Port Sunlight 1 Antiques Roadshow

Today, we've come to a village built on soap,

or at least the proceeds of a famous soap empire

which created 900 houses for its workers.

Welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from Port Sunlight near Liverpool.

Port Sunlight has a very special place in my heart

because I used to live here.

In fact, I used to live there, number 62, when I was four years old

and that's because my dad used to work for the company

that owned this village,

the company that was originally known as Lever Brothers.

I remember playing here, in the Dell,

but I was far too young

to understand the historical significance of my surroundings

and the name William Hesketh Lever meant nothing to me.

But without him, neither the factory nor the village,

named after his favourite brand of laundry soap, would exist.

In 1889, Lever commissioned the first of over 30 architects

to create his perfect community,

transforming 140 acres of marshland into what you see today.

Up went the Arts And Crafts-style cottages with their own baths,

loos and cold running water, set against a backdrop of wide,

French style tree-lined boulevards,

and all manner of community buildings,

like the dining room where Lever's workers ate

under the watchful gaze of his collection

of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

In return, the workforce were expected to follow

a life of thrift, sobriety and a desire for self-improvement,

which is no small ask, but then Lever believed

that if his workers were healthy and removed from the temptations

of city life, they'd work hard, and remain loyal to his company.

In the early 1900s, one of Lever's most loyal workers

was foreman and village photographer Edward Jenkins.

Here's one of his albums.

Take a look at this. This is Jenkins

in the Port Sunlight Literary Society.

Talk about self-improvement.

How elegant they are!

They look like something out of a French Impressionist painting.

We should let one of our experts see this.

Our roadshow today is being held in the heart of the village

on the green, just outside the Lady Lever Art Gallery,

which we'll visit in a later programme.

Buckingham Palace has been the focus

of quite a lot of attention this year.

And I have to say, not quite as much attention as whoever made this

because it's made out of matchsticks stuck together.

-That's right.

-Who made it?

-It was a great-grandfather of mine.

A passionate hobby of his. I believe he made

a number of models but this one remained with my nan

and was passed down to me.

It's something I remember throughout my childhood.

Every time I went to visit her in London, it was stuffed on top

of her wardrobe out of view, unfortunately and not appreciated.

But I wanted to show it off today and I think it's fabulous.

Well, it IS fabulous. Was he a great smoker, your great grandad?

-Must have been.

-Must've been, exactly.

The Palace, obviously, was redesigned in 1913

by Sir Aston Webb and of course, this is the frontage

that we know today.

You're clasping a whole load of bits. What are they?

That's a photo of the man who made it,

William Moyer, and also, here, some letters.

He was seeking dimensions directly from Buckingham Palace itself.

Oh, my goodness. Let me hand you back the photograph.

-So, this is from Buckingham Palace...

-1957.

1957, it gives you the size... Oh, look!

And here is actually a hand-drawn map of the palace

giving the dimensions, the height, the width all the rest of it

from the Superintendent's Office at Buckingham Palace.

-So, he had no excuse not to get it right.

-No, exactly.

Well, it's terrific and I have to say that...

of all the matchstick models I've seen of all kinds of things,

this really has to take the biscuit.

What's it going to be worth?

Just think of how many boxes of matches for a start.

39,000 matches, I believe. And two and a half years to make.

My goodness.

If only one could put his hourly rate down, at £10 an hour,

you know, how much would that be worth?

But, sadly, I'm afraid that these are labours of love

and the value, even though it's a fabulous model, I don't think

it would fetch probably more than about £400-£500 at auction.

But...

-what a labour of love.

-Absolutely.

-Thanks for bringing it along.

-Thank you.

This is one of the most lovely mustard pots

I have ever come across.

-I hope you love it.

-I do, I do.

-So, how did you come by it?

It belonged to my great aunt,

who passed it to her sister,

my grandmother, when she died.

Passed to my mother and my mother gave it to me about a year ago

because I'd always admired it.

We definitely have similar tastes.

So, why is it so special?

Well, it's not hugely old.

It was actually made in 1903.

You've got the London hallmarks

for that period.

Now, what we've got there is the mark of the Guild of Handicraft,

"GofH Ltd."

Absolutely wonderful organisation,

founded in the late 19th century, inspired by William Morris.

And the whole idea was to go back to medieval working,

small workshops, and Ashby, who was one of Morris's pupils,

was the leader of the Guild of Handicraft.

And there are so many things here

that absolutely shriek Ashby at you.

Look at what happens there, how that sweeps around into the base.

That, to my mind, is sheer genius.

He also loved using these cabochon stones,

just rounded off, very natural form of the stone.

