Warrington Flog It!

With the Mersey on one side and the Manchester Ship Canal on the other,

Warrington was perfectly placed for the Industrial Revolution.

It became known as the town of many industries,

Judging by that queue, they've got their work cut out!

Before the room has even filled up, Anita is doing her homework about her first item.

John, lovely to have you along to Flog It today and to bring these three very nice items.

Now, what are they? They're all Charlotte Rhead pieces.

From two different sources, my two sets of grandparents.

Well, Charlotte Rhead was one of the most interesting decorators working in the early 1900s

up to the 1930s. Now she came from a family

who had been associated with the North Staffordshire potteries

And as a young woman she studied at the Fenton School of Design. Where's that?

In the Potteries. Right. In the Potteries.

She was one of the people who introduced tube lining,

which is this icing cake decoration where you have lines of slip which are filled with colour.

The individual pieces, what wonderful colours, John.

Wonderful autumnal colours. Really nice. Greens, oranges, yellows.

Love it. Now if we look at the other pieces,

they're nice, but not of the same quality. Would you agree?

Certainly, colourwise, they're not. They're not as exciting. Not as exciting.

I would sell these together.

One lot? One lot.

I would estimate the three of them, and I estimate conservatively,

because I'm a conservative type of girl. Yeah, yeah.

You don't count your chickens.

I would estimate them in the region of 120-180. Yeah.

And we'll put a reserve at 120 on them. Right.

If you're happy. That's fine.

Well, let's hope that they do well on the day. I'm sure they will.

Thank you for coming along. I'll see you at the auction. Thanks.

Doreen, hello. You've brought along a pair of watercolours

which I think are signed and dated. Yes. And quite charming.

At the time I was going to painting classes. Right. And I wanted frames for my paintings.

Well, these aren't the original frames. I used the frames. You did? For pictures of my own.

They're by a chap called Whittaker. TJ, I think. Yes. Initials.

19th century watercolour artist from the north of England.

There are two things I like. I like the scenes. I like that they have figures doing things,

rather than just ordinary landscapes.

The other thing I particularly like is the fact that they are a pair.

Very nice to hang either side of something. Yes.

And a pair, in my view, is worth much more than twice one, whether it be chairs, paintings, whatever.

for a professional to do that.

I dare say the pictures, as you remember them, were a little bigger. Yes.

So they're worth more than five shillings. Any ideas? I haven't got a clue.

I rather think that 100-200 should be a safe and sensible estimate.

Reserve them at ?100, with a bit of discretion should they get close. I'd be surprised if they don't sell.

I think that estimate should get a little competition

amongst the bidders. It should drive them up. Lovely.

Look at this. It wheels so freely, Mike. Tell me all about it.

What was the business? It was an old engineering merchants, then it became an ironmonger's shop.

What was its name? H Hopkinson Ltd. And this is in Nottingham.

Right in the city centre? That's right. We sold steel

and delivered steel to the railway factory in Nottingham.

I work with somebody who delivered with this cart when he left school.

He was a director who worked with my father. This did the hand deliveries, some young apprentice on foot,

round the streets of Nottingham. It would have had quite a load.

That explains why, structurally, it's so well built.

But also...freedom of movement there. That really is a little bit of precision engineering

on something that looks so crude. Isn't it? Yeah.

I would suggest this was painted in its day, on the outside, with coachwork

that would have matched the wheel down there. That's a lovely crimson red, typical of that bygone era.

And that's got a wooden wheel with steel spokes to reinforce it.

A steel hub and a steel tyre.

Can you imagine the racket that made over those cobbles?

But it was built to last. Right. It was lovely pushing it here.

Why are you selling this? It's been in your family such a long time. It's space, really.

It would be nice to put it in the garden, but it's too nice. Too good for the garden.

And too big to have in the house. Have you thought about value?

I have no idea. I've looked at it for a long time.

That's the most important thing. As a decorator's piece, we need to put it in at ?120-?200. Yeah?

That's great. Thank you for bringing it in. It must be so sad to sell it.

It is. You're keeping the photograph. Yes, I'd like to keep that.

