Exeter Cathedral 1 Antiques Roadshow

Today we're in the bustling city centre of Exeter,

and tucked away, just off the high street, is this beautiful green.

And from Roman bathhouse to Saxon monastery to Gothic cathedral,

it's been at the heart of the city's history for 2,000 years.

Welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from Exeter Cathedral in Devon.

Walking through Exeter Cathedral, it's wonderfully calm and serene,

but cathedrals weren't always the quiet,

reverential places we expect today.

This hush is a relatively modern Victorian invention.

Before then, as the biggest building right in the heart of the city,

the cathedral was a noisy community space that attracted

all sorts of characters.

For centuries the clergy had to deal with people shooting birds

nesting in the walls, ball games that broke windows,

cutpurses and pick-pockets stealing from worshippers.

Even a murder.

It wasn't just people that were a problem.

Behind that door is where the dog whipper lived.

His job was to round up all the stray dogs that would

wander around the cathedral every day.

He would look down from his window, from his room up there,

and if he saw any, he'd be straight down to shoo them out.

And this is what he used, the dog whipper's staff, poor things.

It's still used today, but only for ceremonial purposes

and it's carried by the verger during services.

The cathedral had another unusual employee on the books,

to deal with a different animal problem and help keep time.

This wonderful astronomical clock was fitted in 1484 and behind here,

rodents would nibble away at the ropes of the clock's inner workings,

no doubt attracted by the animal fat which was used as a lubricant.

So a little hole was cut into the door leading to the clock workings,

so a cat could get in and catch the mice.

The cat was even listed as a member of the cathedral staff

and had a regular salary. A penny a week.

And that's Tom,

who lost an eye in a fight with an owl for a rat in the cathedral.

He looks quite fierce, but apparently he was a real pussy cat.

Outside, our experts are ready for their challenging but somewhat

safer task of inspecting all the items brought along by our visitors.

But you know, don't wait for our experts to

give their valuations, why don't you have a go with our valuation game.

Just press red on your remote control, or you can

play along with our app on your smartphone or on your tablet.

It really is a very unusual clock. Do you like it?

I love it, absolutely love it.

Do you know where it was made? Have you any idea about it at all?

No, only that it was left to my godmother

by an uncle who lived in Bond Street, I believe owned

a property at Bond Street years ago, that's all I know.

Well, that would make sense because this was a wealthy man's object.

In the loose sense of the word, a carriage clock.

So let's see if we can have any sort of ideas as to who might have

made it, and we are helped very much.

On the bottom there it says "Tiffany & Co"

and it says "Sterling silver"

and it says 925 parts of 1,000 silver.

So, do you know much about Tiffany?

Um, only sort of, you know, the obvious Tiffany jewellery and...

Exactly, well, Tiffany was given by his father a chunk of money

in the 19th century and started producing all sorts of goodies.

This is absolutely typical of the output of Tiffany from 1895 to 1905.

Top of the range, it's a cracking good thing,

the sort of product that they would have had manufactured for the

US market, because remember they had outlets then in Paris

-and in Regent Street, London.

-Oh.

I mean, we've got these wonderful pineapple finials,

they really are lovely, and then running down here,

this is all, of course, solid silver.

We've got these little cherubs

gambolling around in this scene, and then on the sides we've got musical

trophies, the whole thing with four free-standing fluted columns.

And the movement of the clock is French throughout,

but under there,

bit of a giveaway, "Tiffany & Co, New York".

Just looking at the movement, it's probably going to be

one of the better makers, somebody like Drocourt.

And you might or might not have noticed the two gongs

and three hammers. Do you know what they do?

No! Oh, it chimes, but I've never heard it.

-You've never heard it?!

-No.

-Shall we just have a quick listen to that?

-Ooh, yes, please.

So the easiest thing to do is just move it on, so here we go.

CLOCK CHIMES

Do you hear that?

-Yes.

-Just starting to do the hours.

CLOCK CHIMES

And then having finished the hours, it will do the quarters,

-ding dong, ding dong.

-Oh.

-Let's see if it does.

CLOCK CHIMES There we go.

-Oh.

-Where's this been for the last eight years?

-In a cupboard!

-If I'm going to tell you the price,

I want you to promise me you'll get it out of that cupboard,

-maybe have it cleaned and overhauled, and use it.

-Right.

-Promise me and then I'll tell you the price.

-Yes, I promise.

OK, at auction in that state, it's going to fetch between £5,000

-and £8,000.

-Oh.

So it's worth spending a few hundred pounds to have the movement cleaned.

-Right.

-You've made the promise, now use it, please.

-Right, will do.

To have a box dated 1693, I'm trying not to be jealous.

You must have done your research. What did you find out?

Well, we don't know very much about it.

It belongs to my father-in-law, who received from his Auntie Ethel.

She used to keep pins and buttons in it and she lived in North Wales,

and other than that, we don't really know much about it.

And you've never done any checking out?

No, no, I haven't.

This, to me, is just as pretty as it comes.

It's not particularly well made, it's naive,

but the construction of it is charming.

I mean, "For you, the best is not too good."

It's such, it just couldn't be nicer, in my view.

Whether it's for tobacco, I don't know,

They're usually called tobacco boxes

but I just think they're sweetheart boxes just for general use.

But dated 1693.

I mean, do you know what the construction is made of?

Well, I don't, that's what I wanted to find out.

Any guesses? You must have.

Well, my husband thought it might be whale bone, but I've no idea.

-Not whale bone.

-Right.

-Unless it's a rare whale with horns.

-It's made of horn.

-Ah, right.

-So, and you can see here

and some people confuse it with ivory or marine ivory,

-i.e. walrus tusks.

-Yes.