And, can you see, if I just turn it slightly like that,

how you've got that slightly ripply effect on the surface?

That's very special.

That's the final planishing, the final hammering

and that was showing it was actually made by hand

because at the time they started doing this,

everything was being churned out by machine

and had this sort of mirror surface.

What we've got as well, which you don't often see,

is the mustard spoon with it.

What a joy, what a joy. I think for this mustard pot,

you'd be hard-pressed to buy it

under £3,500.

-Oh, goodness me.

-She's shocked.

Yes. That IS a surprise.

We have a saying in the art world

which is the back of the picture

will often tell you more than the front.

But you found something beneath the picture, did you not?

It all starts with you buying, at a house clearance,

this portrait, this print of Charlotte Bronte.

Yes. I bought it for the frame cos I liked the frame.

I thought the frame was really old.

So, you took the picture of Charlotte Bronte,

which is a sort of pretty modern print,

you took that out of the frame,

which you liked the look of, can we have a look?

Yes.

-Goodness me.

-That was underneath.

And what did you think when you found it?

I thought it was quite an old picture.

So, you have here a portrait of another famous author,

William Shakespeare.

-Yes.

-Hidden behind Charlotte Bronte. How extraordinary.

An 18th-century pastel, probably about 1730, 1740,

based on the portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.

We call it the Chandos painting.

It's a little bit rubbed, it's a little bit damaged,

but you have a drawing, a pastel

of a very emotive, historical, literary subject.

Pastel was becoming very popular in England in the 1720s and '30s.

People like William Hoare, a prominent artist,

was making it vogue.

And you can tell that this is early pastel because of the laid paper.

You can see the lines running through.

And pastel, like chalk, has a tendency to crumble and deteriorate.

And you can see that

this is an early 18th-century application of the medium.

So, you've got a 1730s portrait of William Shakespeare

and it's worth probably £600-£800.

Wow. Amazing.

And can I ask you how much you paid for the frame? £5.

-Not bad.

-Good.

This is only part of your collection.

-How many have you got?

-Around 300-400.

Where do you find them?

I've found most of these in the corner of my brother's field

where his horses graze and there's a river.

And the river kind of washes away all the soil

and it pulled out some crockery,

so we started digging and kept on finding bottles.

-These came out and got you hooked on digging them up?

-Yeah.

-It's addictive.

-How do you find out where to dig for Victorian bottles?

Actually, it's kind of easy to find where they are because

they list their dumps on their maps so you just need some old maps.

-How old are you?

-Ten.

It takes me back because when I was your age,

I used to go digging for bottles with my dad.

Though my father was more interested in digging for pots

rather than glass bottles but we used to find things like these

-and it's very exciting, isn't it?

-Yeah, very exciting.

Just the thrill of when you pull them out the ground, it's amazing.

Especially with some rare ones like these cods.

-Right, so what are these? Tell me.

-They're cod bottles.

They were used, I think, for carbonated water.

-Right, so these are the ones with the little marbles inside?

-Yeah.

And some children used to smash the top of them

to get the marble to play marbles with them when they were quite poor.

So they're quite hard to find because most of them were smashed.

-It's hard to find perfect ones, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Well, they all look beautifully clean. You spent a lot of time

-washing, I should think.

-Yeah, in our sink, in our kitchen.

We scrub, scrub, scrub with a toothbrush and cotton buds.

But you've done so well. Indeed.

-These are the poison bottles, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-Because of the...

-Was it the stripes on them?

-Yeah, they've got ribs.

That's so blind people would know not to drink it otherwise they'd die.

-So, you've been learning a lot about these by the sound of it.

-Yeah.

Where do you keep them?

We have a special bottle room in the back of our house for them.

-A bottle room?

-Yeah.

-That sounds like a real collector.

Of course, generally, of course,

bottles aren't that expensive, individually,

but it certainly adds up when you get a collection like this.

Normally, the simple little poison bottles are £5, £10,

up to £20 for nice coloured ones.

When you've got local named bottles,

that's always interesting, isn't it?

I mean, on a nice...

A Birkenhead name on a bottle locally always adds interest,

so, from £3 or £4 up to £10-£20,

again, if you get an interesting name.

Those cod bottles are worth 15-20.

It's not that much but it's expensive for a bottle.

And it adds up when you've got 360 of them, isn't it?

Yeah.

But, no, exciting fun and nothing like it.

And I think the way you've been learning about them is admirable.

I envy you greatly. My digging days are over

but you've got a lot ahead of you

and thanks for bringing in

-such great selection to share with us.

-OK.