Maybe, I think, to give this a little provenance,

we could get a copy of this, just the print,

and we could let that go with the cart. Good idea.

It might get you an extra ?30 or ?40. We'll see you at the auction. That's great.

Beverley, have you been up into the attic or onto your mantelpiece?

In the cupboard. It's been there for 32 years.

So I thought it was time it had an airing. How do you know exactly 32 years?

It's 1910, 1920.

And it's a mantel or bracket clock. Right.

In the style of a Georgian clock.

The case is made of mahogany. It's pretty good quality, like a lot of Edwardian items.

Open up the door here...

Aaaw!

It's got a silvered dial with what they call a silver chapter ring, here.

It'll be a chimer.

There are two things to tell you. A) It's a twin train. B) It's got chime and silence.

You don't have to have the chimes on if you don't want to.

And if we could just turn it round, we'll see what sort of movement it's got,

whether it's reasonable quality. There's a brass grille door

CHIMES Makes a good noise, doesn't it?

It's pendulum driven. Right. And I should think, if we wound it up,

it would probably be in working order. Nothing there tells me that it shouldn't be working.

Value. It's worth getting on for ?100. Right.

Probably not more than that because of its lack of real age.

If it were 100 years earlier, it would be several hundred. Should we put a safe reserve? 50? Fine.

OK, we'll do that for you. Thank you.

Let's have a reminder of the first lots for the auction.

The decorative Charlotte Rhead pots, the matching pair of watercolours,

Mike's smooth-wheeling wooden barrow

and the elegant Edwardian clock.

We've got two lovely watercolours here by TJ Whittaker. Adam's not smiling when I said "lovely"!

I'm not sure lovely's the case. They don't do it for me, Paul.

Good decorative pair, though. Doreen bought them for a few bob and Charlie put ?100-?200 on them.

I think that's good value for a pair of original watercolours.

It's not a lot of money. When I unwrapped them, I was excited to see what came in.

And I thought they were a bit boring. I looked him up, found his dates.

1828-1876. So he is a listed artist. Recognised. People can look him up.

But I just don't rate them. And what really spoils them is this terrible, non-reflective glass.

It makes everything look like a print. It's very dull. I don't like it.

We might scrape them away, but we won't have a major result.

But, you know, we could be wrong.

So here we go. Let's find out who's right.

Two watercolours by TJ Whittaker up for grabs right now.

Our auctioneer seems to think they're still going to belong to you.

He feels they're going to struggle. I have reduced them.

You've reduced them? The reserve. To ?50.

OK, right. So you're slightly worried as well. You don't like them, don't want to take them home.

I think these will still do the ?100. There's no need for that.

You'll definitely sell them, but I said to Adam, "They're a pair, they're original, watercolours.

We know what Doreen thinks, and Charlie, and Adam Partridge.

Time to find out what the bidders think. Let's go to the auction now. This is it.

JW Whittaker. We've got a phone line. All is not lost.

A phone line! You see? Have faith.

1828-1876, a listed artist. ?100?

100 bid. 10 now. 110.

120. 130. 140.

150. Brilliant. 160.

170. 180. And everyone was getting so worried. I know. 200.

Where have you gone? No?

190 on the phone. ?190.

Are you all finished at 190?

Yes! I'm so happy. ?190.

Bless you, Doreen. You didn't have to reduce it.

Adam got it wrong. Well done, Charlie. I'm afraid I got the wind up in the end!

So it'll go towards that trip. Going to see him. Ah, lovely.

Thank you very much. Thank you. What a great result.

Right, this next lot, the three Charlotte Rhead pots really caught the eye of Adam.

Anita, you said 120-180. Good valuation. He said he thinks he can get 300 quid for them.

Does he? Anita did say she was conservative. She always is.

"Come buy me." That's a typical auctioneer's trick.

She's a canny lass. Yes. We know they'll get the top end plus.

Why are you flogging them? Charlotte Rhead is a legend. It's very desirable.

And you're getting rid of them. Well, the style and the colour doesn't go with our decor.

We've had them literally stored since they were inherited.

110. 120. 130. 140.

150. 160. 170. 180. 190. 200.

