Episode 27 Flog It: Trade Secrets

In over a decade on Flog It! -

we've valued thousands of your antiques and collectables.

We've helped you sell in auction rooms all over the British Isles...

Yes!

The hammer's gone down. 400 quid.

Give us a hug!

And during that time, we've learnt a great deal about the items

that have passed through our hands.

In this series, I want to share some of that knowledge with you.

So, sit back and enjoy as our experts divulge their trade secrets.

There are certain things that turn up time and time again

at our valuation days,

like items of silver, snuff boxes,

Clarice Cliff, Royal Doulton.

We love them all, but our favourites are those items that leave us

puzzled and intrigued.

An electric shock machine.

-Oh!

-Absolutely fantastic!

So, today, we're turning detective as we investigate

our most mysterious finds.

Well, I brought it along for someone to tell me what it was!

Coming up, our experts stumble upon some tantalising secrets.

So, smuggling.

That's a very odd-dated inscription.

It's the same year and it's different months.

And Philip has some coded words of advice on a specialist area

of collecting.

There's the square, the level, the compass, the pillars,

the all-seeing eye.

You know, these things are emblematical of the Masonic culture.

The world of antiques and collectables is full of rare

and limited editions.

There are stories of lost works by famous painters

and it's not unusual for you to bring in to one of our valuation days

something that we haven't seen before, yet we know all about it.

But every now and then you present us

with something that is shrouded in mystery.

An item with a bit of mystery is always appealing

if it's something we don't know about or it's something

that we can't quite see, or if it's something we can't quite understand.

But you do get the odd mystery item, I suppose,

where you just don't know what it is.

It's lovely, actually, when that goes into the saleroom

because the key thing is somebody might know what it is.

It could be incredibly rare.

When Philip Serrell came across a mystery item,

he thought it was time to play his own form of parlour game.

What's in there, then?

Well, I brought it along for someone to tell me what it was!

It came from my father.

Presumably it came down to him from somebody else in the family.

-Right.

-It's always been a bit of a mystery.

It might still be!

When I first opened that box, I thought...

You didn't know what was in there

and those very strange little objects.

And it's really, in a way, a process of elimination

because your first thought is, perhaps it's a game.

Well, it can't be that.

Then you look at the way it is formed

and it's quite clear that they were darners.

It is almost like a child's or a miniature sewing accessory set.

-OK.

-Some of these are like sock darners

or darners for the end of gloves and that sort of thing.

And these different-shaped eggs and ovoids,

they're all different darning tools, I think.

And it was just a really fun thing and I love things that are just

a bit different and a bit of fun and just a talking point really.

They're in different boxwood, possibly bits of mahogany

and I think it's really, really cute.

You've got marquetry and parquetry.

Both of them are inlaid woods.

Marquetry is basically a picture.

Parquetry is a geometric design.

The best way to remember it is if you think of a parquet floor,

it's just wood blocks that are geometrically laid down.

So, parquetry is a geometric inlay of wood.

-I think it's probably about 1900, 1910.

-Mm-hm. Yes.

I think you can estimate this at auction at £30-£50

and I'd put a £20 reserve on it and it will sell all day long

because it's a really sweet little thing.

Are you happy to put that into auction?

-Yes.

-Good man! Thanks for bringing it.

A 19th-century continental beach parquetry box containing

a set of miniature marquetry balls and implements. £20. 20 at the back.

Straight in at 20. 20 bid.

-30. 25, 30. 35, fresh bid.

-That's good.

At 38 at the back of the room then. At £38 bid.

Are we all done and finished? The buyer at the back has it at £38.

For me, the buyer of that is probably someone who collects

sewing accessories.

But, you know, it falls into that treen category

and treen is turned wood or small, wooden items.

So it could fall into that category or just someone who likes

a bit of fun.

I've never seen one of those before and I've never seen one since

and I'll probably never see one again.

But it's fun, isn't it?

Of course, it's not just an object's function that can be

shrouded in mystery.

Sometimes the stories behind the items you bring us can be

utterly intriguing, as Charlie discovered in 2009.

Generally speaking, you wouldn't take a bayonet as being

a particularly fascinating object to do on "Flog It!"

because we see a lot of them and they are a standard price.

But this man wasn't particularly interested in his bayonet,

it's the fact that he worked at Butlin's

and his act was to balance this damn thing on his nose!

-Are you called Johnny Pierce?