Now, I see lots of interesting watches on the roadshow,

watches that look like they should be worth lots of money,

and rather disappointingly aren't.

And what you brought today

is a rather disappointing looking watch, if I may say so.

-It is, yeah.

-But, actually, it's not. It's a very interesting watch.

And I'll say from the outset what it is. It's a German deck watch.

-Do you know what deck watch is?

-No, I don't.

Well, before I explain what a deck watch is,

perhaps you'd like to tell me what you know about it.

What I know about it is my father brought it back from the war.

He was with the 43rd Gurkha Lorry Brigade.

Not exactly sure where he got the watch

but he said he swapped it for cigarettes.

At some point, he was guarding some German prisoners,

as far as I'm aware. That's as much as I know about it.

We were always fascinated about it as children

because it's got a swastika on the back.

Unfortunately, it is broken

and I unfortunately think it was me who broke it.

-Did you drop it?

-No, I wound it up too much, I think.

But I never admitted to that. My two sisters will now know it was me.

The definition of a deck watch is a watch that is used at sea

for keeping precise time.

On a ship, or more likely in this instance a U-boat...

Oh, right.

..on a ship, you took the time downstairs

from the marine chronometer,

which was the ship's clock, and you went onboard deck

with your sextant,

and you took the time from the sun precisely

to show where you were on your chart in the position at sea.

Now, a U-boat had the same problem. And they used deck watches.

And this is a German silver deck watch.

Technically, on the dial, you've got the hours around the outer edge,

you've got a seconds ring,

and you've got this strange subsidiary dial here,

which is numbered "Auf" and "Ab", up and down.

And it indicates how many hours it has left to run.

And when you wind it...

-Do you see the hand going around

-Oh, yes.

And that is coming up.

It goes all the way round to there

and it has 28 hours to run down.

So it tells you how many hours it's got left before it runs down.

Oh right, oh right.

Silver pocket watch and here's your swastika on the back

and the other numbers on the watch indicate what it was doing,

where it was, in the German navy.

Oh.

Now further into the watch - we've got to

take the back cover off because the hinge is broken -

but you've got the maker's name on the watch, A Lange & Sohne.

Lange & Sohne were the greatest watch makers in Germany

at that time.

The best. They were the Patek Philippe of Switzerland,

the Rolex of Switzerland.

They were the best and they're greatly collected today, still.

-So, actually, it's a rather special watch.

-Oh, OK.

I think I ought to mention that you can actually go to Lange now,

or you can write to Lange, send an email to Lange,

and find out from them exactly what the history of this watch is.

So it's got to be worth some money.

From a packet of cigarettes to...

Well, a collector wouldn't pay top price, because, as we've seen,

-the hinge has broken...

-Yes.

-..and it's not in great condition.

-Yeah.

-But we know why. Everybody now knows why.

Value - between £1,000 and £1,500.

Really?

-Thanks very much for bringing it in.

-Thank you.

This album has already been looked at

by Fiona at the beginning of the programme.

It is an album purely to do with Port Sunlight.

I believe it has over 300 snapshot images of the employees

-having a good time, one way or another.

-Basically, yeah.

-This is the photographer.

-Yes.

-And his name?

-Edward Jenkins.

-Edward Jenkins.

-Edward John Jenkins, yeah.

Now, Stuart, you're a conservationist here at the museum.

-Yes.

-And you know all about this album.

Yeah, the Village Trust bought this album in 2008

for the Port Sunlight Museum collection.

And they really give a flavour of

what was going on, roughly between 1890

-and just before the First World War.

-Yeah, I'd say so.

I've been able to date quite a lot of the photos in there

so I'm pretty confident in saying that, yeah.

Now Mr Lever, the boss, took very good care of his employees.

-He did.

-And he paid for all these events to happen.

-Yes.

-He wasn't actually a philanthropist.

No, he thought philanthropy was charity and he wasn't

running a charitable venture here.

So, he saw it as good business practice

to keep his employees happy and this is his way of doing it.

-Yes.

-One of the things that is known to history that went on here -

Mr Lever took some 1,800 of his employees to Paris.

Yeah, that was in 1900 to see the Paris Exhibition.

To see the Paris Exhibition.

And then, a couple of years later, he took 2,000 of his employees

to Brussels.

Well, as I understand, the whole village and works

were shut down for the weekend.

Right. And, yeah, it cost a considerable...

Was that to see the new factory over in Brussels?

Yes, they were opening a new factory.

-And I understand they did the whole thing in a weekend.

-Yes.

They left at 12 noon on Friday.

And they all left on trains from Bevington Station,

but they all had different colour-coded badges

so they could get on the right train, and knew what ticket...

