Tredegar House 2 Antiques Roadshow

Welcome back to the Antiques Roadshow

from Newport in Wales.

I'm travelling across the River Usk on this grand aerial ferry,

one of only six surviving transporter bridges in the world.

This is travelling in style.

It takes 90 seconds to get across

and it was built for Edwardian workers who lived

on the west side of the river, but who needed to get to the east,

where the factories and the docks were.

Otherwise, it was a four-mile round trip.

It was opened on September 12th 1906 by Godfrey Morgan,

the Second Lord Tredegar,

resplendent with soup-strainer moustache

on what looks like a very miserable day.

The surrounding dockland and beyond was owned by Godfrey,

who lived just a mile up the road

at his fabulous pile, Tredegar House.

In a discreet corner is a memorial to his remarkable horse, Sir Briggs.

Godfrey took Sir Briggs with him to the Crimean War,

and in October 1854,

they led the line of the calamitous Charge of the Light Brigade,

when British troops mistakenly assaulted

heavily defended Russian positions.

Despite heavy losses,

miraculously, they both survived with barely a scratch.

In fact, Sir Briggs went on to survive many major battles.

The First World War fictional story of War Horse is rightly popular,

but to my mind, if you want the original war horse,

surely it has to be Sir Briggs.

Godfrey buried his beloved horse with full military honours

in the cedar garden at Tredegar House,

where we find our specialists ready to welcome visitors from Wales

to this week's Antiques Roadshow.

A beautiful day, a beautiful garden, a beautiful house,

one beautiful girl, two rings.

Come on, tell me all about them.

OK. This one was my grandmother's

and this was my great-grandmother's.

All I know is that this one was purchased in Plymouth

and was a replacement engagement ring when they had more money,

and that's all I know about them.

Well, when you began to tell me that

I felt that that must be true, because this particular ring

-is rather older than this one.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Which turns the family provenance round in a rather complicated way.

This is a very pretty little gold ring set with rubies and diamonds.

-Yes.

-And it comes from probably

the last few years of the reign of Queen Victoria.

Conveniently, she lived until 1901,

-so it takes us even into the 20th century.

-Right, OK.

And they're beautiful, aren't they?

-Yes, lovely.

-They're blood-red rubies and diamonds,

-but this is a very fulsome diamond ring, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I mean, it's quite, quite a sight,

and look what it does in the sunshine.

And have you ever thought about the setting at all?

It's rather strange, rather dark, isn't it?

No, I haven't, I haven't had anybody look at it before,

-so I don't know much about it.

-Except you love it.

I do absolutely adore it, yeah.

-I'm just too scared to wear it.

-Oh, no, don't be that.

It's set in silver and backed in gold. This one is only gold

and it's one of the signposts to me that this is an earlier ring,

because we can tell from the lapidary work and from the setting

that it probably comes from the 1840s, something like that.

-Oh, right.

-So 60 or 70 years before this one.

-Right, OK.

But anyway, let's start with this one,

it's a perfectly nice engagement ring.

It's been through one lifetime and a little bit rubbed,

probably only valued at £300-400

but if you wanted to walk into a West End shop in London,

where this sort of thing would be for sale,

it would be a rare thing to be found for sale, a very attractive one,

and I think you'd have to fork out £7,000 to get it.

Oh, really? Wow.

Wow! That's lovely news.

Won't be selling it, but, yeah, it's a gorgeous ring. Thank you.

-Can we see it on your finger?

-Yeah.

-Yes, look at that, stunning, wonderful.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

A jug which doesn't really need any introduction.

Having said that, would you like

to tell me who made it?

Clarice Cliff.

Clarice Cliff, and as far as Clarice Cliff goes,

I have to tell you that in days gone by,

I've been a guest speaker

-at the Clarice Cliff Collectors Club Convention.

-Right.

So I have actually met the ladies who decorated this in the 1930s.

-Oh, right.

-So, the design -

the design is oranges and lemons,

and if I had to say what is my favourite design,

-I think this is it.

-Right.

First of all, it's called the "Conical" shape.

OK, I didn't know that.

Well, I can tell you that, but I want you to tell me a little bit

about how a jug like this ends up in this idyllic part of South Wales.

Well, the jug, my earliest memories, really, as a child,

I would be taken down to Llanelli on a Sunday afternoon

to visit some elderly relatives and there'd be nothing to do.

