Episode 2 Priceless Antiques Roadshow

Over the last 30-plus years, there have been a few secrets locked away about a much-loved programme.

We're ready to share those. Welcome to Priceless Antiques Roadshow.

I've been asking viewers why they enjoy the Roadshow,

as I've travelled around over the last year.

They use expressions like "fascinating objects",

"great stories" and, of course, "surprise values".

But one consistent response from everyone is "brilliant experts".

And I agree. Someone who's watched and admired them for eight years

is Michael Aspel. So who better to pay tribute to our experts' abilities to spin a good yarn?

All the experts seem to have this hidden gift. They're actors.

They've trained in the theatre of gentle sadism.

Michael reveals some of their crafty tricks.

Also, we follow one of our longest serving specialists, Paul Atterbury,

on his annual pilgrimage to the battlefields of the Somme.

Paul's passion for the place suddenly made sense

when he rediscovered a family heirloom.

Plus, what's the oddest place to discover a valuable antique?

I have to admit that part of the thrill of a Roadshow day for me

is watching our team at work. It's not just their fantastic knowledge, though that's impressive enough.

I love seeing them piece together a gripping story.

And drop the bombshell of an unexpected valuation, too.

But there's another talent which draws me in.

It's when they take an unsuspecting owner on a journey of revelation.

Often with a few diversions along the way.

Michael Aspel watched some of the arch exponents of these

tantalising techniques for eight years.

Here we are in Crawley. And who should I bump into but our very own Eric Knowles?

This is the dish that I was holding at Biddulph Grange

and I brought it to have an expert tell me what it's all about.

Would there have been a ceramic spoon protruding from here?

The appeal of the Roadshow for the great percentage of viewers is not,

it is the object, of course, and it is the value,

but it's that dramatic climax to the encounter

between the expert and the subject, not victim, I suppose I should say.

Wow. Now that is something special.

That is amazing.

I would think somewhere around

£8,000 to £10,000.

-You don't mean it!

-I do mean it.

-Really?

-Yes!

My goodness!

There's no doubt about it, the BBC likes the explosive estimate

with the client fainting in coils all over the place.

Oh, my goodness!

And we lead up to it.

So what ARE the tactics?

They were found in two individual boxes when I was sorting out my

aunt's house when she passed away at the beginning of the year.

-When you unpacked them, what did you think?

-They were stunning, amazing.

-You like them, do you?

-Yeah.

-They came in with a collection of stuff

they'd got no knowledge of.

It's going to be worth around...

-£600 to £1,000.

-Its stunning, isn't it?

-I love it.

-You like it?

-Yeah, it's beautiful.

-Best?

-Yeah, we love it.

OK. Would you swap it for that?

-Obviously, it's worth more, I think.

-The way you're coming across.

-You reckon?.

-It's like playing chess.

He'll move the pieces around

and apparently discuss what he thinks is the best.

And almost dismiss the others and the owner who thought,

"Well, I thought he was going to choose that one", will be confused,

which is just what he wants. That is what I call the Battie Smokescreen.

Works every time.

That's worth £4,000 to £6,000.

You're joking?! You're joking?

-£4,000 to £6,000.

-No!

I actually failed to put a price on this stuff, didn't I?

-Yes.

-Well, another £15,000 there.

-No!

You're joking?!

I think I need a gin!

-If somebody made you an offer, what would you sell it for? £20?

-£3,000.

-£100?

-£4,000.

-£500?

David also employs the auction technique.

-Are you getting tempted? £500?

-Yes.

£1,000.

-£2,000.

-Yeah?

£10,000?

Jeez...

Well, I think I may have been the first person

to introduce the auction scenario.

I remember back in the early '90s, I had a fabulous piece

of French Champleve enamel.

It was a wonderful bowl on a stand

that was in simulated bamboo and it was the bee's knees.

It was by a firm called Christofle.

When it came to giving the value, I actually said to them,

"Has anybody given you a valuation?"

