Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester 2 Antiques Roadshow

This little tractor was used by the land girls in World War II.

It was painted green for camouflage,

and the steering was made lighter to help the lady drivers.

So it's earned its place in the tractor hall of fame.

Just the way to make a return visit to the Antiques Roadshow

at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire.

Now, you might not think that teaching farming and agriculture

would include art and antiques,

but here at the Royal Agricultural University near Cirencester,

which has been here since 1845, I've been having a little look

around and found some rather interesting pieces.

Here in the university chapel is a piece by an artist synonymous

with the countryside, and a local boy to boot - William Morris,

the Arts and Crafts designer, of course,

whose pieces make a regular appearance on the Roadshow.

He created that stained glass window of a flaming star

and the zodiac for the university in 1865,

after the chemistry professor helped him with his printing.

And what about these watercolours?

They're made from studies of British trees and used as a teaching tool.

A tree would be selected and then, on a particular twig,

a ribbon would be tied, and then it was painted

throughout the year to observe the changes during the seasons.

So, for example, here in January, the twig is dormant.

And then it begins to bud, it goes through the summer...

June 24th - it's in full leaf.

So it was a bit like a time-lapse film of the tree,

educational, of course, but also just beautiful, don't you think?

When it came to teaching students about farm animals,

paintings like these in the 1800s would have been used.

Now, this ox might look disproportionate to us,

HUGELY fat, but the artist deliberately painted the animals

in this exaggerated way because these were the ideals of the breed.

These paintings were also a useful way of teaching

agricultural students about the different breeds, and actually, now,

these are hugely sought-after - these paintings - as works of art.

Outside in the grounds, our experts are eagerly searching out

what we hope will be our own best in show,

and if you'd like to play along with our valuation game, visit...

Over the years I've seen quite a few animal traps and snares,

but this takes the biscuit. And it's got

quite an interesting history, hasn't it?

It certainly has. It was manufactured in 1794.

It came into my family, really, in payment for a debt.

It came into the possession of a vicar who had

a section of land on this large estate.

He wanted it, obviously, as a poacher's trap,

and he got wind of the fact that his daughter was going to elope

with one of the local poachers, so he thought,

"Right, I'll get this set, I don't want this to happen."

And it actually did the job and did in fact catch the said poacher.

Obviously, when the poacher met his comeuppance with this,

he couldn't elope with the vicar's daughter,

and it caused somewhat of a huge rift in the family,

and so they wanted to get rid of it

and they paid off this quite substantial debt at the time

to my ancestor's public house - at which they'd run up this bill -

and it was hanging on the wall for a great many years afterwards.

You know, these were as a deterrent for poachers and trespassers,

and it was actually banned in the 1860s as a practice,

but before then, they were widely used.

Widely used in many large estates all across the country.

And when you look at it, it's just unbelievable,

I just can't get over the damage

that this thing would do. When you...

It would sever the leg.

When you load it... I mean, even loading it would be scary.

So it would be locked down into position,

the man would come along...

..and that's it - bang. You know, takes your leg off,

-it's not just damaged.

-Yes, doesn't bear thinking about.

Most of them are sort of dated or aged about early 19th century,

but to have this one as late 18th century is quite rare in itself.

But...it's so gruesome,

and I wonder how many people were actually caught in these traps.

I would think more than we actually realise.

But they are hugely collected,

and what makes this one interesting is that story.

And value-wise, I think it would make...3,000?

That's very interesting, yeah, yeah, it is.

I think I'd like to donate it to a museum at some point in time.

Do you know, probably one of the most common forms of

English silver is the cup and cover, trophy cup.

They go back hundreds and hundreds of years

and they've been presented for various reasons,

but principally as a way of displaying silver

in a very grand style.

This one is a very typical, early 19th century trophy cup,

decorated all over with grapes, and I think we can assume

this was taken off the silversmith's shelf,

and then this lovely finial was added to the top of it.

-Right.

-And, of course, the inscription.

Perhaps you'd tell me what you know about the original owner of this?

The original owner was my great-great-grandfather,

who was a crew member on the Widgeon, which won the yacht race.

How he got to take it home as a crew member, I don't know,

but it's travelled to Africa and now it's back in England.

This is a very grand prize.

I understand, from the Royal Yacht Club,

-or from your correspondence from the club that I had a peek at...

-Yes.

-..that in 1937 this was valued at £30.

-Right.

-Which was an enormous sum of money.

-Yes.

So for a member of the crew to take it away,

I think you'd consider your great-grandfather very lucky indeed!

-Now, in front of us I see, we've got the original course map...

-Yes.

..of the race. Well, the race moved onto salt water in the 1840s,

so this was one of the last Thames races on the river.

-This does place it at a very early point in yacht racing.

-Right.

And that's the reason I think

it's a very fascinating piece of silver.

Now, this was made in 1836.

And it's hallmarked for London and is made by a rather unusual maker

called Richard Atkins and William Somersall,

who don't produce all that much silver.

But they've clearly made the finial, or cast the finial separately,

on behalf of the Royal Yacht Club, to make it personalised, to present.

Now, I think the interest in yachting is sufficient that

if you had to go and buy this, or if it came up for sale,

whereas without the inscription

you're looking at a cup worth maybe £3,000, £4,000,

with the inscription on, this is going to be worth somewhere

in the order of £8,000, possibly even £10,000.

You're joking! SHE LAUGHS

-THAT is a surprise.

-I'm not joking.

Wow!

I didn't expect that, I thought 300-400 if I was lucky.

DUNCAN LAUGHS

A lovely rural environment in which we see a fox,

but does he stay in your jewellery box

-all the time, or do you wear him?

-I have never worn it.

-My mother wore it a lot, but I never have done.