Tea would be laid on the table and then after we'd eaten,

it was a matter for my sister and I just to sort of walk around

and sort of look at various objects in the house

and this was one of them, and then of course, as time went on,

the elderly relatives passed away and this came my way.

Let's have a quick look at the mark under the base,

because marks are quite important

and you've got a mark there that says,

"Bizarre by Clarice Cliff"

and then it's a little bit misleading for you local people

-because it says "Newport Pottery" under there, doesn't it?

-Yes.

And the number of people who think

that Newport Pottery is actually here in South Wales

-but it wasn't, it was up there in Stoke-on-Trent.

-OK.

-This design was introduced in around about 1931.

-Right.

So, you know, you're into the Art Deco

but moving into the Moderne,

and as far as collectors are concerned,

if I dare use the phrase, it ticks all the right boxes,

so when it comes to the value,

Clarice Cliff's a little bit like stocks and shares,

-the market is always up and down.

-Yes, yes.

So I would say that your jug is possibly round about 800,

but maybe on a good day,

possibly, possibly, £1,000.

-We just might...

-Really?

-..just might get up there.

-Gosh!

Really? I didn't expect that at all, actually.

Poisonous snakes aren't everybody's cup of tea.

But how do you feel about having a festival of snakes

on your dining table, or do you not keep it on your dining table?

We don't keep it on the dining table, no.

We keep it under the stairs, actually,

but now that I've seen it out again

and it's a while since I've seen it out,

it's actually quite attractive

in a...scary sort of way.

THEY LAUGH

I think it's put away because

I can't really decide what to do with it.

Presumably if it's put away, you didn't buy it for use.

No, no, no, it was my grandfather's.

It's been handed down to me from my grandfather,

who was in the army in the North West Frontier in the 1890s.

-Right.

-So we think that's where he got it,

that sort of area which is now sort of northwest Pakistan, isn't it?

I can tell you exactly where it comes from.

-Right.

-It's covered in local symbols.

-Right.

-It comes from Kashmir.

-Right.

And you've got Kashmiri, or local leaves,

you've got chinar leaves and coriander leaves,

and all this local flora - and fauna.

-And fauna.

-Um, poking its head out,

and rearing up in a very sort of aggressive-looking way.

Um, the bowl itself is based on what's called a kashkul,

which is a begging bowl,

which the Dervish monks used to carry

to collect alms from the locals,

as in "whirling dervish",

these men sometimes used to spin round and round in their...

-Big begging bowl?

-A begging bowl.

It's a popular shape that was used by the local craftsmen

to turn into all sorts of things -

for example, your lovely centrepiece.

-Yes.

-Which is not ever intended to be sold to a Kashmiri,

-this was always expected to be sold to a foreigner.

-Right.

It's a wonderful item,

it's much bigger than usually Kashmiri silver is.

It's on a very grand scale,

and as far as date of manufacture goes,

this is going to be about 1890.

And the market for what's essentially Islamic metalwork

has grown and grown over recent years.

This is not only skilful work, but a really nice-looking object.

-It has, you know, some considerable value too.

-Ooh, right.

Um, it could cost you about...

somewhere around £4,000 mark.

Oh, right.

That's more than I was thinking. Yeah. Thank you very much.

-Brilliant!

-Not at all, nice thing to be left.

-What a result.

You want to get it out of the understairs cupboard, though.

I think it will, yes, it might just. And some bananas to put in it.

THEY LAUGH

-You're obviously twins, Derek and...

-Elwyn.

Elwyn, Derek and Elwyn, let's get it the right way round.

It's a family dresser.

What's its history, what can you tell me about it?

It belonged to our grandfather, who used to live in West Wales.

And he got married sometime in World War I period

and we assume he acquired it at that time.

But we don't know much about it apart from that.

OK, well, it's a very typical West Wales dresser.

I have an admission to make -

I have one almost identical, that was my grandmother's dresser

and I'm the current custodian of it

and it's lived with me in about six or seven different houses now,

but I still have it.

This one probably dates from about 1880, it's oak,

and this one is perhaps slightly better than average

-because you've got this egg-and-dart cornicing across the top.

-Yes.

And this feature that we see in the centre here, which is

commonly called the dog kennel, this is something that you see

very typically on dressers from the South and West Wales region.

The handles are replacements on it, these are not original,

-these were probably put on in about 1900, 1910 or so.

-Yeah.

So which one of you is the current custodian of it?

-Derek.

-Derek, and does it have pride of place in your "cegin", Derek?

I'm afraid it lives in the garage at the moment.