But this is horn, and horn has this very sort of distinctive,

you know, shading almost.

But someone at some point has been cheeky because here,

-this started off life as WL.

-Yes.

-And they've changed it to WB.

-Yes.

But all that, to me, adds to it.

-1693 in the reign of William and Mary.

-Yes.

This pique work round the border here,

someone has really taken the time and it's really quite rare.

-I mean, I think easily £500.

-Gosh, lovely, right.

-For that bit.

-Oh, right.

Another thousand for that bit.

Oh, really?!

-£1,500 all day long.

-Right.

-Because that is stunning. Thank you.

-Thank you, thank you very much.

So, when I see an object like this, it's almost like it's opening

a door to real history, you know, this is not an abstract.

This, to me,

takes me in to Nicholas Cornock,

who was clearly alive in 1726.

Ooh, it gives me little goose bumps, it really, really does.

-So who was he?

-As far as I can determine, I believe,

a family of wine merchants in Somerset,

but I haven't been able to find out any more information yet.

Wine merchants. Mostly the seals are owners, owners of the bottle.

When Pepys records having seen his own bottles filled at the Mitre

Tavern in 1663, he observes that "They had my name wrote upon them."

So, I suspect that wine merchant is feasible,

but I think it's a private owner.

-So how does it come into your life?

-Handed down from my grandparents.

Oh, lovely. Let's examine the bottle itself.

What happened is that the bottle first appears, the English bottle,

melted on coal furnaces which gave it the edge, it was a hard glass,

harder than ever previously made anywhere in the world.

This was a major breakthrough.

That bottle, the first one, was almost spherical, a globe,

but it had the tendency to fall over, so in a design progression,

what happened is that it grew a big bottom for stability.

-Like a ship's decanter.

-Precisely, like a ship's decanter.

The other notable thing about it is this flange here,

this disc of glass which is called the string rim.

This is pre-cork, so wooden wedges were used

so they'd drive a wooden wedge in there, bash, bash, bash,

and then hold it in by getting some sail, or wagon cloth.

You placed it over and then you tied

it down against the string rim.

And then, when you came to open this bottle,

first of all you removed the string, then you took away the cloth.

The way you got this out, was you got this thing like a nail, and you

drove the nail into the stopper,

as it were, made of wood probably,

and you prised it out, and that's

why they're invariably chipped.

Look at that, chipped in one area.

That's evidence, not of somebody careless later in time,

but absolutely contemporaneous.

And that actually doesn't affect the value, because it is fully

expected, and if it hasn't got one, you start asking why.

So, these things are collected and what's happened is that

fine wine drinkers are the collectors of them.

They're very sought after and an example like this,

a really classic example, without a seal, for instance, this would be

£300 or £400, £500,

but you add the seal,

name and date, oh, you know, that's the full packet, you know,

that's what they want and that propels its value

to between £2,500 and £3,500.

And if you were to actually tie him down to an individual

living there, then, that's another grand on top.

-So go and find out who he was.

-I'll do my best.

It's in your interest to do so. Good on ya.

"Dear Sandra, thanks for your letter..." Are you Sandra?

I am.

And the letter is written, signed, by George Harrison,

-how fabulous is that?

-I'm hoping it's really him.

Well, there's a whole lot of memorabilia in this one frame

and it tells a really great story.

First of all, I want to hear your story, which,

is this a ticket that relates...?

-Yeah.

-OK, tell me how it goes.

I went to boarding school in Cheltenham

and in the summer holidays in 1963

I went to Llandudno, to see The Beatles,

got back to school for the winter term and four of us

decided we were in love with them, and would write to them.

-Did you each have a different one?

-Yes.

-Oh, that's handy, then, yeah.

So I, I was in love with George, yes, we all had a different one.

I wrote to George and I enclosed a stamped addressed envelope,

the others didn't.

And I suppose it was about a week later that I got this back.

So, let's have a look here.

It tells a very interesting story, there's the letter,

which we'll go into in just a second, there's

a page of signatures and there's the envelope to you at the Oriel School.

Now describe the moment when that letter arrived at school.

Very excited, there was crowds all round behind me and I took it out

and everybody screamed,

and it was read out in assembly.

It was read out in assembly?!

What, the letter was?

It was quite exciting.

Wonderful. Well, I mean, let's look at 1963 for The Beatles.

By the time they had got to Llandudno on the 15th August

they'd done about 160 dates of concerts.

A few days after this, the 23rd August, She Loves You

came out and then bang,

suddenly everything went completely bonkers,

if it hadn't been bonkers already.

And then we have the letter, which is slightly interesting,

because it says, "Thank you for your kind comments, ta.

"I had a great time in America."

Now, you and I know that The Beatles didn't go to America

until 1964, February '64 they went to America.

That's what I'm hoping you might tell me.

Well, I can tell you something about George in America.

He goes on to say, "I had a great time in America,

"but I didn't like New York as much as I'd expected.

"It's a big unfriendly and lonely kind of place."

George and his brother, Peter,

went to America in September 1963 to visit his sister Louise in Illinois.

Wow. So... It's probably genuine, then.

It's even more genuine than one would imagine,

because it's actually mentioning something that actually very

few people outside the sort of real Beatle fans really know.

And then it goes on, "I'm sorry I haven't got any photos with me,

"so I'll just send you the note and autographs if you want them."

-Ha, ha, ha, as if you wouldn't.

-Yeah.

"Must go, love from George Harrison."

So there we have this great letter from George

and then we have the signatures.

And I can tell you that I'm afraid the signatures are not

by The Beatles.

They are by a Beatle.

George signed them all.

-How interesting.

