Car Booty - Part 2 Flog It: Trade Secrets

MUSIC: One Day Like This by Elbow

Over the 12 series of Flog It, you've brought us thousands of items

that we've valued and helped you sell -

nearly a million pounds' worth of antiques.

In this series, I want to share with you some of the things we've learnt

about the fascinating objects that have been passed over

our valuation tables.

Welcome to Trade Secrets.

Today, we're taking you on a car-boot sale outing.

There are plenty of Flog It stories of astonishing finds

that will inspire you to delve a bit deeper

and rummage a little bit further.

And on today's show, we're looking at how to turn car booty into cash,

as long as you know what to look out for.

Coming up, our experts are wowed by the variety of your car-boot finds.

How on earth have you found that pile at a car-boot sale?

When you put it like that, I don't want to touch it.

And you prove to us, yet again,

that big profits are to be had by the eagle-eyed among you.

Did you enjoy that?

£100, the hammer's gone down.

If you haven't had much luck at a car-boot sale, don't despair.

Our experts have plenty of tips for you, and the best car-boot tactics.

Don't be frightened to lift up things, cos often it's just thrown around.

Have a rummage. You never know, you might find a rare Lalique vase. It does happen, you know?

You could be looking for early children's books,

anything like that, anything that isn't obviously valuable.

Look in boxes, because sometimes there can be a work box that they're asking £30,

but inside the work box, there can be a diamond ring.

'I would've thought, in today's antique-savvy climate,

'it would be impossible to pick up a ceramic by a well-known factory

'at a boot sale. But a sharp-eyed couple proved me wrong.'

They are, of course, Moorcroft,

which is one of my favourites.

Can you tell me where you got them?

-Betty purchased them.

-I bought them at a car-boot sale.

-Aye. Quite near here, yes.

-Was it at Kinghorn?

-Kinghorn.

A car-boot sale? A pair of Moorcroft vases?

-How much did you pay for them?

-I think they were £2 each.

-£2 each?

-I think so.

-Do you go to car-boot sales a lot?

-Oh, yes.

-Are you avid collectors?

-Yes.

-Are you mad collectors?

-Yes.

-Magpies.

-Magpies.

Well done on them. They will have developed an eye

over a period of time,

and this is what you've got to do.

Keep looking, keep lifting,

keep touching, look at it upside-down,

ring it to see if it's whole.

The more you handle wonderful items,

the more you will learn about them.

If we look at the back stamp here,

we can see the blue stamp here, the Moorcroft stamp,

and "Made in England."

These little ones here are from about the 1930s

and they're called the Wheatsheaf pattern.

They weren't what you would expect from Moorcroft.

They were quite an unusual pattern, this wheatsheaf pattern,

they were small, they were pretty enough,

but they didn't look the deal.

If they were coming into auction,

I would put a conservative estimate of 150 to 250 on them.

-Would you be happy to sell them at that?

-Yes.

-Ecstatic.

-Ecstatic!

-SHE LAUGHS

'So, how did the £4 pair of Moorcroft vases do at auction?'

I'll start them at £330.

330 straight in. Oh, Betty!

400.

450.

480.

-Was this a "come and buy me"?

-You know me, Paul.

500. 500.

-I'm wobbling. This is fantastic!

-Phone beside me, £500.

Would anyone else like in at £500?

-At £500.

-SHE BANGS HAMMER

-How about that?

-Did you enjoy that?

These were a rare pattern.

They weren't popular so not a lot of them were made,

and this is what caused the feeding frenzy at the auction.

'It was the rarity of the pattern that allowed lucky Betty and Jim

'to snap up the vases. They must have been overlooked by the previous owner,

'who hadn't realised their significance.

'Many items you spot at a car-boot sale won't have a maker's mark to alert you to their quality.

'Instead, you'll have to judge the workmanship for yourself.'

This, I think, is just a miniature walking stick

carved to show off the skills of the craftsman who made it.

-Right.

-And the quality really is very good.

-Very good.

-You know, if we look at this dragon, for example...

-They're all intertwined, aren't they?

Exactly. And then the handle

just finishes in a sort of lotus flower, I think,

with a bat, which is a curious motif.

The nature of the decoration told me it was Chinese.

I think it was probably made in Canton.

The motifs were Chinese. There was a dragon,

I referred to a bat, I think, on the handle.

-I mean, the time it must have took to carve something like that...

-Well, time was cheap, wasn't it?

That's the thing. And they spent a long time making these.

Mind you, having said that, they'd have carved it a jolly sight quicker than you and I

-if we sat down with our Stanley knife and had a go at this.