Does it? Oh, dear. OK.

Did you inherit it after he passed away?

Er, yeah, it went to an aunt first of all and then it came on to us.

This is a photograph of our grandfather and grandmother

and the two children at the front

-is Elwyn and me.

-Us, of course, yes.

-Of course, yes.

-We're actually...

Obviously, you were identical as children,

-slightly easier to tell you apart these days.

-Yes, identical twins.

And which one of these is the grandfather that owned the dresser?

The man in the doorway.

The man in the doorway there, gosh, and was he a miner?

Yes, he was, that's his very own mining lamp there.

-Is it really?

-He used to work in quarrying and mining.

He lived a fairly primitive life because there were no running water,

no gas, no electricity, so it was candles,

cooking on an open fire

and water from the well in the field next door.

Towards the end of his life in Rose Hill, the name of the house,

he had water installed

but he didn't want it in the house, he just had a tap in the garden.

-Really?

-And nothing else changed at all.

He really was happy to live in the past.

Well, you know, it's obviously very important to you,

it's part of your family history.

They've slightly sort of fallen out of fashion in more recent years.

-Yes.

-If you had to buy this at auction, you'd probably be looking

at around £400-500 mark in the current market.

-Right, OK.

-OK, fine.

It's a rather interesting object.

It's cloisonne, so enamel in these wonderful sort of wirework designs,

making this lovely scrolling design and these stylised plant forms,

and what it actually is, it's a matchbox or a vesta case.

-So your matchbox would slide in just under here.

-Right.

So your matchbox slides in there,

what they've done rather cleverly,

so you can still take your matches out and then

get to the strike on either side.

Dates probably from 1920s-1930s

and value, not all that much

but maybe £15 or £20, something like that.

-It's a lot of work for £15, £20.

-It is indeed.

I wouldn't want to do that! THEY LAUGH

I think I'm in a Wallace and Gromit stage set!

Now pay attention and look interested.

THEY LAUGH

It's Davies, he was the great genius of the Worcester factory

and painting, and I suppose the vase is going to be now

worth between £4,000 and £5,000.

I'd better take care of it.

Yes, oh, for heaven's sake, otherwise I'll come and haunt you!

You've got some great tattoos.

What's your connection

with the tattooing business?

My grandfather started tattooing

in 1928, and obviously my family's been tattooing ever since,

-my father and my uncle and my aunt.

-Right.

-And myself.

I collect a lot of tattoo memorabilia, you know,

I have a museum and I do a travelling museum round conventions.

Right, OK. Well, I can see that this item we've got in front of us

is actually what's called an Edison mimeograph,

or an Edison electric pen.

We all know Thomas Edison was a famous inventor,

had many things under his belt - the phonograph,

the first commercially-produced incandescent light bulb,

and this, the stencilling pen, which he patented in 1876.

Basically, this pen was powered by an electric motor which had

a reciprocating needle which shot in and out as the motor span round.

This thing moved on from being this reprographic object

into something that became the mainstay of tattoo artists.

Needle pens for tattooing,

which you've obviously used as a tattooist,

that's exactly what they do -

they have that reciprocating needle in,

that injects the ink under your skin

and I think, if my memory serves me correctly,

there are just under 40 around in the world today.

I think some of them...there are several in the Henry Ford Museum.

-That's correct.

-Now, we've got two versions here.

I can see we've got this brass version.

As far as we know, that's British.

It was found behind the back seat of a Morris Minor car.

-It was donated to the museum.

-That's interesting.

But where it came from originally

and who made it, we're not really 100% sure.

Well, I have to say, I have never seen that brass version.

It's bigger, it's slightly more cumbersome than this one,

so that's very interesting.

Now, very few of these ever, ever come up for sale

and when they do, they're very keenly contested.

I think that there's a great possibility that this brass one

is worth around about £7,000-10,000.

And do you know, I reckon this one, the American version,

is probably worth about £8,000-12,000.

So what we're essentially looking at here is

around about £15,000-20,000 worth.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

Do you remember earlier on, I was on the Newport Transporter Bridge,

which was opened by Godfrey Morgan,

who of course lived here in Tredegar House?

It was opened by him in 1906,

and the local museum has brought this along.

This was presented to Godfrey Morgan

on the opening of the bridge,

and you can see here

it mentions the bridge

and the fact that it was presented to Godfrey Charles Viscount Tredegar

and this little piece at the top here is a replica of the mechanism

used to move the gondola backwards and forwards.