And 10. 220. 230. 240. 240 bid. 240.

Any more now at 240? At 240 we sell... 250!

260. 260, then. All finished?

At 260.

At ?260. Nearly did the 300, didn't we?

Got to be happy with that, John. Oh, yes.

The hand barrow has got to go. It's been in Mike's family's business for such a long time.

And now you're getting rid of it. The business has gone, now this.

Lack of space. We need 180-220 quid.

Hopefully ?250. That's right.

And what's the money going towards? I'm sailing to the Caribbean.

?100 the cart? Oh, come on. 80, then.

80 bid. 90. 100. 110.

120. 130. 140. 150.

160. 170. 180. 190.

200? 190 here. 200.

210. 220. 230. 240.

250. 260. 270. 280.

This'll get you some lifejackets!

290? Any more? At 280 we sell, then.

Yes! Hammer's gone down. ?280. Congratulations.

Please, please, take it easy on that journey. Have you sailed a lot?

Yes, yes. But this is the first really long journey. Good luck with it.

A lifetime's experience. Record it on camera. Yes.

We're moving it on today, hopefully for ?100.

You look fantastic for 92. What's the secret?

Well, they tell me I've got to say gin!

Beverley said that!

Gina and tonic, that's your tipple. She doesn't like the tonic!

Don't you like the tonic? No.

Takes the taste of the gin away. Oh, you like the hard stuff.

It's nearly tome for it, Charlie. Let's hope we get the top end.

Edwardian eight-day inlaid mantel clock.

Held aloft there. Nice clock.

I've got six bids here and can start at 130. 140 now?

140. 150. 160. 170. 180. 190. 200. 210. 220. 230. 240.

250. 260. One more? Yours at 260.

Gold-plated!

I think Edwardian, really!

Thank you very much for coming in. You did all the hard work at the valuation day.

There was a big queue. A huge queue. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for coming in, Mary. Thank you.

Mention the Titanic and the date 1912 and the whole world knows exactly what you're talking about.

But if you mention a ship called the Tayleur and the date 1854,

precious few people know about it. She was built not far from here in Warrington.

She sadly sank on her maiden voyage with a huge loss of life.

and was chartered by the White Star Line to sail to Australia.

400 men, women and children would lose their lives.

It seems absolutely astonishing that such a massive ship was built here in the heart of Warrington,

which is a good 17 miles inland from Liverpool.

She was laden with a million pounds of cargo at today's prices

and carrying 652 crew and passenger members.

She set sail for Melbourne in Australia.

Just like the ill-fated Titanic, the Tayleur was to sink on her maiden voyage.

So how did this tragedy come about?

I'm with Janice Hayes from Warrington Museum,

who's studied and researched the story of the Tayleur.

she was run aground and smashed to pieces on the rocks there.

Was this just really bad luck or was the ship defective?

The survivors had varying accounts of it. Some blamed the crew,

the foreigners said they couldn't understand their instructions.

Others said the ship had been rigged at the last moment so the ropes were too stiff to pull down.

Other people claimed that the most likely cause was the compasses being misled by the iron hull,

so it was much closer to shore than they thought it was.

There's absolutely nothing left here to remind us that this was once a thriving centre of shipbuilding.

What few precious reminders remain of that stormy night in 1854 are in Warrington Museum.

These are two christening ribbons from the yard.

This is what they would have originally have looked like - bright red.

And this is the crucial one.

It's just faded with sunlight.

I'd love to be able to take it out, but it's so fragile it would fall apart. I can see it start to split.

This is an extract from a newspaper cutting.

The Warrington Gazette. Those are the eyewitness accounts of the survivors.

Very graphic detail in them. Then it goes on to the inquest.

Some really heart-rending stories. We've actually photocopied a couple of sections.

That's in very tiny print.

Here we go. "Wives clinging to their husbands, children to their parents.

"Women running wildly about the deck uttering heart-rending cries,

"floating about on the surface of the still heaving sea.

"Husbands and wives, parents and children, clasped in each other's arms."

Gosh. That really is moving. Beautifully read.

You can imagine the mayhem, but this vessel was huge!

