sheer hugeness of it.

Now when we come to yours, yours is much smaller.

-Yes.

-But it's in some ways much more interesting.

It's got a portrait on the front of Henry Hunt Esquire.

Do you know much about him?

I did look up on the internet and read about the Peterloo Massacre.

That's exactly what it is, this is to commemorate the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.

And here we've got the depiction of St Peter's Field, which was

a field surrounded by houses in the middle of Manchester, and here we have the throng of people and here,

rather terrifyingly, we have the army going in with their sabres

and ten to 15 people were murdered in effect.

Hundreds were injured, many of whom died from their injuries afterwards.

And it's really hard to imagine in a country such as Britain,

so famous across the world for freedom of speech and liberty,

-that as little ago, less than 200 years ago, 191 years ago...

-Yes.

..people who met in a peaceful demonstration in the streets

to protest that they were not allowed to vote...

Making a terrible political sign here!

They weren't allowed to vote,

were actually mown down by the army. It's kind of...

It's terrifying really,

it's like something that happens abroad, that doesn't happen here.

-Yes.

-So this was a commemoration, as you say, of the Peterloo Massacre

and this was something which a lot of people were shocked by,

and potteries, like potteries in the north-east, potteries in Yorkshire,

-potteries in Staffordshire, often commemorated these pieces and they are quite rare.

-Right.

So the rarity in this is the subject.

-Yes.

-The rarity in this is the size.

-Right.

-So bizarrely, they're actually both worth the same amount of money.

-OK.

-Right.

-This one because it's big, this one because it's a rare print

and I'm quite happy to say that in the right auction,

-a collector would pay £1,500.

-Goodness, right.

-Crikey.

-For yours, and for yours.

-Right, yes.

That's lovely, thank you.

They were my grandmother's.

I don't know much about the elements because she never used to wear them much,

she used to keep them away, and that's about it really.

I don't really know too much about them.

May I be a little depressing and say that the vast majority of the items

that you've brought in here are decorative, colourful, modern items of very little commercial merit.

But there's one item here, just one, that's a little bit different from the rest of the collection.

Did you ever look at that and think to yourself, what have we got here?

Is it something slightly more unusual?

My grandmother has mentioned that one.

What an opal that is, because that is an opal of the most spectacular quality.

What I'm hoping we can do in the sunshine is to pick up the sheer play of colour.

Where does it come from? Australia.

A particular mine, the Coober Pedy or Lightning Ridge Mine

where opals like this, in Australia, are regarded with incredible significance.

Why is it so good?

Why is the colour so important?

Because it's a black opal.

Mostly when we see them, opals are white and there's a good example of a white opal and diamond ring.

Not very inspiring, it's got a quite pretty play of colour, but when you look at this.

Can you see the depth of all the different rainbow shades here?

Yellows, tangerines, reds, blues -

very, very significant piece of material.

-Do you think the mount is rather unusual?

-Er, yes.

-Well, it's made out of white gold.

-Right.

And you've got this almost like a textured feather effect to the mount.

But when we look inside the mount, and if I check it with my lens,

it's hallmarked 1972 Birmingham

and it's made by one of the great London society jewellers called Grima.

So you haven't just got a fantastic opal,

which for me, I'm melting, looking at it, but you have a Grima mount.

We see opals all the time, like that one there, they're worth £200, £300.

This opal is a little more substantial.

The mount, excluding the stone, is at least £1,000 to £1,500.

The stone, that's probably worth something in the region of £4,000.

-Wow.

-Your opal ring, disregarded here in the composition pile of biddly-do's...

-Yes.

-..is worth at least £4,000 to £6,000.

-Wow.

-Fantastic! Well, done.

-Thank you.

Well, it belonged originally to my great grandfather and it was presented to him when Liverpool

won the Championship in 1923 and it's come to me via my grandfather.

But other than that, I really don't know a lot about the watch fob itself.

So what's your connection with him? I mean he was your grandfather.

-What did he do for the club?

-He was one of the founding directors of Liverpool Football Club.

Right. And this is a wonderfully decorative device.

It's a commemorative medal, watch fob, as you say, to be been worn on a chain.

Gold, enamel, the symbols of the club,

Liverpool Association Football Club, and of course 1922-1923.

The year they won the First Division Championship

and it was the second year running they'd won it.

-They also won in '21-'22.

-Oh.

So they won back-to-back Division One Championships.

Liverpool has a complicated history because originally they were part of Everton.

They were the same club, and John Holding, who was one of the directors, moved away

and then he had a meeting in his house in Anfield on 15th March 1892

with a few of his friends left from the Everton Board

and they started a new club which became known as Liverpool Football Club.