And what it actually is...

is a cigar cutter, and you put the cigar in here,

move the mechanism...

Hey presto, cuts the cigar.

As cigar cutters go, it's not exactly portable, you can hardly

slip it into your breast pocket,

but I was showing this to Paul Atterbury earlier,

who valued it in the high hundreds of pounds, and he said

this was something he'd give his eye teeth to have,

because he loves anything architectural,

engineering, mechanisms, that kind of thing.

And of course this commemorates

the day the Newport Transporter Bridge was opened.

But I like to think of the Viscount in his home here in Tredegar

with this maybe on the mantelpiece - a little conversation piece.

Well, this is about as far removed

from Chippendale as a chair can be.

Exactly, yes.

Who did it belong to?

It was my grandfather's,

or that's the earliest we can actually go back to,

-which is about 1935.

-OK.

-It was known in the family.

Yes. Do you remember it as a child?

Indeed, yes. I moved to Swansea when I was four years old

and it was in the house with my grandfather then.

And did he use it?

My grandfather always sat at the head of the table

and the grandchildren sat on the windowsill eating table.

Yes. So you have this wonderful picture of your grandfather

sitting in this chair.

Indeed, yes, he was a much, much bigger man than myself.

He was a master butcher. He smoked a large pipe.

-I can almost sort of visualise him sitting in it.

-Indeed, yes, yes.

So, 1935 is when you can take it back to,

but actually, it's a bit earlier than that.

-Oh, right.

-It dates from some time between around 1760-1790.

Good gracious!

And chairs like this were made out of native timber.

This one - do you know the woods this is made of?

No, I would assume that the arms are ash,

but that's as far as I would care to go.

-Spot on.

-Oh!

-That's absolutely right.

-Oh, right.

And there's another wood in here too.

This seat has been sort of...

-It's like a slice carved out of a tree, isn't it?

-Yes, yes.

And this wood is elm.

But that's not the best bit about this chair.

This is the original paintwork that was on the chair,

and how, from the second half of the eighteenth century,

it's got to now without being stripped down

is a sort of a bit of a miracle, really.

This sort of red colour,

and then there are traces of another colour behind.

And I don't doubt that that was the original colour it was painted.

-Right.

-Of course, houses pre-electricity,

-things were quite dull.

-Exactly, yes.

And this was a very humble, sort of, farm-made chair.

There's one thing I wondered -

there's no spindle from these two parts here.

Obviously they've been filled, so...

So they filled this hole, but it's the same plug, isn't it,

-that's filled it?

-Exactly, but there's no receiver at the bottom.

The great thing about chairs like this

is that they simply don't conform

to the patterns of city-made chairs.

I think whoever made this

just miscounted the number of spindles they had,

and that is part of its charm.

That is the beauty of a chair like this.

-So these chairs stand up quite well in the current market.

-Right.

A chair like this now would fetch

around £1,800.

I would have said 200.

I'm amazed, absolutely amazed.

What an appropriate jewel to come to the table

when we are surrounded by

these fantastic flowers and insects.

What made you bring this to me?

I just thought it was a very pretty little brooch

that I inherited from my godmother, who was born in the 1880s.

She was our next-door neighbour when we lived in London,

and I spent almost more time with her than I did with my parents.

She always wore this little brooch

after she got dressed to go into town in the afternoon

and it's just part of my childhood, really.

And I was very, very pleased when she left it to me.

How did she wear it?

She had dresses with cross-over fronts,

she always wore the same style, and a belt,

a little lace jabot underneath the cross-over, for modesty,

and the brooch always kept the two sides of the V neck together.

-So it would be high up she'd be wearing it.

-Yes, quite high up.

-Quite high up.

-Yes, yes.

Do you know, for me to see something that I've never seen before

is not easy, actually, as I do see quite a lot of jewellery,

but I have never seen anything like this before,

and that's what made me want to feel it and touch it -

-it sort of sprang out at me.

-Beautiful, isn't it?

It is absolutely gorgeous,

and do you know, jewellery is not all about big diamonds and big show.

Sometimes there's a huge message in something that's very small.

And here is the perfect message,

because we have this wonderful bumblebee in the middle

and it's in a heart shape

and it's on a brooch,

so it is saying, "Be sure of my love."

Because the surety is the pin,

the pin will keep the surety there, it will keep it there, the brooch,

and that's what it's saying, so a very simple, beautiful message.