She is absolutely massive.

240 foot long. That was obviously painted retrospectively, a bit later,

because she's in full rig and she wouldn't have been in full rig sailing out to Ireland.

No, it was barely rigged before they actually set sail.

A stunning looking ship.

And, lastly, we've got some blue and white plates here. Is that from the restaurant?

Probably from the ballast that was carried. Really? There was so much of this found about the wreck.

I'm told somebody in Ireland has a shed load of this pottery!

The salt water has eroded that.

Janice, thank you very much. Thank you.

Christine, who said that Flog It was hard work?

I've just had the best time in my life playing with these animals! What a wonderful collection!

Where did you get them? I got them in Llandudno at an antiquarian bookshop.

She had the odd one in the window.

And instead of buying the one that was in the window, I ended up...

..with the lot!

I think I like... the penguins!

I think they're wonderful. They're so cheeky.

Your eye is drawn round and round. It's absolutely wonderful.

Here's Farmer Jones and Mrs Jones to attend to them all.

We've got really two collections. We have the farm animals and we have the wild animals.

So it's a Noah's Ark array of them.

I think they are very appealing. They are something that people will fall in love with

as I have fallen in love with them. I'm not allowed to bid for them.

So I think I would like to estimate them between ?200 and ?300.

Would you be happy with that, Christine?

Yes. I'd...

You never know. Other people might fall in love with them as well.

200. Right. We'll instruct the auctioneer to put a ?200 reserve on them.

What will you do with the money? Spending money

when I go on a very expensive horticultural trip to Japan!

The trip of a lifetime. Yes.

Well, let's hope these animals will help you to get that spending money for your trip.

It sounds wonderful. Thank you very much.

June, quite an interesting little mixture of things here. Have you collected them for long?

I have. About four years, basically.

Right. I started off with that one. They're all from car boot sales.

I thought, "This is item of the day on Flog It."

It's silver, it's Russian, it purports to be 1884. And it's fake.

Oh, no!

That's the story of my life. It's such a shame. The quality is fantastic.

I was slightly suspicious when I looked at the bottom of it and it's got a couple of nuts

that look relatively modern. And then I spoke to one of our valuers who is an expert on it,

and he said he was 98% certain that it's fake.

Such a shame. It would have been worth several hundred pounds. What did it cost? That cost ?3.

May I say that it doesn't matter that it's fake, but because it's fake, we shouldn't be selling it.

coming through the Edwardian period to that little service there,

which is actually post-war. Right.

This little set is 1920s, '30s.

And, I think, hugely collectable.

Then three little items. Know what they are?

That's a pencil, but I have no idea what that is. No idea?

The first time I saw it, I thought it was an eye-piece.

An eye-piece to look through? You wouldn't want to look through that. Look what happens!

A spear! You don't know what it is? No idea. It's a cigar piercer.

I wouldn't know that because I don't smoke cigars.

No, I should hope not.

Hold that against the end of the cigar, hold the cigar and pierce it.

All of it, including that, it's definitely under ?20. I'd say ?15-?18.

I think that's great. So if I said you'll get ?50-?100 for it, you'll be all right. I would.

I think we'll flog 'em. Yes, please. Keep your Russian figure. Thanks.

Wendy... this is mouth-watering.

The fruit that's painted on this porcelain looks good enough to eat.

Where did you get it?

I got it off an old lady who was moving into a home. She sold up and I bought it.

Did you have a choice of things? No, the good stuff had gone.

The good stuff had gone? Yeah. And you were left with these rejects?!

You lucky girl!

They were famous for this range of wares.

All these pieces are individually hand-painted.

And although they are not painted by the same artist,

all of the artists who painted these pieces were renowned for their work.

This particular plate was done by Harry Price.

Another one by Townsend and another one by Moseley.

All good artists and painters in the Worcester factories.

They're not early. What sort of age would you think they were?

All these pieces were made between 1930 and '34.

Now how much did you pay for these, Wendy? ?21.

?21? How long ago was that? About 30 years ago. 30 years?

I would estimate them between ?600 and ?800.

And we might...we might get a little surprise.