Um, as a guess, it's from about £2,000.

At auction, I would probably see the bidding going...

At £2,000. And then going maybe...

£3,000. £4,000...

To 5, and then 6.

£7,000, 8,000, 9,000, £10,000.

At £10,000,

at £10,000 I think it's fair to say you just might see it go.

Eric used the Poker Face technique

extremely well on one particular occasion I remember at Kelvingrove.

A lady had brought in a couple of paintings. One was by Rennie Mackintosh.

The other was not. And the one that was not, was the one that Eric chose,

of course, to go on about.

When thinking about the Glasgow School of Art

and the activities there, there you had the likes of

Jessie Newberry and you've also got Ann MacBeth.

These are big names as far as the Glasgow Girls are concerned.

When I first turned up at the Kelvingrove art gallery

for the Antiques Roadshow,

they almost said, "Oh, we want one of our experts to look at this" right away.

And Eric came over and he said, "Oh, these are interesting, yes".

When I was looking at this picture, initially, in my head,

sirens were going off, klaxons were going.

Fireworks were exploding.

All behind this deadpan face.

And then you find this.

In the same, obviously, in your loft.

Yes. You see, it was rolled up in a scroll.

You can see, I wondered whether I should iron it.

No! No, don't iron it!

-OK. Well that's... OK.

-I knew they were local, probably local,

so that would be certainly helpful.

Um, but he didn't say at that point exactly what they were.

Had I been ultra-religious, I'd have broken down on both knees

and clasped my hands in prayer.

It was just, thank you so much, thank you for this wonderful gift.

So it's all in the initials, isn't it? CRM.

Oh, yes.

As Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Well, that wouldn't be by him, though, would it?

Well, why not? Why not? There's every reason it's by him.

And of course the lady was in...relative disbelief.

If I go into a gallery to buy this today,

it's somewhere, let's say, between £2,000 and £3,000.

And you think it is Charles Rennie Mackintosh?!

I do.

Never play poker with me.

As I've often said, and everyone agrees anyway,

-there's a lot of detective work in the Roadshow.

-Do you know what it is?

Do you know what they are? Have you thought of the value?

-Do you like it?

-I think of them as animals, in a way.

Stealthy animals, going in for the kill.

David Battie would be the tiger.

He doesn't always just tease them along, he'll cuff them around the ear and roll them around a bit.

Eric, Eric Knowles, he's much more cuddly,

I see him more as a Labrador, but no less keen on getting the result.

Lars Tharp is more cat-like, he purrs along.

A lot of twitching of the lips and sitting back a bit and drawing them into the joke.

There's a lot of detective work. Lars uses this technique.

-I bought it in a junk stall about two years ago.

-Why?

I was just fascinated by the fact that it had one little handle.

Now, I didn't know in my mind how much research she had done.

Have you done any research on it since then?

-I believe it might be a bleeding bowl.

-Right.

Well that sort of scuppered me for a while because

I was looking forward to revealing that this was a bleeding bowl.

Now, date.

I think it's old!

It is old. She's done her research, she knows it's early 18th century,

I'm not going to be able to surprise her. Do you know what it's worth?

Well, I know my husband tells me, "Don't buy any more rubbish".

Thank you very much. Well, don't listen to your husband,

at all, because you've done very well, this is probably worth somewhere in the region

of £5,000 to £6,000.

And you'll note the pause between 5 and 6 and 1,000.

Five to six...thousand pounds.

No!

Because that's, that is another little trick,

everybody's copying it now from me, of course.

Which is to keep the denomination up your sleeve.

Really?!

I'll just move it to one side.

And, of course, she went to pieces.

Which is really quite nice on camera.

-Are you sure?!

-I am, yes.

'All the experts seem to have this hidden gift.'

They are actors. They've trained in the theatre of gentle sadism.

And they've qualified with flying colours.

I'll be watching out for those crafty tricks in future.