And it is in enamel,

cushion shaped diamonds,

little ruby eyes for passion.

And of course, the bumblebee also represents plenty as well,

so plenty of passion and love, for always,

-because diamonds were for always.

-Oh, how lovely.

Who was her lover, do you think?

-Well, she was married.

-Yes.

-She married in 1915,

-and he was my godfather as well, so I would imagine it was him.

-Aw.

Unless she inherited it from her mother,

-but I wouldn't know about that.

-Well, this is made in about 1900 -

-1895,

-1900. Right, it would be her husband, then.

-So he bought it for her.

-Yes.

Because of his love and adoration for her.

The brooch itself is made of silver and gold

and the diamonds are set in silver,

and then on the back is the gold, which will strengthen the silver.

And of course, it's in the Garrard's box here -

which was the Crown Jewellers at the time.

So at auction - it has a little bit of enamel damage,

but I think it is just so beautiful.

I would think in the right auction,

you'd be looking at around about £1,500.

SHE GASPS Gosh!

Oh, my goodness, that means a lot to me.

And it would be to her as well, if she knew. That's lovely.

-Lovely period '60s tiles, yeah.

-'60s, yes.

How did you get them?

My father worked in the ceramic industry, and these were samples

that he would have had to have taken round to prospective clients.

-I'd like to suggest that we might film these.

-OK.

I think they're very interesting.

-I think they're very much of the time.

-Well, also,

they're very much of this time, now - they're very commercial

and these are the things that people are looking for.

Well, with images like these,

we don't quite have the backdrop today.

I would imagine that we should be looking at Count Dracula's castle

with thunder and lightning and crows

and mist coming across the lawn.

And here we are, bathed in beautiful sunshine.

So what can you tell me about these? How did you come by them?

I can't tell you a great deal.

I picked them up in a boot sale about three years ago.

-And what drew you to them?

-I'd never seen anything like them before.

-Uh-huh.

-And they looked really old, so...

-They are indeed really old.

They're what is known as penny dreadfuls

and they were, as we can see, a broadsheet,

a printed broadsheet that was sold to advertise,

as we can see here, upcoming executions

for murders and various crimes.

These are quite sensational headlines here -

we can see the "Trial, sentence and execution

"for the murder of James Delarue at Hampstead."

And if we come down to the bottom here,

we can actually see that this one is dated 1845.

These were sold for a penny, as the name suggests,

primarily in the county in, you know, hundreds of thousands,

and it was hugely, hugely popular during the nineteenth century

to come and watch these executions take place.

And we can see here in the image of this sort of wood block print,

it's portrayed as a nice family outing

and somewhere to go for the day.

You almost imagine them taking their picnic with them

and watching this rather gruesome event go on.

Charles Dickens himself actually, against his better judgment,

decided that he was going to go

and watch one of these executions take place

and he reported to the Times that it made his blood run cold.

They drew such tremendous crowds, up to 20,000,

and even in some cases up to 100,000 people,

and these were nicknamed "execurtioners"

travelling to watch these executions take place.

And I think if you pick up the corner,

it has almost the feel, I suppose,

of a crepe paper or something like that, it's very thin.

I think that would be why these are so scarce,

and that they haven't survived in high numbers.

-And now you're going to tell us what you paid for them.

-£20.

-£20.

-You've actually got another one underneath.

-Yeah.

So they cost a fiver each.

They are very desirable today.

I mean, a rather gruesome subject,

but they can be very important.

So I think each of them is probably worth at auction

-something around £300-500 per piece.

-Excellent.

-That's an amazing profit, well done.

-Excellent.

-Thanks very much.

-Thank you.

Whenever I see things associated

with the potteries of Staffordshire, I think how sad it is that

that total industry has gone into decline.

How did you get this collection?

Well, my father used to...well, for all of his life,

worked in the ceramic industry, in the tile industry,

selling tiles to customers.

And he died in 1969, but these were sort of left when he went

and they've lain, in fact, till more recently

and I've just rediscovered them.

And particularly with these tiles here, I was very impressed

with the design of them, which is why we framed them.

Yes, absolutely. So we've got some lovely examples here.

We've got the very '60s tiles here. We've also got other examples,

which were obviously in this salesman's sample box here.

-That's right.

-And then we've got various salesman samples

of fireplaces and a bath.

And it's interesting to look at them all,

because I've just moved from a Victorian house

to a much newer house,

and I think I might have been drawn

to the more traditional tiles originally,

but I think these tiles would look marvellous

-in my more modern house.