And this is a good photo of them leaving from Bevington.

-That's Bevington Station, yeah.

-Excellent stuff.

Well, what I particularly like

are elephants in the sea at Blackpool.

Yeah, I think the Blackpool trip was round about 1909.

They used to go away every summer.

Right. You just imagine elephants on the beach,

-in the sea at Blackpool.

-It's an unusual shot, yeah.

Well, it's a fabulous album

-and there's another album to go with it.

-Yes.

It is very illuminating, it really tells the story,

and it gives the flavour of Port Sunlight.

People having a good time, it makes you feel happy,

-which is rather nice.

-Yes.

And I think would be very appealing on the open market, I have to say.

I'm going to suggest, if it came up in auction,

it would be between £2,000 and £3,000.

-That sort of level.

-Wow!

-Thank you very much for letting me see it today.

-No problem at all.

Port Sunlight - there's a clue in the name.

But there is precious little sun to be found today.

It has rained and now the skies are grey and overcast

and it's pretty chilly. So John Benjamin, our jewellery expert,

has decided to set up stall inside this marvellous double-decker bus.

The queue starts upstairs

and he is receiving visitors down the end there.

I think he's got the right idea, I think I'll join him.

That feature is very unusual.

The tendency is that people always say,

"If there's a locket compartment, it's poison," but I don't think so.

Well, it's a large, round piece of glass, as far as I can see!

Yes, my grandma, it came from her side of the family,

through her husband and I've always liked it, since I was a child.

-OK.

-Cos its colours were just really nice, I thought.

So, when she passed away, it was one of the items I wanted to take

because I just liked it, along with a few other items.

Did some research,

I know it came from my grandfather's side of the family

and I found out that it's quite old, as far as I can make out,

-I know nothing other than that.

-You know nothing? Apart from that.

-OK, well, it's a paperweight.

-Yes.

To state the obvious. Made in about 1850.

Right in the mid-part of the 19th century

and it's made up of all these canes in circular bands.

For me, most exciting thing about it is that

the canes aren't all of the same size.

Have you heard of the great French paperweight manufacturers

like Clichy and Baccarat, and Saint-Louis?

I know of, but I wasn't too sure if it was a Birmingham,

possibly, maker from England cos I knew some of the, they...

So you know there were some English makers?

Some English makers

but other than that I couldn't identify anything on it.

Well, it's not like the French ones. It doesn't look French to me at all.

Fair enough.

-The central cane is much, much bigger.

-Hm-mm.

I also recognise some of these canes

and those two factors lead me to come to an attribution.

-Right?

-You, you said it a moment ago - Birmingham.

This is a Bacchus weight

and Bacchus were contemporary with Clichy, Baccarat and Saint-Louis.

They were really the only British company in the mid-19th century

making weights of this quality.

I didn't genuinely know that.

I mean, cos the reason why, I just like it because it didn't have,

the colours weren't garish and they weren't too bright...

-It's very subtle, isn't it?

-So, which is what I prefer.

Well, the glorious thing is

because they're contemporary with the French makers,

mid-19th century, and because they are such good quality

-the collectors really like them.

-OK.

HE CHUCKLES

And I noticed as soon as I saw this, I thought,

"Oh, one of those sold only a few weeks ago in London, just the same."

-Yeah?

-Just like that!

-Do you know what it made?

-No.

I thought, maybe, it was worth about £350...

It's worth £2,500-£3,000.

Ecky thump!

-How much again?

-£2,500-£3,000.

Well, bringing a pair of sundials to Port Sunlight is very apt,

however, the only thing we're missing - not much sun today!

Sadly, sadly, no. It always happens!

Now, sundials, in general, are not terribly accurate,

however, these are the Rolls-Royce of sundials.

They are actually called heliochronometers, I believe,

and were accurate up to a minute.

Why was it so important is that you could use these to tell the time?

Well, when Greenwich Mean Time was introduced in the 1880s,

people no longer had a means of setting their clocks right.

They used to set by sundials but sundials don't tell clock time.

Surprisingly enough, the sun isn't very accurate,

it runs about 15 minutes slow

or 15 minutes fast during the course of the day,

so we have to make an adjustment to allow for that

and of course, we're not at Greenwich,

so we have to make the setting.

It takes 12 minutes for the sun to get to Greenwich from here.

So, on these two sundials we've got two slightly different mechanisms.

This one, introduced in about 1907,

to make the adjustment for the sun you have to turn this dial round

to set it to today's date.

As you turn it round you can see that this moves backwards and forwards.

And you turn the dial

so the sun shines through this very small hole, here,

on to a line on the back.