-Oh, that's such a shame.

Perhaps I might now!

Yeah, and how did it get into your mother's collection?

Bit of a strange story actually, there was a wealthy heiress

in Wiltshire who had a big estate.

She employed a relation to look after the estate,

and I believe they were meant to be getting married,

but I'm not quite sure about that.

They left for their London house one evening.

The next day, she lost most of her house in a house fire.

The poor dear was so traumatised by this that she

advertised for a companion, and my mother's aunt was the companion.

However, not long after she'd been in the job, the heiress died,

her relation inherited all her estate,

-and he married my mother's aunt.

-Ohhh!

And she left all her jewellery to my mother.

Oh, how lovely, isn't that superb?

So she was in the right place at the right time.

Yes, we don't know whether they went and spent the money on

buying jewellery, or whether it belonged

to this heiress in the first place.

Well, I suppose that's a question that we'll never really know.

But what we do know is that it's late Victorian in age,

and at the height of this period, the late Victorian period,

which had been all about romance and nature.

Queen Victoria had adored all those elements, and it was reflected a lot

in jewellery at the time, whether it be through flower brooches

or animal brooches, as we see with the fox

that we've got in front of us.

A lot of the time, they were gold.

Some of the time, they were jewelled with maybe just gold

and a little ruby eye, which...

We've got ruby eyes in the diamond brooch as well,

but here we've got all diamonds all over the body,

which I think is just superb, and the craftsmanship

and the way that he's full of energy is fantastic really.

And when we look, we can see it's what we call pave set with diamonds,

so it's like a pavement of lovely, old, brilliant-cut diamonds,

nice and soft in the way that they're cut,

but with that beautiful fire and brilliance that we see,

which livens it up.

And then we look at the reverse, and we see how important

the reverse of a brooch is to the front, because it just shows that

there's quality of craftsmanship there. So it's absolutely gorgeous

in the way that the whole piece has been constructed.

At this time, there were lots of country pursuits

going on in the Victorian period,

and to have a fox brooch was just a reflection of one of those pursuits.

So I do hope that you will start to wear it, because...

-THEY LAUGH

-Perhaps my granddaughters might.

Well, you never know, do you? Because it's just so...

so sumptuous, and obviously the story behind it is exceptional.

There are lots of collectors out there for items like this,

all types of animal brooches,

and with the quality that we have in this brooch,

I wouldn't be surprised for it to fetch

between £2,000 and £3,000 at auction.

Oh, thank you very much. It's lovely to know about it.

Well, this has to be one of the oldest bits of furniture

that I've seen - certainly on the Roadshow -

that I've actually seen for a long time.

So, tell me where it's come from.

Well, it belongs to the church of St Michael & All Angels, Brinkworth,

-which is in North Wiltshire, not too far from here.

-Right.

It's been, as you can see, rather neglected and unloved for many years,

and simply, we feel that we'd like to know more about it.

Well, the first thing that strikes you,

obviously it's in pretty poor condition, it's a bit of a wreck.

However, the important thing really is that it has two locks,

which give us a guide that it would be a church coffer.

Now we've had two-locked coffers in churches from the 1300s,

and then, in 1538, there was a law brought in,

really to protect the church, the fabric of the church,

the faith of the church and the solidity of the church,

to make sure that the parish registers were kept.

But not only just in a drawer somewhere,

but in a coffer which was locked by two locks,

and either a church warden, or two church officials,

or a dignitary in the town or parish would have one key,

and the church warden would have the other.

And remember that this represents the reason why

genealogy in this country is so easy.

You know, when people sit before their computers

and trace their generations back, it's only because of the 1538 rule

that we can do that so easily.

So, the fact that it's metal-bound would suggest that

it's after 1538, but I think that this coffer started life

as a plain two-locked coffer, could be 1340 to 1400,

and it's a 15th century chest,

which was later bound by these iron bars to conform with the law

brought in in 1538.

That's why I say it's the earliest piece I've seen.

The fascinating thing is that the parish registers have to be altered.

Auntie Aggie and Uncle George are getting married, or whatever,

and they have to register them, and they've lost one of the keys,

and so they dash around and get the carpenter or chippie,

and he has to hack the lock out so they could open it to keep

the parish registers up to date... and they never replaced it.

Great stuff, wonderful story.

This must not be touched, this is museum condition.

Any restoration on this would spoil it completely.

Just leave it as it is, this is what it should look like,

and, of course, it must never be sold.

I mean, not that you'd ever get dispensation, I think,

to sell it anyway. Very difficult to value,

but to a collector of really early, primitive furniture,

-as this is... And it's curious it's made of elm, isn't it?

-Yes.

If it turned up in a sale, I think £6,000, £8,000.

There's just no telling. Leave well alone and treasure it.

We will, thank you.

-May I ask where you come from?

-Hong Kong.

-Hong Kong?

-Yes.

-HE GASPS

-I love Hong Kong.

And when did you come to this country?

Soon after I married, I think around about 17 years.

-Really?

-Yes.

-OK.

-And where do these come from?

-They are actually from my husband.

-Well, these are both Chinese.

-Yeah.

This one is made of spun brass, and you can tell that it's spun

by these concentric lines.

And they put a sheet of brass on the end of a pole

and slowly push it round like that, and you end up with a bowl.

-We've got a mark on the bottom...

-Yes.

..which has been cast into it. Can you read the mark?

-Yes, in Mandarin it's...

-I'll correct you if it's wrong.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, um... "Da Ming Xuande nian zhi."

That's pretty good, and do you know what it means?

-Yes, Da Ming is the big Ming dynasty.

-Yeah.

-And Xuande is one of the periods of the emperor.

-Uh-huh.

-Nian is the year that it's made.

-Made, yeah.