-They're stunning, aren't they?

-They really have such visual impact.

-Yes, absolutely.

It's interesting to look at Johnson tiles -

-of course, one of the great producers of tiles.

-Yes.

-And these are so '60s.

-They are indeed.

Marvellous colours, great shapes.

-Yes.

-You can just imagine the tiled tables

-that these often were used on from that period.

-Yes, yes.

But firstly, these prints here,

-of course, are from much, much earlier.

-Yes.

They're from when Minton's set up an art studio

-in London in 1870.

-Yes.

And directed by a WS Coleman,

-and these have a great Coleman feel about them.

-Right.

And in terms of valuation,

the prints here I would say

-about £200.

-Right.

These samples, which are still very stylish,

-but are probably sort of £10 each.

-Right.

But this framed example is just so stylish,

-I think it's got to be £250.

-Gosh.

Well, that's incredible, cos I never realised

they'd have that sort of value, so thank you very much.

This is a very bright and colourful interior scene, isn't it?

-Oh, it is.

-And when you look at it, the first thing I think -

this is not by an English artist,

because it's got a continental influence

and very much 20th century.

In fact, almost influenced by the German expressionists.

On the left-hand side, it's got the signature here,

-which is difficult to read, but it's Koppel, isn't it?

-Yep.

-And it's Heinz Koppel.

-Yeah.

-I see it's dated August '47.

-Mm-hm.

Now, it's interesting, cos he comes from Germany originally -

born in 1919 in Germany,

and his parents fled the Nazis in 1933 and they went to Prague.

-Mm-hm.

-And of course, as you know, the Germans marched into Prague.

They fled there, so he came over to England,

settled in Wales, and he studied art in London.

And I can see this European tradition

in his work coming to Wales.

Just look at the picture, it's absolutely fantastic.

-So how did you get it?

-My grandparents and parents

were friends of the Koppel family.

I actually played with his daughters as a little girl.

And my grandfather bought a few of his pictures off him

in the early days, and this particular picture

I grew up with on my parents' dining room wall,

and I always loved it, And when I reached 30,

and they asked me what I would like for my birthday,

I said I would like to have that painting.

Well, I think you've got a very good eye.

So your parents were friendly with the artist?

Yes, they were. They were one of a large group of people

that came over in 1939, my father from Vienna,

escaping from the Germans,

and my mother from Prague at the time.

There was quite a group of them that fled to Wales, actually.

It's a great image.

You've got minimalist brush strokes and it's quite flat to look at,

and a lot of colour in here.

And you've got a vase on the table with flowers and the chair.

In fact, you could almost say it's like a later Van Gogh,

cos you know, he used to do these interiors,

but in a different style, a more...almost a coarser style.

And I think if this came up for sale,

being a Welsh artist, and he is known in Wales,

-I think that would make possibly £800 to £1,200.

-Mm-hm.

So a very good choice on your part.

Oh, I couldn't possibly sell it. I love it.

SHE LAUGHS I will keep that forever.

In the middle of the nineteenth century,

the Victorians worked out how to keep fruit after the fruit harvest,

so it was considered very smart to serve soft fruits,

you know, on into the autumn.

And you'd have used this to sprinkle sugar on top of your berry dessert.

-Dessert. Lovely.

-Marks on the back are Scottish -

it's made in Edinburgh in 1820.

It was plain when it started out life, and it's been altered,

but oddly enough, it's worth more as an altered thing

-than it would be if it had stayed plain.

-Oh, right.

If it were plain, it would be worth maybe £50,

but with all the embellishment and the gilding in the bowl

-and it's berry-ness...

-Yes.

-it's worth closer to 100.

Gosh, that surprises me. Yeah.

Pleased with that.

-Jet or not jet?

-Well, I don't think it is jet, actually.

-No.

Cos it's got these conchoidal fractures.

Con...I can't pronounce that,

but if you say so.

-It looks like a chip to me.

-Yes.

-Very expensive new, not so much today.

-Yes.

-£25.

-Aw.

-That really is it.

-Wanted more than that.

-Glass is cheap!

HE LAUGHS

-This - I'm sorry.

-Not worth a penny. No, that's...

-It's not.

-Thank you, Fiona .. HE LAUGHS

You hate me now, don't you? Sorry.

It's one of those very, very interesting objects, I think,

that has next to no value at all.

LAUGHTER

# I'll tell you once more

# Before I get off the floor

# Don't bring me down. #

To show this car off at its best,

we've obviously had to move away from the event.