So, once you've done that you read the time directly, here.

Accurate, again, to about a minute.

Which was so important because one forgets, you know,

that normal pocket watches in those days wasn't terribly accurate

-so you had to regularly adjust your watch.

-Yeah.

So, this was made by a company, here, it says,

"Pilkington and Gibbs, Preston," just on the road.

And patented around about 1907

and they were made up to the beginning of the First World War,

-1914.

-That's right, yes.

By the time the world, the First World War had finished,

the need for the sundial, really, had gone, you know...

Well, and then the good old BBC,

-turn on the radio and listen to the pips.

-Yeah, yeah.

But, this one looks slightly different?

This one was made right at the end and this one is fairly unusual.

Mr Gibbs invented this one, Mr Pilkington invented this one

and this one works on a slightly different principle.

You've got two date rings

and what you do is, you can move the outer one backwards and forwards.

What you do is, you match up the date on the inner one

to the date on the outer one.

That's the sun variation one.

And then, to get the longitude,

there's a little pointer here which you can offset slightly.

This box has got two slots in it -

one slot at the front, one slot at the back

and you turn it round, put your hand here,

turn it round until the sun shines through both slots.

-OK.

-And then you know the whole thing's completely aligned

-and you read the time directly off here.

-Fabulous.

Made very late on.

I only know of, well until ten minutes ago,

I'd only knew of six of these in the world.

We think there was about 50 made and I just found a lady in the audience

who tells me her husband's got one, so we'll have a chat later.

-The power of the Antiques Roadshow, eh?

-Absolutely so, yes.

You're obviously extraordinarily knowledgeable

about all types of sundial.

I noticed on your sweatshirt here, what's that?

British Sundial Society, yes.

-There is a British Sundial Society - you're not a member?

-Not yet.

Oh, well, I just happened to have an application... No!

OK, let's talk about rarity and values.

This model does turn up irregularly at auction.

And if you look at the auction records, they fetch,

I don't know, between £800 and maybe £1,000.

This example is obviously a lot rarer.

In my whole career I've never seen one turn up, so very, very rare.

Can I ask much it cost you?

It cost me 1,000 US dollars, which is what? About £800, I suppose.

Well, I think it was a very, very good buy.

To buy one today on the open market,

you'd be talking about a figure of between £3,000 and £3,500.

Oh, good!

LAUGHTER

I love you. Thank you very much.

Well, you're the exact person I wanted to meet here

when I knew I was coming to Port Sunlight

because I believe you live in one of these wonderful houses?

Jubilee Crescent, that's right, yeah.

And why am I not surprised to see

a little bit of local art pottery in your home?

So, how did it arrive there?

It's from my mother's family, the Rutherfords. They were ship-builders

and I believe that my great-grandfather

owned the building in Birkenhead where the pottery was produced.

As you know, it wasn't a particularly successful commercial enterprise

and they sometimes gave tiles in kind when they couldn't pay the rent.

Well, I'm not surprised.

Let's first of all name that pottery as Della Robbia.

I like to wave a flag for Della Robbia, I think 1893-1906.

Dear Harold Rathbone at the helm,

a member of that famous Liverpool family.

-It's still famous today.

-Absolutely.

Great financiers, but I don't think he shared the business acumen,

did he, of the rest of the family? Let's have a look at the subject.

You've got what, to all intents and purposes,

are some very industrious gnomes, obviously doing their gardening,

with a chap in the middle who's obviously the king,

sat on his throne, who appears to be smoking a pipe.

So, I'm quite envious of this.

I think these are quite jolly characters to live with.

Let me tell you, I know for a fact that

if I wanted to replace that today,

the chances are I would be asked to part with the best part of £2,500.

Oh, that's very reasonable. Thank you.

Strangely enough, I collect these.

You know what they are?

Well, I'm not entirely sure.

I bought them in Nigeria during the time of the Biafran Civil War

nearly 50 years ago.

I bought them from a trader

who knocked at my flat door in Nigeria

and I had a fascinating evening bartering with him.

I can't remember what I paid,

but I'd be astonished if I paid as much as £5 for the lot

and I was told that these were slave bands

but I'm not clear.

I understand the others, I was told, were cowrie rings,

which are a sort of currency.

That's what they are, they are called manilla,

I think named after Portuguese or Spanish name for bangle.

They are currency, those ones.

They were originally called slave money

because these were manufactured, often in England, I think in Bolton.

Bolton, where strangely enough, this being Lord Lever territory,

is where he started manufacturing soap, I think.

I can see why you think that's a slave bangle,

because it possibly is based on a slave bangle.