Well, the curious thing is about Chinese bronze,

and therefore brass, is that for some reason

they opted to put Xuande's reign mark on to bronzes.

-Oh, I see.

-And they've done it from the reign of Xuande

up to the present day, they're still doing it.

-So it's not actually that year?

-No.

-Oh, I see!

-It's actually 1920s.

-Ohhh, I see. All right, yes.

The...

bowl itself has been engraved with two dragons,

and there is the Buddhistic pearl of wisdom,

which they are supposedly disputing.

They're in amongst the clouds,

and we've got a stylised Chinese character in the centre.

This one would probably have been generated in this country,

in the sense that it was made in China,

-exported to England...

-Hmm.

..in about 1775, 1780.

It's a sort of Mandarin palette, we call it over here,

with these particular purple colours on it.

It actually had quite an influence on the English factories

of that period, and you'll find that Worcester copied it,

for example, at that time.

And bowls were very popular at that date.

They're always cracked, and it's due to Chinese packing.

They put the bowls one on top of the other in the ship,

which hit a storm, and they all went bonk, bonk, bonk,

and got here cracked. And they were still saleable.

Values? Well, this one is actually a lot better than

most of the period, that would make around £80 to £120,

and that one, actually about the same, yeah.

-Mm, OK, yeah.

-OK?

-Yes.

-Thank you very much for bringing them in.

-Thank you.

This man is witnessing a family reunion,

because we have the grandson, the grandfather and

the great-great-great-grandfather of the grandson.

Now, what can you tell me about your ancestor?

Well, he was in fact a clergyman later in life.

This is when he was about 19, I believe, and he had

a parish in Kent and then a parish in Lambeth.

And people were dying of cholera,

and he and some business friends got together and started

the Prudential Assurance Company, of which he was the first chairman.

-So a man of the cloth...

-Yes.

-..is the first chairman...

-Of the Prudential Assurance.

..of a financial services company that's around today.

There was a special act of Parliament made to allow

-such a thing to happen, apparently.

-Because men of the cloth were

thought to be safe in the job, or...?

Well, on the contrary, they were not trusted, I don't think...

LAUGHTER

That's astonishing.

So, how would it work, the very early system that he championed?

The whole point of it was to pay for funerals,

and the Prudential took a penny premium from people every week

which paid for the funeral - that was all it covered.

The church and finance coming together

-in so seminal a form...

-Yes.

..as the founding of that, of that very famous company.

Do you live with this picture as well, is it on your wall?

-It's not on my wall, it's on my grandfather's.

-Uh-huh.

-He will inherit it one day, I hope.

-Prepare yourself.

Or his sister, perhaps. GRANDFATHER LAUGHS

Play your cards right.

Now, I suspect you're going to ask me who painted this picture.

Well, I have an idea of who painted it.

I think we've both got an idea, because it's written on the back.

However, whether or not we can ever

prove that it is by John Glover,

who it is ascribed by -

the prominent landscape painter

who went to Australia but also did the odd portrait -

-that is difficult to establish.

-Mm.

The date of this painting is 1820s.

There were a lot of portrait painters around at that period.

Possibly with time one could prove that it was by John Glover,

but I have to say, you know,

looking at it now, I'm not convinced,

because he has a very distinctive style,

he used a split brush, and this isn't in that particular mode.

When it comes to who can afford pictures,

well, people associated with money,

like the Prudential, are obviously a target.

Someone who founded so eminent a company

really belongs in that company in some way.

So, here's a challenge. Just as a portrait of your ancestor,

it's worth probably, I don't know, a few hundred pounds,

£500, £600.

However, as the founder of such a famous company,

providing it can be conclusively proved to be of him,

why not £6,000, £7,000, £8,000, £9,000, £10,000?

So what I say is, men and women of the Prudential, come and get it.

Don't tell them where it hangs, though.

LAUGHTER

It just so happens that today I've got a sign that says

"miscellaneous" on my table.

It might as well say "weird and wonderful",

because there's something about your standard lamp

which qualifies on both accounts.

So, is this something that's been sitting in your dining room,

or your living room?

No, my great grandmother,

-she went to auctions in country houses in the 1940s.

-Yeah.

And she would buy items there and then

give them to relations as Christmas presents.

-Did they? Right.

-It used to be a case that people that had these

-houses couldn't afford the upkeep.

-Yeah.

So they had to sell the contents and then the house would be demolished.

I wish I could go back in time, and I think, certainly,

the 1930s, and dare I say, into the '50s,

when all these houses were being demolished,

there were some great things to be had,

but how would I react if somebody gave me THIS for Christmas?!

SHE LAUGHS Yep, I know.

It is, without question, an interesting object, because it's

actually composed of celluloid, these are sort of celluloid panels.

So it belongs to the 1930s, when people were experimenting

with all types of plastics.

So when it's illuminated...

Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder,

but it almost becomes tasteful. This is very now.

This is very vintage. Vintage is the buzz word these days.

So what nationality do you think it is?

Well, again, it's a tricky one.

I mean, personally, I think it's British.

I can't even say who made it, there's no maker's mark on there.

All I would just point out is that the frame - or the body -

is probably wood, with these

celluloid strips laid on, alternating.

-It's very sort of psychedelia, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Are you using it?

-No, it's been in my garage in sacks,

sort of for the past...ooh, ten, twelve years.

-It's been relegated to your garage?

-It's been in the garage, yes.

And you've got the nerve to bring it on the Antiques Roadshow(!)

Well, we've shown it to the elite of Cirencester here,

and it sort of does beg the question - what's it worth?

I mean, I can only offer you a guesstimate rather than an estimate.

I think there's plenty of people out there who would be

more than happy to pay somewhere in the region

-of £400 or £500 to own it.

-Really? Oh, right.