Talking of smart moves, we've asked our experts to reveal their top tips

for canny buys in the credit crunch.

Opening honours go to ceramics specialist Will Farmer.

I get asked on virtually a daily basis,

"What would you put your money into?"

And, whilst I do like the greater majority of all the people who ask,

if I had that answer I wouldn't probably be stood in

front of them talking, I'd be a very rich man and a million miles away.

But one of my tips and one of the things that I still really rate

is a very small, very short period of pottery history.

Which is Poole Freeform.

And the Poole pottery works have one of those very long histories,

in terms of the pottery industry.

1953, 1954, you've got two seriously talented designers

who team up in Alfred Read and Guy Sydenham.

Every single one of these that you ever pick up

is hand-made and hand-painted.

Hand-decorated.

So each one is individual, each one is unique.

While the patterns are recognisable,

each one has its own little charm and characteristics.

When you look to the underside, you've basically got everything that you need,

which is the Poole dolphin, "hand-made" and "hand-decorated".

So everything's there. You can become an expert very quickly.

A vase like this could be bought comfortably

for £50 to £80.

However, I do feel that it is criminally undervalued.

I mean, it's just lovely. You know, this stuff is lovely.

I think that's a fairly sure-fire tip, if I don't mind saying so.

More advice on clever collecting from our team in the coming episodes.

But monetary value is just one way of assessing the value of an object.

Miscellaneous expert Paul Atterbury is fascinated by pieces

which have powerful past lives.

In recent years, he discovered that the Atterbury family have just such an object themselves

and Paul's annual trip to the battlefields of World War I suddenly made sense.

Thanks to this family heirloom, his walks along the battle lines have now become a personal pilgrimage.

Paul first travelled to the battlefields of the Somme in the 1980s.

That initial visit had a powerful effect on him.

He found himself drawn there again and again.

I then became, in a sense, a pilgrim.

I have to come here every year. At least once.

And it's only a 35-mile front. You can walk it in an easy three days.

It all comes to life.

Walking the Somme is just a sequence of extraordinary and powerful and emotive sights.

This is Mametz Wood. It was over this ground between the 7th and 12th July

that the 38th Welsh Division bravely fought to capture the wood.

They had to attack from behind, over there, over open ground,

the woods were full of Germans, thickly defended.

There were machine guns over there, there were machine guns behind me.

Cutting into them sideways, but they fought on.

The wood had to be captured because this was one of the things that stopped the advance.

The great roll-on that had started on the 1st July had to continue eastwards.

And the Welsh were the ones who were given this ghastly task

and they fought and they fought and they fought.

In the end, the wood was cleared of Germans. But thousands of Welsh had died.

And I have to say, of all places in the Somme, there are probably

more ghosts here than anywhere else.

But what first brought Paul to these battlefields, 50 miles from Lille

were not ghosts but the work of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

It was in about 1916 that what became the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was set up,

with a view to dealing with bodies and memory after the First World War.

And Lutyens was appointed in 1917 as one of the principal architects

and his job was to go to France and think about the permanent establishment

of battlefield cemeteries, graveyards and memorials.

One of the original briefs was that there should be a series of huge

memorials that simply were vehicles for carrying names.

And that, of course, brings us here to Thiepval.

I first came to Thiepval in the mid to late '80s,

really pursuing Lutyens as an architect.

I knew I'd see him at his best - a wonderful eye for detail,

a wonderful sense of geometry and space.

The beautiful interplay of red and white stone and brick, the fantastic

piercing of the arches. Above all else, his eye for detail.

He loved wonderfully, precisely cut stone work.

He loved minimal decoration.

In some ways, he's a sort of modernist.

But all that, actually, was rapidly overshadowed by the need to think

about what it is really about. It's not just a building.

I had to move from the building into the site, into the battle,

into the whole story that brought it into being.

Thiepval is simply the memorial to the names lost in the Somme

campaigns, 1916 to 1918.