And so let's turn it over.

-"W H Webb". Now he was your great grandfather.

-Yes.

-And this is a medal, a Championship Medal, which would only have been given to the directors.

-Oh, right.

This is a very rare early piece.

I just think it's a great history of this area, this time when it was all so exciting and so dynamic.

-Right.

-It's going to be between £2,000 and £3,000.

-Good grief.

-So, look after it.

-Absolutely.

-Even as a Liverpool fan, you've still got to look after it.

Yes, fantastic, thank you very much, that's brilliant.

"In remembrance of joint serious work and cheerful conversation for big organizing in the Checker-hut."

That's an interesting use of English. What does this mean?

My father worked with these prisoners of war and they were all stationed locally here.

German prisoners of war?

German prisoners of war, and when they finished at the camp

and repatriated back to their own countries,

they gave him this box in remembrance of working alongside.

They worked with him doing various things round the camp where they were stationed.

-And this was after the Second World War.

-Yes.

-The fact that they talked about cheerful conversation, it sounds like they got on.

-Yes.

My father was quite a likeable character and I suppose they're just like ordinary men.

The fact that they were fighting men, they were organised

from their own country to fight, just like ours were here.

You'd think that, given how many people died, that when the German prisoners of war were here,

they would be much hated, and reviled in a community, but in many cases it wasn't like that, was it?

-And obviously not in this case.

-Not in this case, no.

They worked on the farms locally and some of them even stayed.

And did you used to play with them? Did they make things for you?

They made yachts for my brother and I, we played with those.

We've still got the yachts, after all those years.

-And did your dad keep in touch with them, after they left?

-Yes.

He wrote until, I would say, the mid '50s,

and they wrote back to him to tell him how they'd got back on when they went back to Germany.

-And these are some of these letters are, are they?

-Some of the letters, yes.

Oh, hang on, you're mentioned here.

"Does Philip play cricket or football?

"Have you got plenty of chrysanthemums for your garden?

"Otherwise I'll send you a few asters.

"In our garden there are only vegetables because we cannot eat flowers."

-It was pretty tough times in Germany after the war.

-Yeah.

Did your dad talk to you about them? He has good memories of them?

He does, yeah. I mean, like I say, they were just ordinary guys

and he worked alongside them and they worked alongside him. There was a camaraderie there.

Is this something that your father treasured?

Yes, he did, yes, and he left it to me.

My mum's had it and then she gave it to me and my mum's still alive and she's 96,

and she still talks about them even today, and only this week she was speaking about the guys.

-Great. Well, it's a lovely, lovely story to hear, thank you.

-Thank you very much.

In all fairness, I think anybody could be forgiven,

looking at this tea set, for assuming that it might

have been used by Sergeant Pepper back in the days of psychedelia,

because those colours really do hit the retina, don't they?

-Yes, they do.

-You know that this is not 1960s, do you?

No, it belonged to my grandmother.

I think she either bought it or it might have been a wedding present, and she got married in 1926.

That's very, very interesting because the actual design itself is very much an Art Deco design.

The are reminiscent of one person in particular, and that person is Clarice Cliff.

-But you and I know that this is not by Clarice Cliff.

-No.

-No.

-Because if we turn it upside down we can say... There we go,

It says on there "Delhi hand painted"

and the maker is Grimwades.

And it says on there Royal Winton Ware or Royal Winton Ivory

and the date on this, to be honest with you,

I think it's a little bit later than her wedding date.

I think this is probably more likely to be round about 1932-1935,

but the colours are... Well, they take a bit of believing really, don't they?

Yeah, they do, I think it's one of those things that you either,

you love it or you loathe it really.

-There is no halfway house with your tea set.

-No, not really.

I'm hoping you love it.

-Yeah, it's grown on me over the years.

-Has it?

I think when I was younger, I thought it was hideous,

but as I've got older I like it more and more.

You do? OK, now there's good news and bad news.

I suppose the bad news is the shape, because the shape is a very traditional pedestrian shape.

If that had been a very cubistic shape,

I think that would have worked in its favour from a value point of view.

I can give you what I would call a guesstimate rather than an estimate,

-because you've got quite a quantity.

-Yeah.

And I think that what you have here is going to be worth in the region of around about £500.

-CROWD:

-Ooh.

-Oh.

-So do you like that?

You were very good there.

They're the best crowd we've had for some time, aren't they?

I'm sure money means nothing to people in this part of the world,

but for my money, I have to say,

it's been an education because whenever I see this again,

if I ever do, I will think of Tatton Park and you.

-Thank you.

-Is that OK?

-Thank you very much.

So, are you a collector of things from Great Exhibitions?

No, I didn't know what it was at first.