I usually see china painting by John Stinton of Highland cattle,

-but here's two watercolours.

-Yes.

How did they come into being?

I believe that John Stinton, the artist,

married into my mother's family, and at some stage they were

passed to an aunt of my mother's,

who then passed them down the family.

John Stinton Junior spent all his life at the Worcester factory

painting Highland cattle on vases.

They said he grew to look like a Highland beast!

And the incredible thing, I talked to his young son

Harry Stinton, who his father taught to paint Highland cattle.

I said, "Your father must have been many times up to Scotland

-"to paint Highland cattle as well as that."

-Yeah.

"Oh", he said, "No, Dad told me he never went

"further north than Droitwich,"

which is about five miles north of Worcester.

So I said, "Well, how did he paint the cattle like that?"

He said, "People sent him postcards."

-But such incredible scenes.

-Yes.

You can see this heather glowing and the mist rising

in the mountains in these watercolours,

they're absolutely super paintings,

and this one is quite clearly signed here. "J Stinton."

-Yeah.

-So there's no getting away from it,

but one of the problems is nowadays, there are people who fake

these paintings, and there are a number

of these paintings coming around, you have to be terribly careful.

But these are absolutely super, aren't they?

You could never disguise the quality of

a real John Stinton Highland cattle.

The values are zooming up now, so I hope they're well insured,

because a really good painting like this...

-It's a little bit foxed at the back.

-Yeah.

But it can be cleaned up easily.

This one is in very good condition,

it grips you, with the spirit of the Highlands

coming out of it all the time, an incredible quality painting.

These are rare pieces.

I would think that nowadays the value of a pair of these

is going to be between £2,000 and £3,000.

So they ought to be looked after and loved very much,

kept out of sunlight and just enjoyed and admired.

-Yes, yes.

-The quality is super.

Yeah, they've been on the wall for quite a few years,

-but they'll stay in the family.

-Yes, good, well done.

This iridescence is really quite striking, isn't it?

In the light here, it's absolutely shimmering,

and I guess that's what caught your eye when you first saw it, is it?

Yes, yes, indeed.

Tell us the story, how did you get into this?

-I got it as a Christmas present in 1962.

-OK.

They were found in a manor house in the attic.

The lady who owned the manor house was hard-up,

so she crawled up the attic with my sister

and they found 50 presents which they wanted to give

at that particular Christmas, and that was found, and I was given it.

So why have you brought it along today, then?

Because I don't know how old it is, or where it comes from.

I've been told not to put it in the dishwasher again.

LAUGHTER

-You've been putting this in the dishwasher?!

-I have.

Oh, you are a nutter, really, I mean, really.

You know that there's a signature because you pointed it out to me.

Well, I didn't know that, I didn't know that for many years!

-Dishwasher!

-And then the local WI

had an antiques lady coming around and she said...

LOUDLY: "Oh, my goodness, it's even got a signature!"

That's got some voice she had there.

I thought so, and I said, "I've put it in the dishwasher."

Don't put it in the dishwasher, no, no, that would be silly.

This is the mark of Lobmeyr, the mark is fairly clear

to see, "JL Lobmeyr", and it's the poshest glass shop in Europe.

Oh, really?!

-Really.

-Whereabouts in Europe?

-Vienna.

-Right, OK.

-They're still there.

They never made glass, they commissioned it from makers

and sold it under their own mark,

and so you have this portcullis logo which is J & L Lobmeyr,

JLL, and it looks like the House of Commons portcullis,

-is what it really looks like.

-I know, yes.

And so they're really posh, very nice quality here.

It's all hand-painted and hand-gilded and hand-blown,

and the iridescence is applied chemically, and its date is 1925.

Oh, not very old then!

-Well, 1925?

-Yeah.

That is only a few years older than I am.

Well...

It can't be hardly anything then, it's so young.

SHE CHUCKLES

-Nouveau going into the Deco style.

-Is it?

-It is, really, and it's worth about £300 or £400.

-Is it?

So not bad for digging around in the loft.

300-400? Oh, right, good, sell it!

-But don't put it in the dishwasher!

-No, no, I won't, no, obviously, no.

If there's one word that sends a ripple of excitement

through the Roadshow, it has to be Faberge.

It's virtually guaranteed to give our jewellery expert,

Geoffrey Munn, the vapours.

Now, take a look at these four beautiful pieces of Faberge

from the era of the Russian tsars, from the Romanovs.

When I say four pieces of Faberge, I mean three,

because one is a fake, and, in fact, such a cunning fake,

it's probably the cleverest copy Geoffrey says he's ever seen.

So for this week's Rogues Gallery,

can you spot which is the odd one out?

Here are some tips from Geoffrey.

This luxuriously decorated paper knife bearing the emblem

of Imperial Russia suggests a direct commission from the Romanovs.

Like all the objects here, it carries the Faberge hallmark,

but is it an authentic piece from the early 1900s?

MUSIC: Pink Panther Theme by Henry Mancini

Well, this is an exuberant frame decorated with pink guilloche enamel

overlaid with laurels and bows,

but is it a piece from pre-revolutionary Russia?

Another frame, this time carrying a photograph of Queen Alexandra.

It's equally fine in its workmanship...

but could this be the rogue in the pack?

And finally, this little treasure -

a powder-blue enamelled box.

Everything suggests it's a piece made in the Faberge studio,

but does it convince you?

It really is a magical name, isn't it, Faberge?

I mean, it's quality, value, craftsmanship.

You get so excited when any turns up on a Roadshow.

I do, and it's a wonderful subject really, it has everything,

it's got fallen dynasties, mad monks, treasure, flower,

Easter eggs, um, and it brings out

almost sort of childlike joy in everybody that sees it.