-And I tell you, it was,

I'm led to believe it was George's party trick almost till

the day he died, that he could sit down and do everybody's signature.

-Wow, that's pretty good, actually.

-It's not bad, is it?

No, it's not bad.

OK, so this is a valuation in two halves, really, it's

a good news and a bad news story.

The good news is that the letter, I would say, would be

worth £1,500 to £2,000.

-If the signatures had been...

-Oh, yes.

Oh, yes, you know where I'm going here.

had the signatures been genuine, it would have at least doubled.

-But still, I mean...

-Oh, it's fascinating.

It IS fascinating.

I can just picture you aged 16,

opening that letter at school in Cheltenham.

# La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

# If there's anything that you want

# If there's anything I can do

# Just call on me

# And I'll send it along

# With love, from me to you

# To you

# To you, to you. #

This is a beautiful mahogany table.

They're always called architect's tables, but we know you can

-use it for any writing and reading purpose, can't you?

-Yes, correct.

I love this, I just want to show the top for people who haven't

seen these, the way, when you lift the top, which is on a ratchet,

hear it, like that, and of course this opens at the same time.

But I think the...many of us have seen these before but what

-we haven't seen is this plaque. Can you explain that to me?

-Yes.

This plaque is to the effect

that this table was used by Bonnie Prince Charlie

at Kingsburgh House, Isle of Skye, in 1745.

It was the time he was fleeing after Culloden,

and the Red Coats were after him,

and he was with Flora MacDonald dressed as a maid,

and from there he took a trip to France.

I've got a slight conundrum here. I'm sort of stuck in the middle.

If I'd been asked to date this without that plaque,

I would say 1750 at the absolute earliest, and 1760.

So I'm stuck. How good is this provenance?

I've no doubt about it at all.

It's been in the family all of 250 years

and we have no reason to think that it wasn't used

by Bonnie Prince Charlie.

So, literally, you can trace it right back, can you?

It's in books and recorded and so on...

-Oh, right, right.

-..as being so.

-Right, right.

-They were Campbells, my relations,

who lived at Kingsburgh.

How sophisticated was the house? Because Skye 1745...

Not very sophisticated and it doesn't exist any more,

it's been knocked down.

I wanted to go and see it, and was told it's no longer there.

But my ancestor James Boswell, and Samuel Johnson,

visited Kingsburgh House and also I think saw this desk too,

when they went on their Hebridean Tour, which is recorded.

-So they're ancestors as well?

-Ancestors as well, yes.

I just wish I knew when the first one of these was ever made,

-ever designed.

-Yes.

-Because my feeling is,

in 1745, this was sort of

sent from London on the first boat.

We can't prove it, but your family history,

plus the Boswell/Johnson visit is fantastic.

To have that sort of history with a piece of furniture is very unusual.

Um, a real conundrum.

I'm not sure what to do about the date.

Let's just talk for a second about this.

These brass plates have been added on to strengthen it.

-Yes.

-At some stage, probably in the 18th century

and just to demonstrate, for those who haven't seen this before,

I won't go right into it, this slides back

and we've got pigeonholes, secret drawers no doubt.

-That's right, yes, secret drawers.

-Lots of little things going on.

So we have a conundrum here.

These architects' desks are beautiful.

-I love it and I'm sure you love it.

-Yeah.

But they don't sell very well in the auction rooms.

They're quite popular in the antique shops but not everybody's after one.

What we've got here is provenance, somebody from, a Stuart descendant

from the Campbell family, somebody who knows the house, knows Skye.

But I can't really give you the value with the provenance,

because we've got to really prove that one of these existed in 1745.

-But in a shop, £10,000 to £12,000, something like that.

-Yes.

Judging by the colour and the condition of this little cup,

it looks like it's been through the wars a bit.

Do you know anything about its history?

Well, yes, it was found on my grandparents' farm,

over 100 years ago, early 20th century.

And it was during renovations

and it was in the thatch of the old farmhouse.

Is this the farmhouse here, the picture you've brought along?

Yes, Batson Hall.

When the thatch, it was being slated

they found this and it appeared to have been hidden.

So it quite likely was in the wars,

but that would have been the Civil War.

Yes, and a lot of silver was actually hidden from...

Yes, they used to like to make it into coins and that,

or just take it...

OK, well, let's have a look at the cup.

If we look at the front, it's got some initials AB over EW

and the date, 1641.

-So that gives us a pretty good idea...

-Yes.

..that we're looking at a really old piece of silver.

This form of cup evolved in the reign of James I

in the early 17th century,

with these sort of decorated bowls and these long stems.

-Look quite crude, the decoration, in fact.

-Yes.

But the interesting thing about this cup is if we turn it round

and look at the hallmarks, which are really very good indeed,

the piece was made much earlier than the initials and date.

It was actually made in 1630.

Now, something like this

is a pretty rare object, and early 17th century silver

doesn't come on the market that often.

As you know, this has quite serious damage on the base,

which will obviously have an effect on its value.

It's really worthwhile considering getting this properly repaired,

because in really good condition,

a cup like this is worth £12,000 to £15,000.

In its current state, the value

is nearer £6,000 to £8,000

so it's really worthwhile spending some money...

-Yes, yes.

-..in having it properly repaired

because it's essentially a really good piece.

You've brought me in a school timetable here.

Who does it relate to?

It's the timetable of Queen Victoria's children.

The cousin of my grandfather was tutor and so this is his diary

and the timetable of what they had to learn.

-And what was his name?

-His name was Frederick Weymouth Gibbs.

Right, and he tutored them for how long?

For ten years from 1851 onwards.

-Right, OK.

-Fortunately it was left to my grandfather.

-And then come down to you?

-Yes.

-That's lovely.