Here.

Very collectable. Quality items.

Quality sings in the saleroom.

So I think they might do very well indeed. Are you happy? Very happy.

I'm delighted that you brought them along to Flog It. I'll hold your hand on the day

and we'll see how they do. Thank you.

So in our second batch of collectables heading to Knutsford,

we have the charming carved animals,

June's assortment of silver

and the one my money's on - Wendy's Royal Worcester coffee set.

Well, actually this is my home territory. I'm a Cheshire girl.

I moved to Cornwall in '72. I have a sister in Congleton, so I'm back here. Visiting.

Checking out the salerooms. Yes, oh, yes.

You know, we had Benny Sirota, who started Troika, on the show. With Lesley. With Lesley.

Two years ago he was on the show. I asked how many pieces of Troika he had in his collection.

I expected him to say thousands, but he said just seven. How many have you got? Two.

One very badly broken and mended. Lots of memories, then. A lot of memories.

You enjoyed it down there? Very much. Missing Cornwall? I'll be glad to get back.

There's a little piece of Troika on sale today. It's a London plaque.

It looks like that. It's by Benny Sirota and its value is ?800-?1,200.

Christine, it's great to see you again. Christine was first in the queue on that valuation day.

Yes. You kept nice and warm, though.

We're just about to flog your collection of wooden animals. We hope for ?200-?300. Top end?

I hope so. I reckon we will. Don't you, Anita? They certainly deserve the top end. They do.

The next lot is 117, this lovely collection of carved and wooden animals.

There's lots of them. We reckon about 55, but we're not very good at counting.

?200? 2 bid.

10. 220. 230. 240. 250.

250 bid. 60 now? At 250. 260. 270. 280.

290. 300. 310. 320. 330.

340? 330 bid.

What are you going to spend ?370 on?

Food. Food?!

I'm going to Japan and the extra money is for my evening meals.

Fantastic. You'll have lots of sushi out there as well. What a trip!

A great result! I'm very happy for Christine.

June's collection of silver and, my word, there's a lot of it! All sorts, from a car boot,

over four years. With a valuation - let's hope for top end - of ?100.

I hope so. I think we'll crash through that. There's a lot there.

So why have you decided to flog them all after only collecting for four years.

They're only in a drawer.

All the money is going towards a tour around the country with your caravan. That's right.

And then you're off abroad. Yes.

Well, let's get these sold. Let's do the business. This is it.

540 is this quantity of items including a miniature coffee service.

Nice little lot there. Lot 540.

?100? 100 bid.

110. 120. 130. 140. 150.

150 bid. Any more now? Straight up! 160. 170.

180? On the books at 170.

170.

Yes! ?170!

Congratulations! Plenty of petrol in the caravan! Wonderful.

Caravan?! Touring caravan, isn't it? Do you tow it or drive it yourself?

You both know what I meant. And I know you did as well.

They've given you at least four inches in height.

We are saving the best till last! The Royal Worcester coffee set.

?600-?800 put on by our bonny expert Anita.

What did you think of that? Very good. You bought these for 21 quid 30-odd years ago.

Yeah. Did you realise today they were worth ?600-?800? Not when I bought them at the time!

Good eye, eh? Good eye. What will you do with the money?

I'd like to invest it in something else. More antiques.

You can pick Anita's brain for top tips on what to look for.

Will we get the top end? We have eight pieces

beautifully made, beautifully painted. Eight little works of art.

Various painters. Lot 388.

There we go. ?500 bid.

Yes! 50, then?

550. 600. 650. 700. 750. 800.

850?

850. 900. 950. 1,000.

And 50. 1,100 here.

1,150. 12. 1,250. 1,250!

1,200 still with me. At 1,250?

1,300. 1,350?

1,400. 1,450?

?1,400 Gosh! At ?1,400.

1,450. 1,500. 1,550?

1,550. I'm out now, it's yours.

1,550. Is there 1,600 then?

?1,550.

Yes!

?1,550! Those shoes brought you some luck!

What a great day! I hope you've enjoyed the show.

See us next time for more thrills and spills!

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2006

Email: [email protected]