Well, I know....I know three of these are very valuable, and one...

In the end, I think they're all beautiful.

This is so utterly fabulous, I'll be heartbroken

if it's not Faberge, so I'm going for this one

as being the cunning imposter,

but where do we start when looking at Faberge?

Well, I think the shrillest pitch of perfection really,

this is the absolute zenith of the goldsmith's art.

It's precise and the techniques are taken to the limits, really,

and the reason that that happened was that every skill belonged

to a certain workshop.

And so the enamellers would be making this part of the frame,

and the chasers making that part of the frame,

and the jewel-setter perhaps putting the ruby in there.

And of course, Faberge, jeweller to the tsars.

Absolutely, to Alexander III and to Nicholas II,

and most famous of all for the Imperial Easter Eggs,

and there were 50 of them made, and we've really no hope at all

of ever finding one on the Antiques Roadshow.

-If we did...

-We can live in hope, Geoffrey, come on!

-I know, and we'd be £20 million better off if we did.

-Really?

Yes, those are the pitch of value,

and it explains why these things are so compelling and so valuable,

but the techniques that you see in front of us,

you'd expect to see on an Imperial Easter egg -

gold chasing, enamelwork.

All three of them are decorated with what we call guilloche enamel.

This is a metal armature brought against

a mechanical engraving device, and then it's flooded with enamel,

and you see through the enamel onto the engraving,

which looks rather like silk, or a radiating star.

It does, yes, that moire silk here...is what it reminds me of.

Yes, it's a sort of trompe l'oeil thing in a funny way,

and that would perhaps be a silk frame that somebody had encountered,

but Faberge, by waving a magic wand,

has turned it into precious metalwork.

Which one is it?

Well, I've said I think this is the cunning imposter,

but to be honest, I really didn't know what to look for.

Sometimes fakes are overly charged.

They're always bigger and better and more ambitious,

and more alluring is the right word,

because they are actually tangible lies, somebody has made a fake

to deceive you, to actually get money from you,

and if you are unfortunate enough to have a friend who tells you lies,

you are the victim of the person that tells you lies,

and we are the victims of the fakers,

because they are telling a lie that you can actually pick up and hold.

I have a feeling you're heading towards telling me

that that paper knife that I love so much is the cunning fake.

-Well, it is the cunning fake.

-Oh!

HE LAUGHS

-It is.

-But it's just too splendid!

It was too splendid, that's the problem.

Yes, perhaps. But of course there are some categories of works of art

that are completely overwhelming. There are genuine categories

of Faberge that are just as elaborate and charged

and decorated as that, and they're extraordinarily valuable.

-But this one? No.

-So how can you tell?

You can tell because it's a rather awkward piece of design.

I think the first thing about the luxury of Faberge

and his contemporaries actually was that they were made by designers,

so you look for a fluidity of design,

a perfect harmony of proportion and animation

and decoration and colour, and here you simply don't have it.

The handle of this is far too wide for the blade, quite cumbersome,

it probably means that the faker's machinery was more capable

of making this than another thing.

And then perhaps the setting of the diamonds,

but most of all, to charge it up with references to the

Danish royal family, and to put the imperial eagle of the Romanovs

on the front is really like signing it twice "Rembrandt",

not once, but twice.

Let's talk about values then. What about these three?

Intrinsically, none of them have a particularly high value.

This is silver, enamelled blue with the little gold rim,

a small ruby in it, and intrinsically worth

low hundreds of pounds,

but because it's by Faberge and it's in absolutely pristine condition,

it might cost you in the region of £40,000.

Oh, my goodness!

HE LAUGHS

And then we'll work up here.

This is actually not the fake, it's a guilloche enamel frame

with amatory trophies above, and it has an original photograph

of Queen Alexandra - sister of the Tsarina.

It has an inventory number on it that tells us

through archival material that this was

bought by members of the imperial family to give away.

-So this is going to be in the region of £100,000.

-Oh, my goodness.

If not more.

Actually, more.

-HE LAUGHS

-£120,000.

-It's going up all the time.

-But actually, oddly enough,

the scale of the object isn't always the thing,

but this is actually a bigger frame,

decorated with triumphal laurels and true lover's knots,

a neoclassical object, silver gilt.

So this is, um, £150,000, and...

-ONLOOKER: Wow!

-I know.

And this?

I can hardly bear to hear it actually.

Well, in my view, it has absolutely no value at all,

because a friend who tells you lies has got to go.

-And...

-LAUGHTER

..it's a better world without it.

Those are eye-watering values, my goodness.

If you want to know more about Faberge and how to tell

the difference between genuine Faberge as opposed to

fake Faberge, have a look at our website...

It's probably best if we get the geography out of the way first.

It is...a German table clock.

What on earth is a German table clock doing here?

Well, it came to me from my father's family,

and I have absolutely no idea how he got it,

but it's always been around and has become part of the furniture.

Well, let's look at the clock, shall we?

It's made of brass and would originally have been gilded.

Looking at the dial...

beautiful, thin chapter ring

and a lovely engraved pastoral scene in the centre.

And it's starting to rub away.

What I particularly like about this is the hand,

which sounds strange, but it is the original hand

and it's beautifully pierced out, and I think it helps to say at

this juncture that this is a clock that was made in around 1630, 1640.

I'm going to turn it over - with your permission -

and just look at the underside, and under here we've got a bell,

which is what the clock strikes the hours on.

And then you open it out, and inside we've got this marvellous movement.

Underneath the hammer here,

we've got the signature, "Johannes Klassen",

and we've got an M or an N. And I think it's an N for Nurnberg.

If it's possible, let's take it out of the case.

Because I think we're going to find...

..those slip out... and away it goes like a mad train.

That's the hammer that would ordinarily strike the bell,

and it'll stop in a minute.