-I wouldn't attempt it.

In order to make sure that something's ivory and not made of a substitute material,

like plastic or resin,

look for a figure, look for a grain in the material.

Ivory has a very distinct grain.

If that fails, and if no-one's looking,

you can always heat up a hat pin...

Do people still wear hat pins? I think probably not.

But a needle, maybe, and shove it into it.

And if it melts, then it's not ivory.

-So, how did you come by it?

-I bought it at a local car-boot.

-Long ago?

-About 12 months ago.

I hardly dare ask how much to paid for it.

-I gave £40 for it.

-OK. So it wasn't a steal, was it? No.

I don't think you're going to make a vast profit, but I think you'll make a good turn.

I would be inclined to estimate it at £100 to £150.

-So after your commission, with any luck, you'll just about double your money.

-Double your money.

I thought jolly good luck to him.

It always makes me very cross when I hear people are picking these things up for next to nothing,

cos whenever I go to a car-boot sale, all I see is old cylinder heads. I never see anything nice.

'It's illegal to trade in ivory unless it was worked before the 1947 cut-off,

'as David's walking stick was.

'Ivory isn't to everyone's taste. Did this £40 buy find a buyer?'

-Very nice find.

-I thought it looked all right.

It's in good company because there's a lot of other oriental artefacts here, so the buyers are here,

and hopefully they'll find this one.

230 online. 240. 240 now.

250. 250 now. 300, back on the phone again.

They're fighting this out, aren't they?

At £400. Nothing in the room. The room's out. 400.

420 online. Just when you thought you'd got it.

Back online at 420 now. 440 now.

460, thank you.

-500. At £500.

-This is walking out, isn't it?

At £500. Last call. 520.

-How much?

-HE LAUGHS

At 520. Shakes his head.

Back online it is, then, at £520.

All out in the room. Bid's online. Phone's gone.

-Selling at £520.

-HE BANGS HAMMER

Put it there. I take my hat off to anybody

that can turn 40 quid from a car-boot sale into £520.

'There are some bargain hunters who have disproved the theory

'that it's always the early bird who bags the boot-sale bargain.'

We've taken a real step back into Georgian England here

with political and royal caricatures of the period.

These are all dating to the late 18th and early 19th century.

And we've got some really fantastic and famous names here.

They are collected widely and there's a great market for them in the States

and there are also very good collectors for them here in the UK.

Tell me how you've come to have them in your possession.

Well, I picked them up at a local car-boot sale...

-HE LAUGHS Fantastic!

-..in the summer time for £10.

I'd actually been there for about three hours

and it was about quarter past one and I happened to see the folder.

-That's incredible, isn't it?

-Amazing.

-It does just show you that bargains can still be had.

How on earth have you found that pile at a car-boot sale?

Not only that, he wasn't even an early bird.

They'd been there, in that folio, throughout the entire day!

How on earth could all those people have walked past them and thought, "They're not worth a tenner"?

There are 25 pieces of 18th century caricature in there.

"Can't possibly be worth a tenner." What are they thinking?

We've got here a cartoon by one of the most famous people of the time

-and that's George Cruikshank.

-OK.

Now, George Cruikshank took over as being the most popular characterist in about 1811.

I would certainly say

that you want to find caricatures that are in good condition,

where they haven't been too trimmed at the sides,

where there's a good margin around the print image.

If they have been later coloured,

then coloured delicately,

not in red felt-tip or anything horrific.

Erm, and by good artists, like Cruikshank.

Each individual one takes a little time, if you're not a specialist,

takes a little bit of time to do some research.

And today, here in Northampton,

-we're not going to have the right time to do it properly.

-OK.

So before we go down the line of value, I can tell you now, I'm not going to put a figure on these

cos I want to do the research properly.

I literally thought, "Right, OK, I've got something I don't know about, who knows?"

And part of the role of a good auctioneer and valuer

isn't necessarily knowing everything instantly.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

You should always think, "Who knows more about this than me?"

and go and ask a second opinion.

Because you might think you know it, but half the time, you don't.

So what I'll do today, I'll take them away, I'll do some research,

and between us, we'll come up with a valuation for you and organise a reserve.

-Is that all right?

-Yeah, that's great.

'What was James's estimate for Steven's £10 boot buy?'

James, you've put £200 to £300 on this folio of caricatures.

Not many people would buy them, but I think they are great.

I really do. Good for you for picking them up at a tenner.

£130. 130 I'm bid. 140. 150. 160.

That's good. There's interest in the room.

290.

-300.