I'm restoring a classic car myself and I know what a nightmare

and an amazing experience it can be.

Now, as you pull up, you can think of Ferrari,

you can think of Lancia, Aston Martin,

all those influences, but this is closer to home, isn't it?

Very much so. It was built in Pontypridd,

about 26 miles from Newport, by two men who had a dream -

Giles Smith, who was a butcher,

and Bernard Friese, who was a prisoner of war,

an ex-prisoner of war from Germany.

And they met quite by accident on the side of the road

and started talking about cars,

and from that, the dream began to unfold.

And a year later, they started building their first production car.

And the name Gilbern is actually a split

between the two names, isn't it?

Exactly, it's Giles Smith and Bernard Friese.

They weren't just going to build a special,

which was a plastic body on an old Ford Pop or an Austin 7 chassis.

Being the engineer he was, Bernard Friese says,

"If we're going to do it, we're going to do it right."

-Wow.

-And they did it right.

There were actually a lot of problems with this car,

and the main one, I think, is why this wasn't a huge success,

was the price, because you could buy this as a kit car,

and you could also buy it fully made,

-and fully made, they were sort of £2,500.

-That's right.

And in the early '70s, that was a lot of money.

Yeah, you could buy a Jaguar XJ6 for the same price.

-You know, it's made by hand.

-Mm.

-What I love is the garden shed workshop...

-Oh, yes.

..image of building a car. I mean,

how many are there left, do you know?

There are 212 built.

Only the DVLA know how many are left,

but we, in the Gilbern Owners Club,

-we think there's probably about 100 left.

-Right.

I think they're a fantastic car. I think they're underrated.

And do you mind me asking what you paid for it?

I paid £3,600 for it in October of last year.

And do you think that was a good buy?

I thought it was an excellent buy.

I agree. I think it was an excellent buy.

I think easily, today, the markets for these are just...

Not so much these cars - all classic cars.

-Yeah, you're right.

-But something so rare, so pretty...

-It needs a bit of work, the bodywork needs a re-spray.

-Yes.

-But the bodywork is actually sound, being fibreglass.

-Absolutely.

-£8,000 to £10,000.

-Wow!

-Easily.

Wow, that's good news.

-It's such a beautiful car, and those prices are rising all the time.

-Yes.

But I'd never sell it.

I'm not surprised, I wouldn't either. Thank you.

You've created a bit of a stir here with your triplets,

and clearly, feeding them's a bit of a handful, isn't it?

-Yes, it does have its moments.

-My goodness me.

When people bring objects to the Roadshow,

often we look on the bottom to see if there's an identifying mark,

and I couldn't help but notice

you've done your job already for us - look.

Each one has got their initial on the bottom of their foot,

cos you really can't tell them apart!

At the moment, that's the only way we can tell them apart.

-So we've got F for...

-Ffion.

There's M for Madison, and we have P there for Paige.

-Gosh. Well, you've got your hands full.

-I'm outnumbered.

THEY LAUGH

-Well, it's lovely to meet you all.

-Thank you.

Well, I must say, these make a blooming eyeful, don't they?

Thank you. I've always thought so.

-So what's the story?

-Um, they came from my grandmother.

She bought them, I think, probably about 40, 45 years ago.

I do remember my mother didn't like them very much.

I'm sure that if we took a vote here,

50% of the people say they like them

and 50% of them would chuck them out of a high storey window

-at a passing skip.

-Yeah.

Subjective. What's the story?

I inherited them when my mother died.

And what have you done with them?

Um, three of them are in the bottom of the china cabinet, add weight,

and then that piece sits on a windowsill,

cos it catches the light on the landing.

Oh, give them light. I mean, this is the thing

that separates glass from everything else, really,

is if you put it in shade, it looks like nothing,

and you put it in the sun and it's suddenly, pow.

Yeah. The only problem is with that one being as heavy as it is,

then I've got nowhere really safe to put it

except at the bottom of the cabinet.

Well you're not making the best of it, and it's the best piece.

So you're hiding your light under a bushel, my girl.

It was designed by Licio Zanetti.

And he specialised in these forms - horses and birds.

And the thing that's truly extraordinary about them

is the colour.

Now, that is some colour.

This is a very unusual, rare set of elemental compounds

that are added to the glass to create these colours

and they're called dichroic

because if you have them in fluorescent light

-they appear one colour...

-Oh.