But what I love about this is this fantastic melange of wheels

and spring barrels. There's a spring barrel,

that's what we call the fusee.

This is the spring barrel that allows you to strike the hours,

this is the power source for the hammer to work.

It's fantastic.

This is why collectors want to buy clocks like this.

Anyway, we've got to get down to what it's worth.

And, at auction, I hope that a collector would pay

between £7,000 and £10,000 for it.

Really? Good. Well, they're not going to, because I'm keeping it.

This is a really unusual piece you've brought along.

Where on earth did you get it from?

I bought it a couple of years ago on a car boot in Cardiff.

-Good heavens, from a car-boot sale?

-Yeah.

It doesn't sound like you're from England. Where are you from?

-I'm from Czech Republic.

-Are you?

Well, this is very much an English piece.

And do you know what it might be?

Mmm... First time, when I bought that, I thought

-that it's some key pendant.

-Yes.

Or something like that and when I check on the website,

probably some seal matrix, very old.

It is exactly that, it's a seal matrix, but an extremely old one.

-Really?

-It's made of silver...

and it's got Latin inscription round the edge which, I think, says

"Amabile Martel", which means,

literally, "Lovable Martel."

Now Martel sounds a French name, and, of course, it's not long after

the Norman Conquest, so there are lots of Normans

all around the country, and this dates from about 1350.

-Really?

-So it's almost 700 years old.

When I first looked at it, I thought this was a goblet,

but it's actually a medieval maiden's face right in the centre.

You've got a really lovely little piece.

What did you pay for it?

I don't remember, £2 or £3, very cheap.

That's not a bad find, you know, because it's worth now...

I should think between £1,200 and £1,500.

Oh, my! I am shocked!

Now that we're into marking the centenary of the First World War

in all sorts of ways, being British, we tend to think of it

very much as a European conflict,

but, of course, it's not true, is it?

There's a big American component.

What we're looking at are American posters from the First World War,

-and you're an American.

-Yes, I am.

So, in a sense, you're telling the story for me, aren't you?

America came into the First World War in 1917,

and clearly what the posters reveal -

as British posters did from 1914 onwards -

is that the war was a concept that had to be sold,

and people had to be

persuaded to take part.

Why did you start this route?

I was skiing in Vermont in the 1960s, the weather was poor

and I was killing the day by looking at an old antique shop,

and I came across a poster.

It had no special meaning to me, but the colours were so vibrant

and I was entranced. So I bought one and I saw others,

and over the years I kept picking them up.

-Where have you got to now? How many?

-85.

-Oh!

THEY LAUGH

Let's look at one or two. There are two themes.

One is about recruitment, getting people to fight

and support the war.

-The other is about, of course, paying for the war.

-Yes.

We forget, both in Britain and in America,

how much the public was encouraged to buy bonds,

put money into the war, and both of these are about buying bonds

and therefore giving money to the American government

to support the war.

This is a very famous one. Do you know about this one?

Well, a little bit.

This happened to be the most expensive one that I got.

I was told that this is the only one where America was being

bombed or attacked, and so it had a special meaning to collectors.

For some reason, that's one of the most famous posters.

It was by Joseph Pennell, very good artist.

There are two versions, one with a white background,

and one that you've got with a darker background,

and for some reason

they've always been top of the tree in terms of American posters.

This is a much more direct and aggressive thing.

"We don't want the German boots

marching in a bloody way over America.

-And this is a very emotive message, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's very aggressive, it's the Americans saying

the Germans are dreadful, which of course

was the British message of 1914.

This one is extraordinary, because what it's saying is...

I mean, the pretty girl, the pretty girl sells anything, we know that.

And, of course, the pretty girl could sell war just as she could

sell soap powder or bicycles, and here she's saying,

"These are all Americans, fight for liberty."

Liberty's the strong word. Then look at this list of names,

they come from every nationality, and this is America saying,

"This is what we are, we're a multicultural country,

"we're all Americans and we can unite."

Now, this, again, is the other theme.

So far, they've really all been about raising money.

Here we've got this wonderful image of a naval ship, a submarine,

the colour, you've got camouflage on the ships,

and again it's just about,

"This is what we've got to do, we've got to keep the sea lanes open."

And that was because Britain was starving in 1917,

we were at our worst moment in the war, we were about to lose it

because of the German submarine menace, and we were

totally dependent upon American supplies,

-even before you joined the war.

-Mm.

And so this is you saying, "Yes, that's how it is,

"we've got to keep the war going."

And I think the final one is the third great theme,

which is, you know, exploit sentimentality,

exploit women, exploit the home.

This is about nursing.

"Join up, help in another way. Women have their role to play."

They are just great things.

So you've got 85. Let's go through it -

-that one, if you had the white one...

-Yeah.

..you'd be looking - in good condition - at about £800.

-OK.

-Possibly more. The beige one is slightly less.

What we've looked at range in price from between -

in pounds, I'm going to say - £200 to £800 to £1,000.

-Oh, wow.

-These are the ones we've looked at.

-Uh-huh.

-And this is six or seven from 85.

-Yeah.

Let's take a mean average of £400 per poster, and obviously

the ones with just words on are much less than the pictorial ones.

The better the image, the better the value.

-I make that round about...

-32,000.

-..£32,000.

-Yeah, wow.

Not bad for £10 a pop.

HE LAUGHS

I'm quite surprised, that's great.

These tiny little totems are obviously a bit more portable

than the real thing, but they've travelled a long way,

and I want to know how you come to have them.

My grandmother gave me these for Christmas a couple of years ago.

She used to collect lots of ivory, she used to live in Canada,

so these are obviously from Canada.

It's a lovely present to be given, I have to say,

because I'm very, very jealous of these.