-Yes.

-Is that your real name?

-Yes, yes.

-Oh, it is!

-Yes.

But, tell me, you're not English, are you?

-No, I changed it by deed poll.

-Oh, did you?

-I've been over here for 70 years.

-Good Lord!

I'm one of the fortunate people who escaped the Nazis.

-I came from Berlin in 1938. My father sent me to England.

-Gosh!

-Just in the nick of time.

-It saved my life, yes.

Out of that story came this amazing ring.

What have we got in here?

Well, after the war we were living in Tooting

and a photo album arrived out of the blue with

photographs of my grandmother and this was inside, slotted in,

in the book - stuck in there - and it came through.

So, smuggled in?

Well, whether it was smuggled, I don't know,

but it came into my possession.

We had this wonderful 1910-1920 Belle Epoque era diamond ring.

Let's have a look at it.

It's a very pretty ring set with three good-sized diamonds really

in the middle.

I loved the ring, I loved the format of it, the quality of it,

the shape of it, the fact it had larger stones and smaller stones.

I thought it was charming.

It's... I have to say, it's extremely beautiful,

but not necessarily the most commercial

-in terms of design these days.

-Mm-hm.

-People tend to go for plainer rings, single stones...

-I see.

..three-stone diamond rings rather than such intricacies.

I'd like to put the valuation of 300-400 on it.

That would be very nice, yes.

With a fixed reserve below which thou shalt not go of £250.

-Yes, fine.

-Are you happy with that?

Yes, I would be, my wife would be and the kids would be happy, too.

We'll put that into the sale

and you take your balancing act home with you to practise.

This ring has had an amazing journey

-and it's come back to the family.

-Yes.

It's going under the hammer now.

The diamond ring is up for grabs.

The diamond ring. I'll start at 200.

200, 210, 220, 230.

40, 50.

260, 270, 280, 290.

In a way, I felt slightly concerned that he was selling it

because this had this story and the story was not going to be

as important ever again once the ring had changed hands.

550, 570...

Fantastic!

-600...

-I love it! 600.

£600. At 600. 20 anywhere else?

At £600 and selling upstairs.

-At £600.

-GAVEL BANGS

£600. Great, great result, John!

You've got to be so happy.

I'm very happy! My wife, sitting over there, she's happy.

She's obviously fainted already!

I'll have to give her the kiss of life!

I think in this particular instance, the object sold itself.

I think had the object being related to horrible things that were

going on pre-war and post-war, it might have added value.

The fact that that ring had come in this extraordinary way

into the country was a fascinating story,

but I don't think it affected the value of the ring at all.

While John was obviously happy, the joy of that ring for me was not

in its value at all, but in the tale of its odyssey from Nazi Germany.

We love your fascinating stories so please keep them coming.

Our experts often have to turn detective to winkle out

the provenance or history of an object.

And when this mysteriously-shaped box appeared before Michael Baggott,

he was keen to do some digging.

I love boxes like this, shaped boxes.

It took a lot of work, believe me, to make that box,

a specialist did it.

And usually for a very good reason,

so you know what's in it already,

let's open it up and reveal...

-that fabulous pendant.

-Yeah.

But being a bit of an anorak, what I also think is fabulous is

the retailer's name on the top of the box - Henry Tessier.

Tessier - one of the most important firms in the 19th century.

So this is your mother's - do you know where she got it from?

It's been passed down from various generations.

I'm not sure who owned it originally.

-It's just come down through the family.

-Yeah.

-Right.

Now, let's have a look.

What we've got is the most fantastic garnet, with a little fly,

but picked out in diamonds and with little ruby eyes,

so there's a lot of work in this.

'You get a lot of garnet and gold jewellery,'

especially with insect motifs on it, in the Victorian period.

The Victorians loved their symbolism

and you can see that in the use of images in their jewellery.

The dragonfly meant courage. The spider, prudence.

And in the case of this pendant, the fly represented humility

and a hidden secret.

Intriguing!

What's interesting is we've also got an engraved date, which is

LL, 1st August, 1882,

12th October, 1882.

And that's a very odd dated inscription cos it's the same

year and it's different months.

'Normally, with a piece that is a mourning jewel,'

you would associate it with the colour black

and you would see two quite distant dates, hopefully.

At least 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

The fact that it was two dates within the same year might have

meant that it was for an infant.