I mean, if we just look, for example, at the timetable,

what they're learning, you know,

we've got religion between eight and nine o'clock,

between nine and 11 they go out.

11 to 11:30, they go and have their luncheon.

11:30 to 12 is Latin, then 12 till one is writing.

We've got German, then they have dinner, then they go out again.

I've just got an extract here on one day.

This is the cousin of your grandfather writing.

"Met the Queen this afternoon and walked with her.

"She spoke a good deal about the Princes, and bade me notice

"two peculiarities in the P of W" - in the Prince of Wales,

"first, at times he hangs his head, and looks at his feet

"and invariably within a day or two,

"has one of his fits of nervous unmanageable tempers."

So this is a first-hand account of the Prince of Wales, future king,

and when he's going, you know, when he's, he says unmanageable.

-Yes, it's a wonderful glimpse into history, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

And there's this, and you brought also these lovely pictures.

This is one here by "AE".

Albert Edward, in fact, it's by Edward VII.

-Right.

-And you can see he was a particularly good artist.

-He was.

-And his sister was even better.

I have a painting of hers too in the collection I have.

Super, and it's dated here 28th February 1855, Buckingham Palace.

They obviously respected and adored him,

they're giving their pictures to him as a token of thanks and gratitude.

It's absolutely wonderful.

And then this, below it, is a portrait of Victoria.

Yes, it's a portrait of her by her portraitist Winterhalter,

and it is signed by Queen Victoria.

Right, and you've got other things in your collection as well.

I have a lot of other things, yes.

A lot of letters from Queen Victoria, things that say

"to Mr Gibbs from the grief stricken widow," after Prince Albert died,

-and things like that.

-Fascinating insights.

It's a lovely archive and it's actually got considerable

importance, particularly from, obviously, the royal connections.

It's very much museum quality.

There's considerable monetary value to it as well.

I can easily see a portrait like this, on its own,

-making £40,000 to £60,000 alone.

-That's amazing.

And then you've got this drawing here which again, I mean,

it must be worth between, somewhere between £5,000 and £8,000 easily.

So, you know, these are unique pieces

and the written account by your grandfather's cousin,

I can easily see this alone being worth £5,000 to £8,000.

It's a one-off. So these pieces, if we add them up individually

must be worth £50,000 to £75,000 at least.

I must get it into a museum quickly, I think.

It's time to step into the shadowy world of the faker,

and this week's Rogues Gallery comes courtesy of our ceramics expert,

Fergus Gambon, who's supplied us with four pieces of Whieldon Ware,

earthenware from the mid 18th century.

Well, I say four pieces. Three pieces are. One of them

mysteriously appeared in the 1980s and had experts scratching

their heads trying to work out if it was genuine or if it was fake.

Now, here's Fergus with some clues as to what to look out for.

Prepare to choose your colour.

Suspect number one is what appears to be a classic Whieldon type

teapot, made some 250 years ago.

The glaze shows a network of fine cracks known as crazing.

These are normally an indication of age, but are they to be trusted?

Object two is perhaps the rarest in the line-up, an unusually

large tea canister moulded in relief with a figure of Flora.

It bears the typical Whieldon decoration of coloured oxides

under a lead glaze,

creating a surprisingly contemporary tortoiseshell effect.

It looks plausible, but is it too good to be true?

Another teapot, with stubby legs.

Like the other pieces of Whieldon ware, it looks rustic with

occasional imperfections, but is that the faker trying to fool you?

And finally, a cream ware milk jug and cover from the same school.

The Staffordshire potters would have been proud of this 250 years ago,

but are we looking at something made in the 1980s?

So Fergus, four examples of Whieldon Ware,

or rather three examples and one that looks like it.

Very unusual, the decoration, isn't it?

Mmmm, it's essentially cream ware in the days before the cream ware body

was perfected and became flawless.

And so really there's an attempt here to cover up a lot of the

surface with this decoration, which is a sort of mottled decoration

of coloured oxides which are allowed to dribble and merge into each other

to create a kind of tortoiseshell effect and that's the idea.

And this kind of decoration is associated with a potter

called Whieldon, but it isn't all by him, of course.

So some of it's just in the style of?

Some of it's by other contemporary potters,

because it's just a fashionable ware of the time.

So we've got two teapots, obviously.

-Two teapots.

-And what about this? What was this?

That's a tea canister. One kept one's tea in it,

it would have had a lid, which is now missing.

-And then the little jug at the end?

-That's a milk jug.

We're not so used to having milk or cream with jugs that have

covers these days, but they did then, sometimes.

Stops anything dropping into the milk.

Now one of these was such a cunning fake...

-Mmmm.

-..that very special tests had to be done on it,

which doesn't augur well for me choosing the right one,

but anyway, so tell me about that.

It's called a thermoluminescence test and it involves

a slightly destructive, invasive process of removing

a sliver of the pottery from the object and heating it up, and

when you heat it up, it gives off what they call a thermoluminescence

which is a kind of blue glow, and the amount of that glow

depends on the amount of radiation that the object has absorbed.

The older the object, the more radiation it has absorbed

since it was fired, and the more thermoluminescence.

So you've set me a horrendous task.

If it was so hard that a thermoluminescence test

had to be done on it, I don't think I stand a chance.

We can't expect you to.

I mean, this one looks most different from all the others

in that the striations on it are very different

from these three, so I'm assuming this is the fake,

and if I've got that right, I will feel very chuffed indeed.

You'd better pick it up and see.

It's got a hole in the bottom, has it?

It's got a hole in the bottom, and if it has, you've won!

-No!

-Yes!

-Yes?! Where is it?

You missed it, look. There's a hole!

-I can't see a hole.

-There it is, isn't it?