These are miniature totem poles,

miniature representations of huge totem poles that were placed

outside of the homes and the dwellings of people from the Haida.

Now, the Haida come from British Columbia.

The Haida carved everything out of cedar, they lived in

a very lush, rainy environment, and, certainly,

you'll be hard-pressed to find old totems any more,

-because they rotted away.

-Yes.

-Because they were made of wood.

So 19th century totem poles are very rare in that respect.

The reason that we have miniature examples like this

is that, in fact, actually, they were made for tourists.

So what we have here are little tourist souvenirs.

Do you know what sort of ivory these are carved out of?

I think... I was told it was whale ivory.

Right, OK. Well, it's certainly marine ivory.

If we look closely at them,

and if particularly we look at this larger totem here,

and we turn it around, we can see that it has a line

down the back of it, this very crystalline line,

and that's a marine ivory. It could be walrus ivory,

that's quite often what they're carved from.

What is lovely about these two that your grandmother has given you

is that these are early 20th century ones.

They've got lovely patination, they're coloured in nicely

and I think these date from probably around about 1920 or 1930,

which makes them a lot, lot more interesting.

I have to say, I think this little one doesn't have the quality

and interest of this particular totem here,

so I think this one is probably worth around about £200 or £300.

But this one here, which is a classic representation

with lovely colouring, patination, nicely done,

I think is more likely

worth about £500 to £800.

Wow, OK.

So, that was a lovely present to be given by your grandmother,

I have to say, but these are something

-you should cherish and look after.

-Yes.

Because they're obviously part of your family's ancestry,

so to speak, being associated with Canada.

Two 20th century jewels, tell me about them.

My mother was left some jewels by her aunt, Aunt Gracie in Jamaica,

she brought them back to this country and she had them

designed by Andrew Grima, and he did...

I've got one of the drawings there that he did,

of one of the designs. I don't know how she

got to Andrew Grima or how she heard about him, but that's really

all I know. I was left one of them

and given one for my 50th birthday.

How marvellous! Well, she found Andrew Grima in Jermyn Street,

-at the top of Jermyn Street and Duke Street.

-Yes.

And I can remember that, because I'm 20th century too.

-Oh, right.

-And when I first started to work in London,

it was the most magnetic and glamorous shop you can

ever imagine, it was clad with slate

and it had coloured glass in the window

and these wonderful jewels shining out from it, and it was a thing

very much of that moment. And this is real patronage, isn't it?

That she chose Andrew Grima to make modern jewellery,

to spend her money, there wasn't a question of the future,

she wanted something wonderful to wear. Do you wear them?

Absolutely. Yes, I do wear them,

I've worn both of them and I love them.

The level of patronage of Andrew Grima is

at the highest possible level.

The Royal Family are terribly interested in his work,

and Princess Margaret took a piece of lichen from a tree

and took it to him to have it cast in gold into a brooch,

-and Princess Anne has jewellery by Andrew Grima.

-Right.

It was an absolute magnet for the highest level of society,

but also people who wanted something intensely modern that said

something about them really and their existence,

and so, as you can tell, I'm a tiny bit excited to see them!

THEY LAUGH

But I'm even more excited to see a design for a piece of jewellery.

Well, my mother kept that very carefully, and when she gave me

the brooch, she said, "Be sure to keep this drawing."

This one is meant to be a sea anemone,

that was how it was described to her.

-Yes, jellyfish almost.

-But I haven't got the drawing of that,

-and I never have had, and I've never seen it.

-No.

But I have managed to keep the other one.

Well, I can tell you that, actually, drawings for jewellery,

are actually rarer than the jewels themselves.

-Oh, really? Oh, right.

-Much, much rarer, because they're tossed aside,

and people wear them, and so this is an enormously exciting moment,

and it's a thing OF the moment.

-These things have returned to being enormously fashionable.

-Right.

They are very, very enviable, they're almost museum quality.

I mean, this, with the design, is something that the

Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, would want from you.

-And so, having told you all of that...

-Yes.

..these are enormously valuable objects in every sense

of the word, aesthetically as well as intrinsically.

I can tell you, with every confidence,

-that this is worth £8,000 to £10,000.

-Right.

And our marvellous jellyfish, undulating in the sea like this...

very organic creature, well,

£5,000 or £6,000.

Right, thank you very much.

Well, thank YOU very much, actually. I mean, I loved it.

-I met Andrew Grima.

-Did you?

Yes, I did, enormous charm,

and not for nothing was it a sort of honeypot.

How did you come to have a present from Stalin?

Well, my uncle was a member of the UK delegation

at the Yalta Conference.

Oh, that was the conference in 1945.

-1945.

-With Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin,

effectively partitioning Germany after the Second World War.

Partitioning most of Europe, yes.

And my uncle - who was a fairly senior member of

the UK delegation - asked Stalin

whether he could have Grandfather Frost,

who was part of a centrepiece at the banquet, afterwards.

Now, you're calling him Grandfather Frost

-because he looks like Father Christmas?

-Yeah.

But for the communists...

Communist Father Christmas didn't exist.

-Terribly sad, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-No Christmas.

-No Christmas.

-Under the Communist regime.

-So this was Grandfather Frost.

-Yeah.

I'm just trying to picture the scene,

so you've got Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin...

-Yeah.

-..all the delegation around,

-basically shaping post-war Europe...

-Absolutely.

..and the falling of the Iron Curtain, partitioning up Germany,

and your uncle thinks, "Hang on a minute, I rather like that,

"my nephew could do with that,"

in amongst all these momentous decisions being taken!

Absolutely, and he picked him out and asked Stalin

whether he could have him for his nephew, who was me, aged four.

And Stalin said yes and gave it to him.