But if you actually look, these rings aren't strong enough

to hold the force of a strong man from pulling them apart.

Also, what makes them not a slave bangle is the design.

They wouldn't punch and engrave designs on a slave bangle,

they wouldn't bother.

They're also currency.

In various regions of Africa, they had different types of currency.

You get slabs of metal like this, the size of a shield,

that could be used as currency.

They loved metal and it had a value in their society.

These are the most plentiful type, these small ones.

They made these in their millions

and I have seen bags, boxes full of these things.

They hang, believe it or not, from a lampshade in our dining room,

but it's a good conversation piece because people say, "What are they?"

-I see. They must look fantastic hanging there.

-Yes.

The patina leads me to believe they're 19th century,

which is good, they're a good age.

Now, these have quite a reasonable value

and these have almost no value.

I would say these are between £2 and £5 each.

And those, as a pair, would be close on 200.

I think it's very interesting

that these were probably shipped from Bolton to Nigeria

and they've come back here, to this region,

and they've come full circle.

This delightful oil painting of Avebury by Alexander Mackenzie

is just a fantastic example of post-war abstract art.

Now, I know a little bit about this artist,

but I'm very interested to know what you know about the artist.

He was a friend of my husband's and a former partner of my husband's

who attended Liverpool Art College with him.

So, my husband knew him quite well through the '60s

and visited him in Cornwall.

He was such a lovely man.

He was really good, and I love his paintings.

I just like having them around, I can appreciate them after 40-plus years.

Of course, he was such a major force in the abstract art movement

and of course, St Ives.

You really get the sense of Ben Nicholson

and Barbara Hepworth's influence on this little picture.

I realise Alexander Mackenzie is a local man from Liverpool,

but I think it's the 1950s period in St Ives

that really pushed him forward.

What I love about this little picture, from 1962,

is that here he is, fascinated by the landscape

and the human element of the landscape.

He's looking right down on Avebury, the stone circles,

and all the history that's involved.

He's really worked and rendered this little panel.

In particular, you can see that he's used relief work,

he's added pieces, he's dug away - it's rather magic.

This market has grown and grown and grown in the last few years

and there's huge demand for little pictures like this.

And will you be surprised

if I tell you this could make £10,000 on the present market?

Um, yes. That is a huge surprise.

If this rustic scene is what you think it is,

it made an absolute fortune when it was sold about 100 years ago.

I mean, I've got the catalogue here, the Beecham sale, at Christie's,

and this painting that looks like a George Morland

looks like the same picture here.

How long have you owned this painting?

I think I purchased it about 1975, '76.

Because you're hoping that it's one and the same picture

as the one in the catalogue?

I'd like to think it is, yes, indeed. Yes, quite, quite.

Well, I'm looking at the image here, illustrated in the catalogue.

This was an extremely important sale of a Mr Beecham.

He had a number of works by George Morland,

the late 18th century rustic painter.

That made over £5,000 in 1917.

-I mean, that's the price of a London townhouse then.

-Yes.

So, imagine if this is one and the same picture, how valuable it was.

True, it's quite a staggering sum of money, yes.

So, let's treat this like a crime scene and let's try and find out

whether or not it is old and whether it is the real thing.

The first thing is to look at the surface.

Is it discoloured? Does it have an ancient varnish?

-Well, I have to say it does, doesn't it?

-Certainly.

I mean, it's almost yellow.

Varnish ages with time, that's very reassuring.

Has it got any damages on it, signs of its history?

Well, it's got a great hole here,

so this is a picture that has a bit of a past.

Now, let's get a little bit more forensic.

Have you measured the painting

and is it exactly the same size as the picture that was sold in 1917?

Yes, well, within about an eighth of an inch,

the sizes for length and width are identical.

OK. Going deeper still,

I'd love to find out little bit more about the canvas of this picture,

see whether that can give us some history.

Has it at any point been relined,

which would suggest that the canvas, being very old,

has gone a bit floppy, has gone a bit decrepit,

and has gone on to a new canvas.

Now, with your permission, can I just take it out of its frame?

With pleasure, with pleasure.

I think we have two assistants here to help us do so, it's quite a job.

Incidentally, the frame itself is also quite reassuringly old-looking.

I wouldn't say it was 18th century, but it looks early 19th century.

-You think 1820, perhaps?

-Could do.

-Interesting.

-I don't know, because it's gone now!

-That's in its favour.

And yes, sure enough, you can see that this is a canvas

that has been laid onto a new canvas.

Now, this almost invariably happens with 18th century pictures.

So, you've got the right dimensions, you've got a relined canvas -

the sort of things that all add up.