-Oh, teeny, weeny.

-Teeny, teeny.

Back of the net, I think is the technical term for that.

Oh, I'm well chuffed, I'm almost lost for words, actually.

Thing is, Fergus, that when you look at this next to these,

it does look really different, doesn't it?

Well, it's OK for you with hindsight.

-Because these have got all these decorations on, this hasn't.

-Yes.

These colours are much darker than this,

the green is different to these, so it does look really different.

But when I tell you that that teapot sold in the 1980s for

£2,500, and that other pieces of the same type,

other fakes, were selling for tens of thousands of pounds,

experts were fooled by these then.

So this, as a fake, is almost valueless, really.

Well, it would be immoral to sell it,

it's wrong and it's not worth much.

And what about the tea canister?

The tea canister's lovely and it's worth £1,500, maybe £2,000.

The teapot, actually, this one is cracked, so as a cracked piece,

it's worth £500 or so,

and the jug maybe £700, £800.

Well, there you are - Whieldon ware.

And if you want to know what to look for,

have a look at our website with all sorts of hints and tips on there.

-I picked this up from a local second-hand shop.

-Right.

About four or five months ago, knew nothing about it.

A friend of mine restored it for me.

Right. How much did it cost you?

-Well, it owes me £50.

-Right.

Let me tell you about it.

It's made out of mahogany and it's actually 18th century.

Made in the George III period.

A journeyman would have made this,

a gentleman who travels around working for one cabinet maker,

and then he'd move on and work for another cabinet maker.

-Right, OK.

-And because he's carrying things around,

that's why you've got these little carrying handles on the sides,

-which only open to a certain degree.

-Right.

So he'd have been carrying his wares.

And inside the journey begins,

because you've got all these wonderful little samples

from literally all over the world.

This is the height of cabinet makers

showing what veneers were being used at the time.

As I say, it's 18th century, and when I opened it,

one of the timbers which I saw,

I thought was fantastic to see

this wood, it's called fustic wood,

it's from the Caribbean.

Chippendale often used this wood and when it's polished,

it's beautiful, it has a wonderful grain.

But if you look, you've got these timbers from the Americas,

from the Caribbean, from Asia.

How many timbers are there?

Well, it should carry about 160

but there's two missing, sadly.

Well, these little chests are extremely rare.

The restoration could have been done a little bit better,

but it's not bad.

Today I would put a value on this of between £800 to £1,000.

-OK, yeah.

-So I think you've done extremely well for £50.

Oh, that's good, yeah.

-So, well done.

-Thank you very much.

When you came and sat down with your pieces, you were almost

-apologetic for coming and sitting down and showing them to me.

-Yes.

I just brought my mum's two rings and I literally just

pulled this out of the box that I had, but then your little sort

of magpie eyes lit up and you swept the brooch off and that was that.

You're thinking, "Why has she done that? It's costume jewellery."

Yes, that's what, I've only ever seen it a couple of times

so I would assume that

my family wouldn't have had that much money in the past

to buy anything substantial.

Well, costume jewellery, you know, is very collected.

-Yeah.

-I mean, it's nothing to be sniffed at.

This piece is not costume jewellery.

Oh.

-It's the real thing.

-Right.

It's diamonds.

Platinum.

-Oh, I thought it might have been silver.

-No.

THEY LAUGH

If it had been silver, you're quite right that up until about 1900

-most jewellery was made with silver, or silver and gold.

-Right.

Platinum came in about 1900.

And are those sapphires?

-They are, this is about 1925.

-Oh, right, OK.

And the sapphires are probably synthetic.

-But it doesn't matter, because it's all about the design.

-Mm.

You know, the sapphires are there to complement the design,

they're so small it doesn't really matter intrinsically

-whether they're synthetic or whether they're real.

-Yeah.

And the setting itself is all this lovely little milgrain setting.

You might bring it out of its box quite often. I think you actually,

while you're washing up, you can try it on first.

I should put it on to do the washing up or something.

-I think you should. Don't you think?

-Yeah, OK, I shall...

-Spoil yourself.

-Yes, OK.

-Knowing that you're wearing something that's £2,500.

Wow. Gosh. Thank you very much.

Something to dance about, isn't it?

Well, it'll certainly buy a few gin and tonics later.

-I'm joining you.

-OK!

This is a wonderful group of medals. Who did they belong to?

Well, they belonged to my late uncle, Colonel Terence Conner,

who took part in a largely forgotten rebellion,

-the 1930-32 Burma Rebellion.

-Is this him?

Yeah, that's him in all his splendour,

taken at Buckingham Palace,

actually, when he went to get his DSO and the King's Police Medal.

That's a fantastic portrait, wonderful portrait,

beautifully tinted, actually quite a sensitive photograph, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Tell me what he did.

He was very fortunate in that he was in the British Indian Army

and he volunteered to take part in the, what they called

the Human Sacrifice and Slave Releasing Expeditions.

That doesn't sound very fortunate to me.

Well, he enjoyed that sort of thing.

Basically they went into unexplored territory of Northern Burma

where they were literally releasing slaves

and going through the jungle to do so.

-In order to try and quash slavery.

-Absolutely.

The one big problem was that

there was great support for slavery in Upper Burma.

Well, when the rebellion broke out in Burma in 1930,

by complete coincidence his regiment was in Rangoon, so he got asked

if he would go in and help them.

And as a captain, he had a very prominent role indeed

-in quashing the rebellion.

-Yeah.

And what's the relevance of this tunic?

Well, the background is that a guy called Say Assan

declared himself, on a hill in Burma, Magician King.

And what he did was, to gain support, he told them all

that he would be able to draw symbols and put them on their shirts

so they would be completely invulnerable to British bullets and

they could all charge forward and attack and they would all be fine.