-Come on!

-Oh, this is good news, Steven, isn't it?

340. He's back in at 340. Telephone two at 340.

360. On telephone one at 360.

360. At 360. Look around the room again. At 360 on the telephone.

-And selling away at £360.

-The hammer's going down.

-£360, guys!

-Thank you very much.

Wow, that's great news, isn't it?

Interestingly, a lot of the collectors for political caricatures

are modern-day politicians,

so you've got a lot of knowledge in the houses of Westminster on this sort of stuff.

And I have to say, that's actually where I went.

I asked a couple of politicians what they thought

and they gave me the odd tip and they turned out to be bang on.

'That fantastic sale price was largely down to the research

'James put in after the valuation day.

'The lesson there is, it always pays to do your homework.

'If you're hunting for antique caricatures,

'keep an eye out for the big names, like George Cruikshank,

'William Hogarth or James Gillray.

'Some boot finds are much easier to date accurately than Steven's Georgian caricatures

'as they have their provenance written all over them.'

-Now, this is an interesting story, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

Thomas Ashmower, is that right?

-1795.

-Yeah.

-So, is he a relative?

-No.

-No?

-No.

-Have you had it a long time?

-Probably about six months.

-Six months?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Where did it come from?

-Car-boot.

-Car-boot. It was quite a bargain, was it?

-I believe so, yeah.

-Right. Tell me.

-30p.

-30p?

The loving cup was a great object, one of the great car-boot finds

of the programme that I've had involvement with, certainly.

And it was so obvious it wasn't a fake.

The age was written all over it and the marks, the telltale marks...

I remember the lip and tooth marks on it.

And just everything about it, you just knew it was 100% genuine.

The crack there. Well, what do you expect, really?

-That's where the mouth's been, isn't it?

-Yep.

-So you would expect that.

-Yep. It's been...

-And maybe that's from his teeth, do you think?

-Could be. Yeah, that bit of wear from his teeth.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

When you put it like that, I don't want to touch it.

You don't? That's why I want to sell it.

-Well, it is unusual.

-Yeah.

-I mean, the date appears to be right.

It's not a fake or anything like that. It's 18th century. A piece of what we call pearl ware.

It's all hand-painting. And, of course, the shape is a loving cup.

The loving cup was a real antique.

They were used, they were shared at weddings and banquets, as well, with the twin handles,

and I was really enjoying just holding this one,

because it really did feel like a piece of history in your hands.

What do you think it's worth?

Well, I did send it off with some photographs

-to get it valued down in London.

-Right.

They estimated, hammer price, between £120 and £150.

-Well, I think that's a fairly good guide from a photograph.

-Yeah.

-My first thought was £100 to £150.

-Yeah.

-Similar thing.

'Malcolm's bargain 30 pence loving cup

'was sold at James Lewis's auction house. How did it fare?'

We have, I think, two telephones.

-Oh, yes!

-Here we go.

-It was a "come and buy me".

The date does it, doesn't it?

350. 360. 370.

380. 390.

390. 400. 410.

420. 430.

Maybe there's a bit of local regional history somewhere.

480. 490.

500. 510. 510 on the second phone? No?

He's milking them, isn't he?

Absentee bid still at £500.

-All sure?

-HE BANGS HAMMER

£500! The hammer's gone down.

The loving cup sold incredibly well. There's a couple of reasons for that.

Firstly, Malcolm had only paid 30 pence for it,

so what's wrong with putting a nice "come and buy me" estimate of £100 to £150 on it?

It was so incredibly rare that it wasn't a massive surprise that it made £500.

If you've got something that's good and something that's fun

and something that's dated and something that's named,

then...there's always a good market for it.

'Malcolm's a real alchemist.

'I wish I had his skill for turning 30 pence into £500!

'He was canny enough to realise that an antique

'dating back as far as the 1700s

'was bound to be worth a bob or two.

'When you're out hunting for bargains,

'keep your eyes peeled for dated items.

'The older, the better.

'But what else should you consider if you're trawling the boot sales looking for treasure?

'Don't judge a book by its cover. When you're cruising the tabletops,

'turn over every ceramic and check the maker's marks.

'You might get a pleasant surprise.

'Leave no stone unturned.

'Rummage in boxes, look under the tables and search through folios.

'Even if it's late in the day, you might just stumble across a gem

'everybody else has missed.

'And pick your saleroom with care.

'When it comes to flogging your boot finds,

'choose a sale which has similar items in its catalogue.

'It could really help your antique walk away.'

I can't help but be inspired by those of you who get up early in the morning

in pursuit of car-boot treasure.