But let's have a look at the picture itself

and home in, if you would, on those faces.

Now, I have to say,

this is where things begin to sound less optimistic.

Because if you analyse the quality of, let's say,

that boy's head there, well,

it's primitive to the point of implausible

for the work of George Morland.

And then if you have a look at the foliage,

that too, is it just a little bit sticky, a little bit repetitive,

not quite what it should be?

I fear that this is

an early 20th century fake of the real picture.

What has happened is,

someone has gone to inordinate trouble to cover their tracks.

This is a highly sophisticated craftsman

who understands how to make a picture look old

and has achieved that in all but one respect - the quality.

-Does that disappoint you?

-Well, it does, yes, yes indeed.

But you look as though you can handle it.

I'll have to handle it, won't I? Fact is fact.

Do you know what it would be worth if this were real,

as everything here superficially suggests?

I believe his pictures, this type of period of picture,

isn't fetching the peak money it used to fetch,

but I have no idea of what George Morland's currently worth.

As a work by George Morland

it would be worth anything between £60,000, £70,000 and £100,000,

a work of this scale.

As the work of a clever faker, I'm afraid it's worth about £1,000.

Oh, dear me. Can't win them all, then, can we?

On at cold and dismal Port Sunlight afternoon,

I was delighted to see this extraordinary collection

of vibrant, happy textiles.

What are they and when did you start collecting them?

This is part of the Afrograph collection.

We have a wide collection of African textiles,

and this is part of the commemorative cloths.

These commemorative cloths were printed and worn for celebrations,

national celebrations, international celebrations,

as well as family celebrations.

The oldest item we have belonged to my great-grandmother,

who was in her 80s when she died, and I was a little girl then.

We actually have a photograph of her wearing the Queen Victoria cloth.

That cloth was printed to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

I think it's joyous to see such large samples.

-These were actually worn?

-Yes, these were worn.

These are actually skirts, like a wraparound skirt, so people wore them

and then when the time is passed for the celebration, you put it away

for your granddaughter or your great-granddaughter

to discover years after you are dead and gone.

These three textiles nearer me all relate to English royalty and then,

the one nearest you celebrates the starting of the Republic of Ghana?

That's right.

Ghana was the first black African country in the British Empire

to become independent and then, in 1960, Ghana became a republic,

so this cloth was printed to celebrate that

and it's got the picture of Kwame Nkrumah,

who was the president at the time.

This is a very small sample

of what I understand is a very large collection.

I think they're joyous, I think they're very decorative

and I think they're very rare.

We've got to talk a little bit about value,

but I'm totally at a loss, because I've never seen them before.

I've never seen them at auction.

My gut reaction, certainly for the bigger pieces,

that they could certainly be worth £300 or £400 for the earlier pieces

and maybe £100 - £150 for the smaller. But you have many, many?

Well, yes, and also we have no intention of selling them

because we can't enjoy them if we sold them to somebody else.

Wonderful sentiment.

And thank you so much for cheering up this slightly gloomy day.

It could be worse, it could be snowing.

LAUGHTER

Well, these items bring a new meaning to a visit to the dentist!

Where did you find these amazing fossilised teeth?

We had an old auntie who lived in Rowen in North Wales

and she inherited a cottage and when she died,

we just split all the things

between the family and my husband chose these.

Wow.

Well, this is a tooth from an extinct giant shark,

Carcharodon megalodon, which literally means "big tooth."

Imagine a whole jaw full of those!

These could be anything from two million to three million years old

and older and with teeth like this, they were eating giant turtles

whose carapaces they could just crack with the pressure.

They say there was a ten ton pressure force on that tip.

The biggest Great White tooth, three inches. These can grow to seven.

I mean, it's just absolutely colossal.

These are very exciting.

We've got all the teeth, we've got a fossilised eardrum,

perhaps of a young whale,

we've got a lovely large vertebra, perhaps from a Megalodon,

I'm just a little bit unsure.

The Megalodon shed its teeth regularly,

so these are found all over the world,

so they're quite a common one to find

but everybody loves a big tooth, don't they?

So, when it comes to value, that one alone is worth £150 - £200.

-Right, yes.

-And your whole collection should easily fetch

-between £600 and £900 at auction.

-Wow, brilliant. Yes.

-There we are.

-Great!

Well, on an awful rainy day like this,

it is so wonderful to see a piece that lifts the spirits.

What a glorious example. What's your relationship to it?

It was actually left to me by an elderly friend in his will.

I've had it about 20 years and it's just been in a glass cupboard.

I take it out every now and then and admire it.

-And give it a little polish?

-Yes, I do, yes.