And you can see quite clearly from looking at it,

that they weren't invulnerable to British bullets,

because there's a big hole right in the middle.

So it's covered in these extraordinary symbols.

It looks like a tiger, these squares that, you know, the magic squares,

that wherever you go they always add up to a certain number.

-That's right.

-That's what they look like.

Have you ever had them deciphered?

Well, I did speak to somebody at the British Library about it

and she told me that they all do have a meaning,

but I'm afraid I can't personally tell you what they mean.

But they scared these guys enough that they thought

they could just charge forward.

Now let me ask you something about these medals.

What was he awarded the Distinguished Service Order for?

His bravery in the operations of going into the jungle

for weeks on end, capturing rebels.

And this certificate would have come with the DSO.

Yes, absolutely right, yes.

-And also here we have the King's Police Medal.

-Yes.

And that was awarded to him because he was seconded

to the Military Police, the Burma Military Police, and so that's

one of the highest awards they could give him for his time there.

That's an unusual combination, I would think.

Well, I believe it is, yes,

because obviously it's a police medal accompanying military medals.

They're very, very shiny. Why is that?

Well, I keep them on display so once in a while, I clean them up.

-OK, here's a warning. Don't polish them.

-Right, OK.

Every time you polish a medal, we rub a little bit of the metal off.

You know, it's a very, very good group here.

Um, you've got a fabulous photograph of him.

You've got this maybe even unique

tunic which documents

a barbaric part of our colonial history.

Historically, I think this is very, very important.

It doesn't necessarily always translate to value, of course,

-high value.

-No.

But, I think we'd be looking in terms of an auction value today

-of between £7,000 and £9,000.

-Wow!

OK, I wasn't expecting that.

It's incredible.

I've got a huge garden pot, obviously,

full of beautiful flowers.

-Who's the gardener, is it you?

-No, it's my wife.

-It's your wife.

I think she's got exceptionally green fingers,

-by the looks of it.

-Yes, she has.

-And this is definitely a first,

but the flowers are sort of slightly incidental to

what I think is a rather interesting piece of stone work here.

And I'm interested as to why it's residing in your garden.

It had always been in the family, ever since I can remember,

and we always thought it was a font, a church font.

-Right.

-But a few years ago we went to the Exeter Museum

and there's one identical there. And they called it a granite mortar.

Right, OK, well, you've hit the nail on the head.

What essentially you have is a very large mortar.

This isn't, in fact, granite, it's actually a type of grit stone.

A mortar is an object that's used for grinding things,

and in this case, it probably would have been used for grinding grain.

It's rather large, sometimes these had what was called

sort of like a quern stone which sat in the top of them and would rotate.

Has it got a hole in the bottom of it?

-Yes, it does have a hole in the bottom.

-OK, well, that's interesting

because that could also define the way in which it was used,

but I also see that it's got some lips on it as well.

-Mmm.

-So essentially used for grinding material.

The form of it is very characteristic of medieval mortars.

Medieval?

So you are putting your flowers in an object

that is 500 or 600 years old.

Well, at one time, we kept fish in it.

-You kept fish in it?

-Yes.

THEY LAUGH

Well, garden pots can be quite expensive to buy.

Even if you go down to your local garden centre, you can pay

quite a lot of money for quite an ordinary garden pot.

This is no ordinary garden pot

and it appeals to a really kind of interesting type of collector,

the sort of collector that likes old oak period objects, and if you

went to a specialist sale that was selling those kind of objects, you

would have to pay between £600 and £1,000 to buy this medieval mortar.

£600 to £1,000?

That's with the flowers or without the flowers?

That's without the flowers!

I can picture these behind a half peeled lemon

and a lobster in one of those

Dutch still life paintings.

I can imagine it in one of those as well. At the moment they've just

been sitting on top of the kitchen cabinet at home, gathering dust.

-Do you know hold old these are?

-I haven't got a clue how old

they are. They don't belong to me, they do belong to my mother

and she thought that they were Ming export,

which came, obviously, later on,

in the style of, to be shipped overseas, not for home consumption.

That's "I believe", I don't know.

She's mostly right, but let's have a look at that.

Ming export.

The Ming dynasty finished in 1644 so they're going to be,

if she's right, they're going to be before that.

It's a type of porcelain which is called Kraak porcelain.

And it's not because it's broken,

it's because it was transported to Europe from China

in boats which were called carracks, which is a Portuguese vessel.

Historically, for me, these type of vases, they do

represent the East-West trade

and it's going right back to the beginning of the 17th century.

-The Dutch East India Company...

-Yes.

..has records of things that they call Persian bottles.

Persian bottles.

And this is what they called Persian bottles...

-Oh, really?

-..in their records in the 17th century.

-There was a ship that sank in 1643.

-Yes.

And a number of these came out of that ship.

-These date from that time.

-Really?

I am flabbergasted, we thought it was well after that date.

1643.

Well, they are from the first 40-odd years of the 17th century,

so shortly after Shakespeare, shortly after Elizabeth I.

-They're really old things.

-That's very exciting.

I can tell they're very highly prized by the fact

if you touch them,

no-one's allowed to pick them up in your house, are they?

They're filthy, you positively stick to them.

You do, it's that kitchen grime you get on things and the paint.

It's absolutely, they're revolting to touch, absolutely revolting.

They won't be marked, it's very, very rare for Kraak porcelain to

-be marked, no marks on the base.

-Nothing.

The bodies are slightly moulded.

You do know they're not a pair?

I kind of wondered whether they were or not,

but they are quite different when you look at them.

They're not a pair, they're two very similar bottles

and they've been hand painted in Jingdezhen.