Or it may have commemorated some other event,

so I wasn't sure at the time of the iconography of the jewel.

It is a fairly stunning little pendant.

I think we've got to put an estimate of £200 to £300 on it

and a fixed reserve of £200.

-OK.

-And it's really worth that all day long.

How mysterious! I'd love to know the story behind the pendant.

What did the bidders make of it?

Good luck to Ed, who can't be with us.

It's going under the hammer right now.

Well, I can start you here then at 150 on the book. At 150.

At 150. 160 now? 160. 170.

180. 190. 200. The book's out at 200. 220 now.

220 on the phone, if you like. 220. Thank you, madam.

240, if you like, sir? 240. 260.

-280.

-This is good. It's going to get the top end of the estimate.

-It deserves to. It's a really finely worked piece.

-340, if you like now?

340. 360. 380. 400.

-Oh, fantastic. This is very good.

-420. 440.

-460. 480. 500.

-What do you say? Quality always sells.

-At 500...

-GAVEL BANGS

I wish Ed could have been here, that's all I can say.

-He'd be doing cartwheels.

-He would be.

The beauty of that jewel clearly appealed to the bidders.

Sometimes, inscriptions add to an item's value

and the pendant's mysterious reference to dates two months apart

might have boosted interest and the sale price.

We may never know, but it's that mystery which can be

so alluring to collectors.

There is one area of collectables where symbolism is key

to its function.

Jennifer brought in a piece belonging

to one of the most secretive societies.

It was so covered in enigmatic symbols,

it was down to David Barby to decipher what they meant.

It's so intriguing

because this is quite a valuable item of Masonic regalia,

in the fact that it's not one of the tokens or the medals

they would wear, but it is a watch

in a triangular section,

which in itself is a Masonic symbol.

Philip Serrell can shed some light on this secret society,

as he's come across a fair few pieces in his time.

What makes something Masonic?

Well, there are all sorts of varying degrees of being a Mason, you know.

And the thing that you're looking for is perhaps the symbols

and the ciphers and there's the square, the level,

the compass, the pillars, the all-seeing eye,

you know...these things are emblematical of the Masonic culture.

It's in silver and inside,

you've got details concerning where it was made.

It's a Swiss movement, a Swiss case.

And on this enamel dial,

you have all these symbols from the Masonic order.

Masonic memorabilia is hugely collectable.

If you find a glass vase that's got nothing on it, it might be worth X.

But if you find a glass vase that's got the square, the level,

and the compass on it, then it might be worth ten times X.

It adds value.

-The only defect, as far as I can see, is this cracked glass...

-Yes.

..which you shouldn't have too much difficulty, the purchaser,

-in replacing.

-No.

I think it's a fascinating jewel

and there are members out there of the order

and also collectors of Mason memorabilia and I think at

auction it could realise anything between 120 and 150.

Oh, right.

-But the auctioneer may say, "I want it tucked under 100."

-Fine.

Who is going to buy a watch like that? Well, there's three areas.

There's a museum that collects Masonic items,

there's an individual that collects Masonic items, or there's

a horologist, someone who collects watches,

who perhaps hasn't just got that example, and I suppose

the other area is, someone just might take a shine to it.

-I have one, two, three, four telephone bids.

-Oh, telephone!

Three commission bids and I have no doubt,

a certain amount of interest in the room.

I'm bid on the book £400 only.

400 straight in.

420. 450. 480. 500. 520. 580.

600? 600 bid. Any more in the room?

-At 620. 650.

-Oh, Jennifer...

680. 700. 720. 750. 780.

-800.

-They love it!

-In your own time.

-A huge learning curve.

-Who for? You?

-Yes!

-820?

-820, sir?

-At 800, I'm bid. At 800.

At £800. Any more at all?

-£800.

-At £800 and I sell then at £800 and done.

-What a wonderful moment!

-I'll come again next week!

Everyone loves a mystery, as this auction proved.

The reason why it made the money that it did was

because it was Masonic and in fact,

I'd brokered a deal for one to a museum

about three months before this and it was between 600 and £900,

so it was always going to make that sort of money.

So, how can you get to the bottom of the mysteries that surround

some objects?

For a mysterious or amazing story to add to an object's value,

it must have a tangible connection.

Ideally, ensure you have some strong provenance, a photo,

a letter or a receipt.

An object's original purpose can sometimes remain

hidden in the mists of time.

That's part of the appeal.