And you have ever wondered where, or did he ever talk about it?

No, he never did and I'm sorry to say

that I've never chased it up, really. I know nothing about it.

I imagine it could have been Italian,

but that's as far as it goes.

Well, you've gone to the continent, which is fine, but actually

we need to go a little bit up and we need to go into what,

at the time when this was made, was really Bohemia.

We're actually with the firm of Loetz.

Now, Loetz at the time were really a tour de force

in the making of art glass.

They have their origins in the 19th century, actually,

starting around the 1830s, 1840s.

By 1900, they were at their absolute best.

In fact in 1900, they exhibited in Paris and won the Grand Prix.

They were deemed the leaders in making beautiful art glass.

-It is beautiful.

-It IS beautiful.

-It's beautiful and it's actually quite special.

-Is it?

In terms of the more technical aspects of it,

the range is called Papillion, which of course, butterfly.

This is cobalt Papillion.

This was first introduced around 1899 and, actually,

was one of the most popular designs

and ground decorations that they made.

But the thing that makes yours slightly more special,

of course, is this silver,

this wonderful sinuous Art Nouveau silver, which, funnily enough,

was predominantly made for the American market -

the Americans just adored this stuff.

And this works so beautifully and it sings.

Well, he must have thought a great deal of you

because his bequest to you today is worth between £2,000 and £2,500.

I'm glad it's been behind a cupboard with glass,

otherwise the cats would have had it!

You do know that this is

two separate pieces of jewellery, don't you?

I do, I do.

You've got the main centrepiece,

this rather large confection of pearls and diamonds at the front

and you've got a matching necklace at the back.

This necklace part at the back is mounted up in around about 1900

with pearls and diamonds, probably set in silver and gold.

And the main fabric of the piece in the front

is mounted up in platinum

and that was made in around about 1915 to 1920.

As far as you know, has it been in that format?

It was given to me in that format.

My mother got it for her 45th birthday

and she has always worn it in that format,

but I did know that it came in two separate pieces.

My goodness me, this is what

we call a formal piece of jewellery, isn't it?

It is indeed.

It represents an era which is long gone,

not many people wear pieces of jewellery like this

and when we see pieces of jewellery of this form,

the first thing you ask yourself, "Is it valuable? Is it commercial?"

Why should it be, if it isn't worn today?

Well, the answer is that it's got an awful lot going for it.

First thing, let's have a look at the necklace at the back.

These are almost certainly real natural saltwater pearls.

I think that they're not going to be cultured,

they're going to be the real thing.

It's natural saltwater pearls which are the valuable ones.

They're set in a line

with these little leaves of tiny diamonds in between,

but the main thing is it is a support system

for this extraordinary big plaque at the front,

which is what I would call a corsage piece,

a formal piece of jewellery.

These pearls are far more grown-up.

They are big pearls

and this is going to be natural saltwater pearls here

in this group of five.

They're beautifully matched.

Look at the colour of them -

lovely, silver-grey tone that each of the pearls has got.

Then let's have a look at the diamond frame,

which is a combination of old cut diamonds -

what do I mean by old cut? They're are not the modern cuts.

These are the period cut stones, the pedigree,

the old goods that people love so much.

If I take it off the block...

If we have a look at it here,

there's a tiny little name engraved on the top.

-Did you know that?

-No, I didn't know that.

Well, it's not easy to spot.

Before we come onto the name,

I just want to mention also that at the side of the frame, here,

you have two tiny little French control marks.

It's French, 1915,

but the name in the middle

is one of the great jewellers active in this period,

one of THE names...

Boucheron.

Boucheron Paris is up there with the best of the best.

Yes.

This is an overpoweringly commercial piece of jewellery

because it ticks all the boxes that jewellery buyers demand.

Platinum. Pearls. Diamonds.

1915 Boucheron.

If it didn't have any connection with Boucheron all,

if it were simply just a piece of jewellery in its own right,

I think I'd probably quote you £25,000.

Because of the fact that it has that provenance by Boucheron, Paris,

I think that your piece of jewellery

is worth £35,000-£45,000.

CROWD GASPS AND MURMURS

I want to make this clear to you,

I know we come out with grand statements, but for me,

this is the most wonderful thing that I've seen on the show.

Wow.

APPLAUSE

Port Sunlight may not be very sunny, but my goodness,

the people of Port Sunlight have been amazing today.

Look at you all in your blue ponchos in the pouring rain.

People have been standing here for hours, patiently, with good humour,

we could not have made the programme without them.

So, from the Antiques Roadshow,

thank you to the people of Port Sunlight, not the weather,

and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.