This one has a slight crack in it, very slight crack on the back,

and it does affect the value.

Together in auction today,

they're worth around about

£3,000 to £5,000.

Wow, we weren't even going to bring them today as well.

That's wonderful.

This is my fifth visit to the Antiques Roadshow

and every time I come I really enjoy my day.

Well, I'm very glad to hear that.

I've had the most appalling 24 hours.

Last night on the way home I badly broke my arm and I've spent most of

the night in hospital, hardly slept, haven't shaved, feeling terrible.

And I don't mean to ruin your day

when I tell you that the reason why I picked out these two spoons

is because in actual fact they've got bogus marks on them.

-Right.

-They're fakes.

-The marks on them look like London hallmarks of 1816.

-Yes.

-But in actual fact, they're on them to deceive.

-OK.

They're made by a man called Lawrence Twentyman, who was

a silversmith working in Cape Town in South Africa in about 1820.

He put on London marks to persuade his customers that he was

selling them London quality silverware, when in fact

he wasn't, he was making them in his little studio in Cape Town.

Now did you buy these spoons or have you been left them?

No, I found them amongst the possessions of my aunt after

she died and they'd actually been in a drawer for about seven years

and I just thought I'd bring a box of silver spoons to you today

and you just happened to pull these two out of the box.

And was she from South Africa?

No, she wasn't, but my grandfather spent time in South Africa,

-so possibly that's how they came into her possession.

-Right.

These are silver spoons and if they were London quality,

if they had genuine hallmarks on

and were of the quality of a London spoon maker, they'd be worth

-somewhere in the order of £40 to £50 each.

-Yes.

But they're not.

They're worth £80 to £100 each.

Are they really? That's amazing.

Now there's dogs and there's dogs

and these are dogs, aren't they?!

And it's got the signature here on the collar of T Earl,

so I suppose that's Thomas Earl, 1868.

Now, he came from a family that was famous for painting dogs,

-they were really, really good at it.

-Right.

Such character in their animals

and as you can see, this is an absolute master of it.

I love them, I think they're absolutely terrific.

What made you get them? Did you get them or inherit them?

Oh, no, a huge accident. We went to an auction,

because I'd seen a picture of a little Jack Russell, it looked

quite sweet, and off we went, and we were just leaving, having thought

the Jack Russell, was quite nice, and there was, this picture was by

the door and it was just a study in brown, it was covered in brown goo.

-Oh, you mean dirty?

-Filthy, damaged frame,

and I don't know quite why,

but just sort of hanging round waiting to go and looked at it

and I thought, "Ooh, I think they're nice," and just said to my husband

as we left, "If I could take anything home, it would be that."

"Oh, yeah?" Anyway, unbeknown to me, my husband went to the auction

and in actual fact bought it,

unbeknown to me, AND the Jack Russell.

He only bought this because it didn't sort of make much money.

I see, a bargain.

-Sort of. Well...

-How much money?

-Probably around a thousand.

-Oh, OK.

And anyway it was, you know, oh, we did a bit of that

and we thought, "Oh, well, you know," and we were referred to

somebody who did a lovely job of lifting off all the filth and

we found these lovely boys, and he said it was worth doing the frame.

So we went and invested another 3.8 million

and had the frame touched up.

It's all a great job, though, it looks terrific.

He's so photographic, as well.

And look at the glistening on the lip of that dog.

It's so cleverly caught, the light like that.

-Who, Earl?

-Yeah, Earl.

-Right.

And he never really bothers much with backgrounds, you know,

you've got this really sort of boring sky

and a bit of sort of vestigial heather to set them.

He's much more interested in the character of the animals,

and that he's caught brilliantly. Look at this chap's eyes.

It is the eyes that do it for me

and each of them seem to be telling a slightly different story to me.

I think there's an age difference.

-Different characters, age difference.

-Yes, probably

-an old boy.

-The old boy bringing on the younger dog.

-A young jumped-up, yeah.

-They're chained together

-so this one learns from that one.

-I believe so.

-That's fascinating, I didn't know that.

-I think that's how

they train them, I don't know. I could be making it up.

One thing I do know is what it's worth

and since that's what we're partly here for, I'm going to tell you.

-How long ago?

-Five years, I think.

-Five years ago, yeah.

Well, I think now it's worth between £10,000 and £15,000.

-Woo-hoo, that's all right. Each?

-LAUGHTER

Don't push me.

Well, it's a very pretty little easel box.

Am I going to see something lovely in it?

I certainly hope so, yes.

Let me open it up and peek,

if I can get it open, there we go.

Oh, oh, ooh.

Well there's the magic word, Rolex, Prince Imperial.

-Mm-hm.

-That's a lovely thing indeed

and note that little tag.

How long have you had this for?

-About 40 years.

-Have you ever used it?

No, no, it's just been in a box in the wardrobe.

It's absolutely mint.

I mean, with this little tag which has got its movement number,

it's what we call new old stock, I mean, it's unused.

It's a typical Rolex 1930s dress watch,

it's a duo-dial Prince Imperial, it's stunning.

Do you find it pleasing?

Oh, yes, very, I think it's very attractive.

-Have you ever had the back off? Probably not.

-No, never.

-Do you mind

-if I take it off?

-No, I'd love to see inside.

I'm going to have to put this on because it's a fiddly little job.

So off comes the back.

Now, look at that, if I pop those two there...

..and start with the movement, which is observatory quality.

-Is it?

-That is THE top quality,

it says observatory on the ratchet wheel, that is absolutely

magnificent and the case,

all the Rolex marks

and it's 18 carat gold.

Mm, I see.

And this bit of paperwork which you've brought along

is its chronometer certificate

from October 1934.