Flog It's Caroline Hawley is a committed car-booter,

and is very proud of one particular find.

ROMANTIC MUSIC

This is one of my favourite items of car-booty.

I found it possibly 10, 15 years ago.

And I asked the price and the chap said to me, "It's £4."

And my look of horror, he said, "It is Christian Dior, love."

So I paid him the four quid and I've worn it several times since.

I do feel a little bit like an overstuffed sofa in it.

However, it's corseted beautifully,

from the chest right down to the hips.

And that's what gives you, hopefully, a wonderful shape.

All these bones here, which originally would've been whalebone,

but this is from the '50s, so it's actually moved on to plastic stays there.

Once that's on and you're safely hooked and eyed into it,

then this dress goes over the top,

and it is from the 1950s,

beautiful shape, in silk velvet devore.

It looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful as it moves,

and it's unique and it's well worth the £4 I paid for it.

'Caroline was very lucky to find a stylish 1950s dress that

'still looks great now at her car-boot sale,

'but there are some fine objects being hand-made today,

'which will most surely stand the test of time, too.

'In 2010, to learn more about the expertise involved in making something of quality

'I visited Martin Andrews, a modern British glassmaker.'

Traditional glassblowing has not really changed for 400 years.

Same sort of tools, same benches.

How do you go about making something like that? How do you get all the colours?

-In the furnace, I have clear glass.

-Yes.

-All the colour is added while it's still a solid blob.

-Mm-hm.

Once the design is on, then you start to blow the shape.

-Gosh, it sounds hit and miss to me. It really... It's experimental.

-It's quite specific.

With glass-blowing, you have no second chances.

-It's not like clay, you can't go back and patch it up.

-No.

-You get one chance.

-You have to get it right.

The skill of the glassmaker is working as fast as possible.

You are literally chasing it.

The working temperature of the glass is between 600 and 1,000 degrees.

And it will go through that temperature barrier in about 40 seconds.

So every time you reheat it, you've got about 40 seconds to do something with it.

-And then you reheat it.

-Got you.

So you're up and down the bench a lot.

I really do love that. I love the colours in that.

I love the golden hues.

Could I ask you to show me how to make something? For a novice like me to attempt something like that?

-I'd like to have a go at that.

-OK.

-I really would. Because it looks like a big challenge.

-OK, let's go and have a go.

-How long will that take?

-It would take about an hour... with my help.

-Come on, then.

-OK.

This is actually for real, we're going to take an hour to do this.

And, er, I don't know what to do, so just talk me through it.

OK. You start by heating that up. Get that hot. Just keep it there.

-OK.

-We want to heat the tip up, so it's hot enough for the glass to stick to it when we gather.

I'm actually feeling quite nervous, to tell you the truth.

Cos I want this to really work well.

OK. I think we can take that out. That's fine. Right.

-Now you're going to gather from the furnace.

-Right.

-You do the first gather.

-Gosh, that's hot!

And you need to be in and out in about seven seconds. OK?

Keep turning. Keep turning.

And go to the bench. Don't touch.

Roll it forward, use all of your arm.

OK, and we're just going to reheat that, so put the paper down.

Reheat it in the glory hole.

-Keep turning?

-Keep turning it.

-It's not easy, is it?

-No.

I'm actually quite frightened!

I'll put some of the other colour out, as well.

And this is cooling all the time now.

It's cooling, but the coloured glass is still sticking to the clear glass.

So from here, OK...

-Pulling back all the time.

-Yeah, that's good. So take it off. OK.

-Now, the hard bit is actually a technique called thumbing.

-OK.

So what you need to do is blow down...

-Blow with this in your mouth.

-Yep.

Put your thumb over it and trap the air so the air expands in the pipe.

-Like that? Now? Ready? One big blow?

-Yep.

That's good.

It's got a little bit larger but you now need to reheat and...

-Keep my thumb on the end?

-No.

-No.

-No.

I see, you could do this several times.

-You could just keep going until you're happy with the size of the air bubble?

-Yeah.

-Roll. Turn.

-Oh, wow.

-And then back the other way.

-That's good.

-That's better.

-Now blow.

It's looking more like a light bulb at the moment.

It's getting bigger and bigger. It's getting harder to come out of that glory hole.

-OK, Martin?

-OK.

-Yeah?

-Out you come, yeah.

Agh!

Nearly, nearly. Oh!

-That's it.

-Hang on, hang on, hang on.

-Agh!

-Ohh. That's it. I've just ruined it.

Nearly had it. That was about 55 minutes' work, wasn't it?