So look out for objects which provide a fascinating talking point.

Examine clues like symbols, designs and marks.

Doing your own detective work to unlock

the story behind an item can be half the fun, so get sleuthing!

What I love about Flog It!

is that much as we love them, it's not all about antiques.

Sometimes, the buzz can come from the mysteries that surround

the things and places all around us and are even in the very landscape.

I've brought you here to Greatstone, near Dungeness, to show you these.

They're strange looking concrete structures that lie

abandoned at the edge of a waterlogged gravel pit here.

Now, they look like early forms of abstract art, don't they?

But they're not.

They played a significant part in the history of Britain's defence system.

After the First World War,

the biggest threat to Britain's security was from the air.

What the country needed was an operational edge -

a way of pinpointing incoming enemy bombers before they reached

the English coast.

The old system relied on sight, using spotters with binoculars.

30 enemy aircraft over the Channel, flying due west.

But it wasn't effective at night or in bad weather conditions.

The solution lay with one man, Lieutenant William Tucker.

Tucker had spent much of the First World War in trenches,

using listening devices to search out enemy locations.

By the 1920s,

he'd decided to apply the same listening techniques to the skies.

The result was a series of concrete structures like these

along the south coast.

They reflected the sound waves of incoming aircraft on to

carefully placed microphones.

And various sound mirrors survive, dotted along the south coast,

but this is the only place you can see all three designs side-by-side.

To explain how they work, I've come to meet Owen Leyshon,

who is warden for the Dungeness National Nature Reserve.

-Owen. Hiya.

-Hello.

Pleased to meet you. Thanks for meeting me here today.

-Well, these are absolutely fabulous.

-Brilliant, these sound mirrors.

-Massive.

-Yeah.

-I love the location as well.

-Yeah, very good.

-This is a 20 foot sound mirror.

-This is the smaller one.

-This is the smaller one, the first one.

-Yeah.

How does the technology actually work?

-Well, it's pointing out into the English Channel.

-Right.

It's collecting sound waves from the enemy aircraft,

or potential enemy aircraft, so you had a guy standing where I am,

with a sound trumpet, pointing back into the 20-foot dish,

so he's got his back to the sea

and he would have a stethoscope on and he's moving that

trumpet around, trying to get a bearing of where the aircraft

is and, remember, with this one,

-it's very, very...

-It's quite vertical.

-It's vertical, indeed.

-It's almost picking up things that are low.

-That's right.

-Not way up there.

So if the planes were coming in very high, they were in trouble.

So what they did then is they designed a 30-foot mirror...

This one here.

..where they've tilted the dish higher up into the sky

to get the higher aircraft, if they were coming in,

and also they had, like, a little room underneath where the listener

was able to manoeuvre the microphone or the trumpet in the dish,

-so he was out of the elements.

-Yeah.

-Can I go and look at the big one?

-Yeah, come on.

-That is really amazing.

-Very impressive.

-How big is that?

That's 200 feet.

My word!

-Incredible size when you get up to it, isn't it?

-Very impressive.

-200 feet.

Indeed, yes.

Concave, lengthways, but also vertically as well.

-I can see that when you look at the edges.

-Mm.

How does this one work, then?

Well, you've got a set of microphones in a big arc

around the forecourt of this 200-foot mirror

and you would have had a guy in the office, this window up here,

but you would have had several people as well, listeners,

out on the front, and he would have been directing those listeners

to get the bearings of where the aircraft are coming from.

-Right, so they've scaled up the operation.

-They've gone big now, yes.

Exactly. You can certainly say that. Yeah. And was that accurate?

Yes, it was more of an accurate system than the smaller mirrors,

but the length was still the same, 20-25 miles,

and it's back to the same old issue - the aircraft got faster

and so as an early warning system,

it was becoming quite obvious that it was struggling...

-Yeah.

-..as time went on in the 1930s.

And also radar came along in the late 1930s.

So quickly, the range that they could pick up the aircraft

-was much better than these sound mirrors.

-Yeah.

And they became obsolete quite quickly.

-Impressive structures, though.

-Oh, they are, aren't they? Yeah.

Well, I'm pleased they're here today, do you know that? I really am.

But these structures do stand as a monument to a man whose work

was to have a profound effect on the outcome of World War II.

The communications systems that Tucker

developed between his mirrors and HQ were so effective that it was

copied by the radar team and led directly to their success.