I have never seen one with the original box,

-with the original certificate and its original tag.

-Mm.

It's in unused condition.

Do you remember anybody wearing it ever?

No. No, no, it's always been in the box.

-Why has nobody used it?

-I don't know why.

It's absolutely extraordinary to come across it like this.

Well, the nine-carat gold ones that are a bit rubbed

fetch at auction around about £2,000 to £2,500.

-Mm-hm.

-That is nine-carat.

-Yes.

-Yours is 18-carat.

-Yes.

-So I'm going to say £4,400 to £5,000.

This is mint with all its paperwork and its tags and its box.

Collectors, particularly Far Eastern collectors, go mad

for this at the moment and I have no hesitation in saying to you that

at auction, in this condition, it will fetch

-between £7,000 and £10,000.

-Good heavens.

And the problem is, it'll just go back into a drawer again, won't it?

Yes. Well I'm not sure about that. I shall have to think about that.

I've got a postcard here of somebody. Who's this?

It's my grandfather's uncle. He was on the Titanic.

He was the youngest survivor of the Titanic's father,

Millvina Dean, who was nine weeks old at the time.

-She was nine weeks old.

-Yes.

-OK, and she survived?

-Yes, she was put in a mail sack

-and put on the life rafts below with her mother and her father.

-Right.

But he died saving people to put on the life rafts with them.

So sad.

And the postcard is written just before they leave on the Titanic.

Just before they left, yes.

And he's writing it - who's Violet, he's writing to?

-My great-grandmother.

-OK, and he says,

"just a card to ask you if I shall

"come home or not before I go away.

"Let me know, love from Bert."

Yes, he was writing to see whether he should go home to say

goodbye to the family before he left.

-And do we know if he did?

-No, he didn't.

He didn't. It's so sad, isn't it? It's awful.

And then the book here is inscribed to you.

To me, yes, it's from Millvina

when she started getting involved with the Titanic experience

and she wrote it to me when I was two years old as a keepsake.

OK, and when you say she started to get involved,

it's dated 1995, so does that mean for a long period of her life

-she didn't want to have anything to do with it?

-No.

Her brother went forward and helped with all the memorabilia

of the Titanic, but at first she didn't want to,

until her brother died and she was older, and then

she lived an amazing life with going to America and just seeing everybody

and doing talks on the Titanic and her experiences and what she knows.

OK, and then she died, when did she die, then?

She died on the 31st May 2009, my birthday.

-Oh.

-She was such a lovely person, so bubbly,

-she always had stories to tell.

-Really?

-She was amazing, yes.

-Well,

-like you, you're telling the story now, it's brilliant.

-Continuing it.

Absolutely, and as you obviously know, there's a huge interest,

there's a big market in Titanic material,

anything related to the Titanic, but particularly survivors and it does

have monetary value as well as the sentimental value obviously to you.

I think the card on its own would easily

-be worth £1,000 to £1,500.

-Really?

-I do.

I can easily see the book inscribed, personally inscribed to you

from her, making £500 to £1,000,

so overall we're looking at certainly £1,500 to £2,500.

I didn't expect that. Thank you, that's amazing.

This seems to be a matching pair of plates, but one's painted

with a comical Chinaman and here we've got a figure of a king.

They're very peculiar. What do you know about them?

I remember them on the wall of my husband's parents' house

and traditionally in the family they were said to be very valuable,

but no-one else seemed to know anything else about them and in

due course they came to my husband and when I asked him about them, he

said all he knows about them is that they came from his mother's family.

-They're Delftware.

-Right.

-I don't know if you've heard of the term Delft at all.

-Yes, yes.

I mean, which is, in a way the European copy of Chinese porcelain

before we knew how to make the real stuff.

Crude pottery covered with a white tin glaze and that's what these are.

And most of the early Delft is copying Chinese designs

and that's what, the design we have here, I suppose.

-What's curious is the palette and the colouring they're in.

-Right.

We've got some nice mix of colours which does indicate really

quite an early date. So we're looking back here

into the 17th century, but one thing we do find in early Delft

often are portraits of the reigning kings and queens of the time.

-Right.

-And so one wonders here what this chap might be.

So there, a very splendid king with a sceptre

and I suppose he's holding a letter or a scroll.

Who do you think he is?

I really, really don't have a clue, I'm afraid.

He must be a British king.

One tries to think of dates from the plates and looking at the designs.

I've seen one once before with a similar king which depicts

James II. I think that's probably who he is.

-Oh, goodness.

-So that goes back to 1685-1688,

a relatively short reign,

so you've got a pair of plates here, probably made in London, I think,

-but they're about as rare as you can get.

-Really?

I mean, this one is in a bit of a shocking state.

-Yes.

-It's been broken in half.

-Someone liked it enough to stitch it together, just about.

-Yes.

-But it's barely held together now.

-Yes, yes.

But this is really quite an important piece of pottery, because

you've got a picture of the king on a rare shape, in rare colours.

-Delft doesn't get much more special than this.

-Really?

So we can forgive it a bit the poor condition.

-Right.

-So let's think.

The perfect but Chinese subject one, shall we say

-£10,000 to £20,000.

-Oh!

SHE GASPS

The very broken one...

Well, it's got to be more than that.

-Oh, my God!

-So at least £20,000.

Oh, my God!

Together as a pair, £30,000 or more!

-I brought them in my handbag!

-LAUGHTER

That's all right, I'm sure it's a good, strong handbag.

Speechless.

Oh, can I cry now?

Yes, yes.

It's not often that we see tears on the programme,

but thankfully these were tears of joy.

From Exeter Cathedral and the Antiques Roadshow team, bye-bye.