..and if you put them in incandescent light,

then they turn another colour.

And they're quite fun.

They were made in the '60s to the '80s by Zanetti,

whose father was a glass maker.

-He had the works, and the price is quite good.

-Oh.

I mean, a small one's going to be 100 quid.

The larger one is about 150.

-Oh, heck.

-And the horse -

-200, 250.

-Oh!

So here, there's...

-Well, there's £500 on this table.

-Oh, crumbs...

Thank you, Grandma!

I honestly didn't have the faintest idea.

Well, the sun is going down now,

but is it going down on the wearing of this sort of jewellery?

Tell me what it really means to you.

Well, a much-loved grandmother, a very generous lady,

and it reminds me of the Highland balls

that we used to have in little village halls in Aboyne.

And it was called the Aboyne Ball,

and all the mothers were sitting around wearing tiaras.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Amazing, amazing.

And there is a misconception in a funny way

-that it implied nobility, and it's quite wrong, isn't it?

-Yes.

-It was the occasion that demanded the wearing of them.

-Absolutely.

And it was what we might call white tie,

-but it was full evening dress, wasn't it?

-Oh, yes.

And then that was the starting gun

for the ladies to wear absolutely everything.

-Everything they could lay their hands on.

-Yes.

Well, the advantage of your particular tiara

is that it's not fixed as one.

You can actually take it off the frame...

-..and wear it as a necklace.

-As a necklace.

And so it joins at the back here with this piece,

and it's entirely flexible.

It's hard to believe it when it's on what we call the frame,

which is like a sort of garden fence to support the diamond work.

Was it your mother's one?

It was my grandmother's,

and there's quite a romantic story about that.

She was Australian,

and I didn't know till after she'd died that she was.

I thought she was Scottish Granny.

and she came over on a sailing clipper

and got a job as a governess

to the youngest child of this Scottish family,

and the eldest child fell in love with her and married her.

How marvellous. Well, that's pretty good, isn't it?

That's wonderful. And with this wonderful husband,

she got a marvellous tiara to go with it.

Very flattering, I'm sure, to wear, but this one is rather interesting.

It's an amethyst heart surrounded by diamonds.

There's something in the handwriting of this which is rather interesting,

that tells me that the heart existed on its own

in all its simplicity, and then later on,

-this diamond work was added.

-Oh, right.

When it was sold later. But how did this one come into the family?

It was given to my daughter for her 18th birthday.

I should think that's a pretty marvellous present, isn't it?

And the amethyst always stands for devotion,

but in this particular instance, it's devoted love,

because it's heart-shaped, surrounded by diamonds,

so forever devoted love,

and that's rather a good message, isn't it, I think?

A really good one.

-And the craftsmanship is absolutely superb.

-Yeah.

Most marvellous jewel, I must say.

And here, tell me about this one.

Well, I was just given it by my grandmother

and we don't know, but we think it may be

something to do with Queen Victoria.

Well, I think there's absolutely no doubt about it,

because I had a little sneak look earlier and engraved on the back,

it says, "Dear Goddaughter,

"Victoria Marguereta Louisa Howard,

"from her affectionate Godmother, Victoria, March 1846."

And I haven't a shadow of doubt

that this is actually a gift from the Queen,

and there's a little diamond jewel and a blue heart.

And inside the heart is a single lock of hair,

which I've every confidence is actually Queen Victoria's hair.

-Really?

-Yes. And I find that extraordinarily moving, I must say.

So three extraordinary pieces of jewellery -

that's the only word for them - singing three very separate songs.

How to value these jewels?

I think that this would be cheaply found and cheaply bought

at £2,500.

It's not a great sum of money, frankly,

because the Queen gave an enormous number of gifts

and this isn't an immediate member of her family,

but nonetheless, what an extraordinary survival.

And the amethyst heart with the foliage above,

made in 1900, looking very sleepy and exotic

in this light and very enviable,

I think maybe...

£5,000.

And then the tiara that turns into a necklace,

about 1900 in date as well, and very speculative,

but £35,000.

CROWD GASPS

And I think that - if I can add anything up at all -

is £42,500 for a marvellous collection of jewellery.

What an extraordinary item and what an extraordinary value,

and it rather typifies the grand days of Tredegar House,

when it would have been full of people

with extravagant parties, inside and out.

And I think today with the Antiques Roadshow,

we've recaptured a bit of a sense of those days.

Some 5,000 people have come along today

and brought Tredegar back to life.

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