You were only four, I guess you probably weren't asking

-questions like, "What was Stalin like?"

-No.

I mean, did your uncle ever talk about it later on, or...?

Well, he used to talk about the Russians,

because he was then in the United Nations afterwards,

and, yeah, he said Stalin was to all intents and purposes

fairly genial, but behind the geniality, of course,

he was an appalling man.

I mean, it's interesting to think about Stalin giving you

a present, when, of course, millions of Russians died under Stalin...

-Absolutely, yeah.

-..under his regime,

but here he was handing over a doll to your uncle, for a little boy.

Exactly, well, I suppose it showed him up in a good light,

and, after all, he was after territory all the time anyway.

So he thought, "You have that, I'll take post-war Hungary."

Yeah, absolutely, something like that, yes!

And where does Grandfather Frost live now?

In the upstairs loo.

LAUGHTER

-In the upstairs loo?

-Yeah.

-He was present at a momentous time in history.

-Yes, exactly.

I think you could do better than the upstairs loo!

Well, I think so, yes, there's not much history that goes on up there.

Well, your teapot's emblazoned with anchors, you've got dates of

famous sea battles, and the greatest name of all, that of Nelson, there.

But are we looking at a splendid commemorative,

or heaven forbid, could it really be Nelson's teapot itself?

Because a lot depends on the family history really,

and how close can you trace it back to Nelson.

Well, my grandmother's maiden name was Barlow, and so,

if you go up the line, she descends from Admiral Sir Robert Barlow,

who commanded one of Nelson's ships,

and his third daughter married Horatio Nelson's...

brother, yes, I've got it.

Here we have an order of battle from the Mediterranean in 1804,

orders given by Nelson, and listing his captains, there.

And we have, on the Victory, that's Nelson himself...

and further down here, there's the Triumph,

commanded by Sir Robert Barlow.

So there he is, serving under Nelson in 1804.

Of course, Barlow's daughter has an even closer link,

because she became Countess Nelson.

That's right, yes.

She married the... Was it Nelson's brother?

Brother William, yes.

Because when Nelson died at Trafalgar,

he inherited the title and he became the 1st Earl Nelson.

That's right, yes, I get a bit confused.

It is confusing, of course, but the nice thing is,

there's the direct link right down from your ancestors,

going straight down to you and to this teapot.

-That's right.

-So it came down from there.

-Yeah, that's it.

Well, you've also brought along this lovely drawing of Emma there,

and, of course, although it's perhaps not

the earliest copy of this famous image, it does show her beauty.

Yes, yes, she was gorgeous, wasn't she?

And, of course, Nelson sharing his home at Merton with her.

And while he's away at sea, one can imagine her living there,

entertaining and, of course, entertaining with

the very fine china and silver that Nelson had been given.

Let's look at the teapot.

So there we have the anchor and the name of Nelson at the top,

and the date there, 2nd of April,

which is the date of the Battle of Copenhagen.

And we've got...there are all these other battles.

All these dates would have been sort of key to the history

of Nelson's victories, but probably the most important one

is in the front there.

Because that had just happened, probably when he was likely

to have been given this chinaware.

The ladies of London and the citizens of London

clubbed together and presented Nelson with chinaware

when he attended a banquet with the Lord Mayor.

He rode in the Lord Mayor's coach and was supposedly given some

very fine chinaware that was used at the banquet.

But it's slightly confusing when you look at the teapot,

because it's not a British teapot at all.

-It's actually French.

-Really?

And Nelson was out there fighting the enemy,

but here was a teapot of French porcelain!

Really? Oh, gosh...

But probably old chinaware from France that was

hanging around in London, and they painted the decoration on there

of oak leaves and proud British emblems there,

and gave Nelson this French service

-which would have gone to his home at Merton.

-Yes.

When Nelson died, there was an inventory

made of all the contents of Merton,

and the chinaware was listed, and they list two services there.

One was the Nelson service,

which was a porcelain set, partly Coalport, partly French,

decorated with the oak leaf border and Nelson's arms emblazoned on it.

-And there was also the Baltic service.

-Oh.

That's the only description it gives in the inventory.

So, is this the teapot from that Baltic set?

-Ooh, wouldn't it be nice?

-Exciting to think that,

Emma pouring tea for Nelson out of that actual teapot.

-Can you imagine it?

-No, not really!

Well, not that I've got it, anyway.

If it is the one from that set,

and there's every reason to think it is...

-That it is?

-..of course, it's an expensive piece,

it's quite a special teapot!

Nelson's teapot, there it is, what history!

-So, what's a tea pot worth?

-God...

I mean, just trying to think, how much would it...?

Would you have tea with Nelson? Shall we say, erm...

£20,000?

You're jo... You're joking.

You're joking.

I'm going to cry!

LAUGHTER

Such history!

-It's a special teapot.

-I'm speechless.

Oh, God. I can't believe it. I've seen it all my life, and...

Never sort of had the whole collection of things together.

Now it all adds up to a nice bit of English history,

and I'm thrilled.

Yes, well, quite. I'm thrilled that I knew

this was on today and I brought it along.

Wow, that's quite something.

It's been something of a day of firsts

here at the Royal Agricultural University.

Not only was John Bly - one of our most seasoned experts -

presented with the oldest piece of furniture he's ever seen

at an Antiques Roadshow, but what about

that advice from that wonderful lady who was

talking to Andy McConnell about her piece of glass?

She says she always washes her antique glass

by sticking it in the dishwasher.

I can't say I'd recommend it.

And all day we've been filming in gale-force winds and rain,

and just as we're coming to the end of our day

here at the Royal Agricultural University,

for the first time, the sun has come out. Typical.

From the whole Antiques Roadshow team, until next time,

and let's hope the sun's shining. Bye-bye.