Like you, our experts are great rummagers in their pursuit of finding

interesting antiques and collectables and Caroline Hawley is no exception.

I found this about 30 years ago in a box of junk,

probably at an auction sale, and I had absolutely no idea what

it was, except for the fact that the missing part of it was inside it.

Now, this is made of pottery, no maker's mark on it at all,

it's probably a Staffordshire pottery.

It's got a hole at the bottom of it.

It's got a little bit of damage here.

And if we lift it up, it's got a hinged metal lid, complete with

holes pierced in the top, and you open it up and it closes like that.

-So, what is it, Caroline?

-So here's the answer.

It's a toothbrush holder. Taylor's Drug Company Ltd, The Special.

And by golly it is. It's enormous.

And it pops into the toothbrush holder, just like that,

keeping your toothbrush clean and healthy for another day.

Most of the items you bring along to our valuation days

date from the 19th and 20th century.

It's very unusual for us to see items that have

survived from an earlier period.

So you can imagine my delight

when I met up with Jo at a valuation day in Melksham, Wiltshire.

-We've got the oldest things here today in the room.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Oh! I'm surprised!

-Something for the purists.

-Yeah.

So, tell me, how did you come across all of these?

Well, they're part of my late husband's collection

and it was started by a friend of his called Bob Gee.

And then your husband started collecting.

Yes, either from the river or digging up sort of middens

-where they... Old rubbish tips, basically.

-Yes.

He collected all kinds of different things, including oil lamps

and old flat irons, so...

Bits of animal skull. He just liked collecting.

I love them. I love the onion glass shape. Typical.

That's why they're called onion glass.

I love the fact that it's lopsided.

You could never make these so even because they're all individual.

-They're handmade.

-Yes. This one is of bell form.

That's a nice interesting shape as well. And this one...

Again, this is early 18th century.

And this one has its own seal. Now, that's something to look out for

on any onion glass wine bottle

because the seal will put more value on it.

-Mm-hm.

-OK, let's put a fixed reserve on them at £300.

-Yeah.

-OK?

-And hopefully, they'll do £100 more than that.

-That'll be nice.

That'll be nice.

So, off to auction for those rare onion-shaped bottles.

Four, I'm in.

-It's good.

-450.

Five. 50.

Six. 50.

Seven. 50.

Eight.

And the bids just kept on coming.

16.

16. 17.

18. At 1,700 on that phone.

Ladies and gentlemen in the room, anywhere else at 1,800?

Am I going?

GAVEL BANGS

Gosh! That's fantastic!

I'm ever so pleased for you.

We were all rather surprised that it was £1,700.

But I think that was

because on the day there were people telephone bidding

and I believe that they were sold to people from the United States.

-He'd have been delighted.

-He had a great eye.

-Yeah.

What are you going to put the money towards?

It's going to Portland Bird Observatory,

where he was the secretary for 20 years.

As well as being an avid collector of anything and everything,

Jo's late husband Peter was passionate about birds.

He dedicated 20 years of his life to the Portland Bird Observatory,

where he served as secretary.

The history of the bird observatory is that in the 1950s,

there were a group of bird enthusiasts who

realised that this was an important place because of its geography.

The springtime

when the birds that have spent

the winter in Africa

are arriving in this country,

we're really the sort of

first landfall, the first place they spot,

and so things tend to sort of hone in on us.

One of the people who was involved was a lady called

Helen Brotherton and she bought the lighthouse in 1960

and it was opened in 1961 by Sir Peter Scott and from then on,

it sort of flourished as a bird observatory.

The real bit of science we get into is the bird ringing,

the catching and marking birds with individual metal rings.

That enables us to really pinpoint individual birds

and find out...the ones we're catching as they're arriving in the

spring, we're able to find out where they go to later in the year.

When I sold Peter's bottles,

it seemed like the obvious thing that I should donate

the money to the observatory, which was the love of his life.

I enjoy coming down here very much

and I enjoyed spending time here with Peter.

We used to go off and walk round the island and visit the quarries

and walk along the coastal paths, looking for flowers and birds,

and it was some of the happiest memories of my life.

Well, how wonderful that those rare

and beautiful onion glass bottles helped fund such a good cause,

so the next time you're digging away in the mud,

make sure you have a good look, won't you?

Well, that brings us to the end of today's show.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

Do join us again soon for some more inside information on Trade Secrets.