I just thought it was a shell and just picked it up.

With all this wonderful engraving,

you just thought it was a shell?

Well, when I found it.

Looking at it very closely, you could just about make out the engraving

and there are a few bits of ink that must have been left over

from when it was originally done, so I thought I'd take a chance

and I went over it with a dry white marker and then wiped it off and it left it like that.

Was it very expensive for you?

Oh, all of ten pence it cost me.

-Ten pence.

-Oh, that's marvellous.

You know of course the 1862 building then became

the Natural History Museum,

so it's quite nice to have a shell and the Natural History Museum together again.

No, I didn't realise.

And so you brought a shell to life.

Great idea for all those people out there if they want to bring up engraving on 10p shells.

Yes, ten pence in a car boot sale.

Wonderful. Well, you've improved it somewhat, and the value.

-I think now if you were to put it into an auction, you'd get £150 to £200.

-Wow.

-Not a bad profit, so well done.

-Thank you.

You've presented me with one of the biggest headaches I've ever had since I've been on the Roadshow.

Sorry about that!

Because there's something about this wonderful ink stand that is really rather special.

Can you tell me how it ended up with you.

Well, we like collecting silver and we went to an antique fair

and saw it and fell in love with it.

We just liked everything about it, so we bought it.

So when you bought this from the dealer, did he say anything to you about it?

Well, he said he didn't know the provenance of it, but he thought

it was something important, and we loved it, so we decided to buy it anyway.

And he said it would either be the most expensive piece of silver in an inkwell we'd bought,

or it would turn out to be something important, in which case we would have got a good deal.

-And what did you pay for it? Can you remember?

-I can. £15,000.

-Wow, well, that's quite a big price for an ink stand.

-Oh, I know.

Let's have a closer look at it because it's got two globes here,

one celestial, the other terrestrial.

-But if we open this one up, we can see that's the inkwell.

-Yes.

And if we open this one up,

that's the sander for drying the ink.

-Yes, yes.

-So rather beautifully pierced, in fact.

In the centre we've got this rather nice classical figure.

She's obviously lamenting the fact that her husband is away at sea.

She's got that sort of worried look about her.

But rather wonderfully, the taper stick,

which was used for melting the wax

for sealing the letter, was modelled as an anchor.

-So we've got a really nautical flavour to this ink stand.

-Yes.

Including these extraordinary feet which are modelled as...

Well, they call them dolphins,

they don't really look anything like a dolphin,

-but that's what they're called in silversmithing terms.

-Yes.

And let's have a look underneath and see if it's got any marks.

Yeah, we've got a nice set of hallmarks here. A date letter "K" for 1805

and maker's mark "JE", that's for John Eames.

A famous silversmith and produced a lot of very good silver

in the early 19th century.

The most important thing of all about this ink stand

is this inscription on the front which says "Horatio from Emma".

-Now, I can see now why you might have paid £15,000 for it.

-Yes, yes.

The dilemma is, is that inscription genuine, is it real?

Well, a number of things make me think that it could be.

Firstly, that John Eames is known to have made silver for Nelson.

A number of pieces of Nelson silver have come up with his crest on, made by John Eames.

So that's the first thing.

I like sort of authentic things like on the globe here we've got

-a map of Africa, and just on the front it's got "Barbary".

-OK.

Which was Northern Africa at the time.

-Yes.

-The date 1805 was of course a very auspicious year for Nelson.

-In fact, not a very happy year for him, because it was the year he was killed.

-Yes.

But he wasn't killed until the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805

and it's quite possible that Emma Hamilton, his very public mistress,

gave this to him at the beginning of the year.

Now, it remains then to decide,

you know, if it's right, if it's wrong, what could it be worth?

If this is not substantiated, if it turns out to be wrong,

-you bought a pretty expensive ink stand.

-Yes.

I would have only valued it at £6,000 to £8,000

-if we can't substantiate that this is a genuine inscription.

-Yes. Sure.

But if this is genuine,

and you might need to go to the National Maritime Museum, to Greenwich,

-to try and start authenticating it.

-Yes.

That would be a good place to go.

-We are talking of at least £40,000 to £50,000.

-Right.

There are very, very fanatical collectors of Nelsoniana.

-I know, yes.

-And something of such importance as this, is a very very special object indeed.

-OK.

-So you've really made my day by bringing this along.

-Good.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you, thank you.

So what about that? That is potentially a very interesting little item.

If we can, we'll follow that lady and see what happens when she goes to the National Maritime Museum.

And look, what a glorious day!

Fantastic sunshine, beautiful Tatton Park in Cheshire.

From the Antiques Roadshow, until next time, bye-bye.

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