-Sorry.

-That's all right. Never mind.

-What happens to that now?

-Er, well, we'll just put that into the bin.

Unfortunately, you caught the side and it collapsed.

-It's so difficult, isn't it?

-It is. It's very, very difficult.

-It is.

-Thank you so much, you've been brilliant.

We were so close. Ten minutes away from seeing that dish open up.

But I said we'd only do it once, didn't I? I said we'd have an hour on this.

'That's why I love antiques.

'I greatly admire the talent of the craftsmen and women

'who spend years honing their skills to create them.

'So, next time you see something for sale,

'especially if it's a bargain, just think of all the effort that went into making it.'

You know James Lewis. He's a man with a passion for antiques and collectables.

But what you probably don't know is how far he is prepared to go

to get his hands on something he wants.

Well, when it comes to sentiment,

that old piece of iron there, my old camper van,

has got to be the most sentimental thing that I own.

I know they became really fashionable about ten years ago

and lots of TV presenters started buying them

because they were the thing to have, but I have to say,

that's been mine since just about the day I was born.

I was brought back from hospital in it when I was born,

I learnt to drive in it,

I went to university, I came back

and my parents had sold it. Heartbroken.

Saw it in the local garage, they wouldn't let me buy it back

cos it was a rust trap, they said, and then five years on,

I saw it on the M1 and I followed it all the way from Leeds down to Rugby

and flagged it over on the side of the M1,

totally illegal, I know, but I bought it off him there and then, £2,500.

And it took years of love and work

and lots of money to get it restored.

But it's back to full glory now and it's on the road

and it does still have the odd thing that goes wrong,

I lost a hubcap on the way here,

and it's not as reliable as a modern car,

but I absolutely love it.

I've been round Scotland in it last year

and camped rough on the Isle of Mull and Skye,

and I have to say, I would never, ever be without it.

One man who also followed his heart all the way to a car-boot sale

was bargain hunter Snowy.

In 2005, he brought his unusual find to Jethro Marles

at our valuation day in Chippenham.

Poole Swimming Club, the Jubilee Gala, 1935.

You've got a picture of a figure swimming, a young lady swimming in the water.

-You turn it over and we've got the mark of Poole Pottery.

-Yes.

That was a very old Poole Pottery mark on the back in 1935,

so it was... That was one of the reasons I knew

it was something a little bit different, because it was old Poole, not modern Poole.

It's in lovely condition, not damaged.

You've got all this association with Poole

and the fact you've got a figure from the 1930s swimming.

-What's it worth? You thought it was worth more than two quid.

-Yes, definitely!

I think you're going to get perhaps £100, £150.

Poole Pottery Swimming Club Jubilee Gala, 1935.

Depicting a young swimmer. Apparently it's one of 12 made.

-Only 12?

-Did you know that?

-I didn't know that.

-Nor did I.

At 100. At £100.

And 5. 110.

At 110. 115, sir. 120, ma'am.

The auction was really, really exciting.

A bit nervy for people who have never done it before,

because there's all the cameras and lights

and Mr Martin there and everybody else there.

165. 170.

At 170. Lady's bid.

-At £170. Finished now? 170.

-HE BANGS HAMMER

Hammer's gone down. You'll take that, won't you?

-170 quid?

-I will, certainly.

The first thing I did with £170 was put it in my pocket,

because £170 doesn't grow on trees, does it?

With that £170, I bought a push-bike, a three-wheeled cycle.

Well, this is it, this is what I spent my money from Flog It. Thank you very much.

I'm a collector and it's a collector's piece, anyway, the three-wheeled bike.

I've still got it and still ride it to this day.

It got me thinking about buying a motorbike trike,

which, eventually, I did.

I've always been a motorbike man.

I was a bit of a flash man. I had a motorbike and trailer on the back

and all sorts of things. But now it's just the pleasure, the trike's pleasure.

I can sit on it, enjoy it,

and it causes a lot of interest.

People come and say, "Did you make it? Did you put it together? Did you do this and do that?"

Everywhere you stop, you get a conversation about a trike.

That's what I like about the trike.

'So, what advice can a seasoned car-booter give us?'

If a car-boot's due to start at ten, get there at six.

To get up early is the most important. If you like it, buy it, cos somebody else will like it, too.

# Born to be wild... #

So, the lesson from today's programme is perseverance.

I hope we've demonstrated that it is possible

to discover those overlooked treasures.

So get up early in the morning and get out there car-booting.

And who knows, it may be the best thing you've ever done.

See you again soon for many more trade secrets.