Over 70,000 people just in one battle who'd vanished into thin air.

At some point in the 1990s, on a visit with a friend, simply

showing them what there was here, we were on our way back to the car,

having done the visit, and I was compelled to turn round

and go back to the memorial. To open the cabinet

where the list of names is kept and to look up my own name.

I've never done this before and what did I find?

I found Second Lieutenant Atterbury, LJR.

The book tells you where to find the name on the memorial,

out of the thousands that are here.

It led me to this pier and there it is -

Second Lieutenant Atterbury, LJR.

I was mystified by this because I didn't know who he was.

I knew he was a relative.

And I went home and I asked my father and I said, "What is this?"

He said, "Oh yes, that was my uncle. I was named after him".

Louis John Rowley Atterbury - my father is Rowley Atterbury.

I said, "Why didn't I know this?" He said, "I don't know."

He suddenly said, "I think I've got his watch somewhere.

"Would you like it?"

I said, "Yes, you bet I would".

And so he rummaged around and he produced a watch, perfectly ordinary

silver watch and, on the back, my great uncle's initials.

Of course, this is just like being on the Roadshow. Suddenly,

here is an unimportant object taking me away into a great history.

So the watch becomes crucial to me.

I bring it back with me every time I come.

So, in a sense, the watch

and the photograph of him which I've luckily discovered and treasure,

is my link emotionally and physically to Thiepval.

In a way, I sometimes think, is this why the Somme means so much to me?

I can only think that up there, somewhere, he must have

watched me come ten times and think, "What is this boy doing?

"Why doesn't he come and visit me?"

One day, he made me do it.

Since then, it's become a sort of a matter of reverence, really.

I have to come and visit, not just Thiepval, but my great uncle.

I'm eternally grateful that what started out as a bit of architectural fanaticism,

anorak architecture spotting,

in a sense turned into something that has really changed my life.

I've got a journey that is forever ongoing.

It doesn't matter how many times I come back here or to these sites,

the journey continues.

It's something that is very, very powerful and very important to me.

There's something eerie and moving at the same time

about Paul's discovery of his uncle's watch.

Just like so many of the stories we feature on the Roadshow,

value isn't everything. One thing we do love is a good mystery story.

At the end of a long day's filming at the Roadshow,

some of the most talked about objects

are those that turn up in the most curious places.

At the Children's Roadshow in 2003, Bunny Campione unearthed

a collection which had literally been pulled out of the ground.

-How did you find the first one?

-It started when I was about four.

I was walking along the field and I just found a really small one about

the same size as that. It just started it off.

I wanted to go again and I'd go round to different fields.

-I don't believe it. All round here?

-Yeah.

She had a whole lot of farmers all around her that went off and

found dolls' heads in their fields.

The farmers are very supportive of me doing it

because I'm not damaging anything.

So did they ring you up and say, "Hey, we've got another head"?

Actually, they do. They get to know what I'm collecting and they do.

They let me know if they've got any and they collect them for me

if they see any while they're out on the tractors.

Why would anybody want to tip their dolls' heads into the ground?

I just don't know.

One of the heads she had, probably the only one that didn't

have any acid brown markings on it, was one I put £200 on.

So she was thrilled.

I never, ever expected it to be that much.

I can't believe that so many were put into the ground!

Our next owner had a most unexpected catch while out fishing at his local beach.

Did you know what you found?

I knew it was some sort of jug but,

to be honest, I thought it was a special garden feature.

Actually, what you've found is a medieval jug.

You're looking at a piece here that dates from the 14th century.

-That early?

-That early, yes.

The main thing about the Antiques Roadshow, everybody wants to know the value.

That's the main reason you go there.

And from that point when there is sort of a flurry of activity

and everybody said, "We'll push you straight through",

I thought, "This is starting to excite me now".

It still smells of seaweed. Why's that?

It was actually covered with seaweed and full of silt

when I found it on the beach last week.

There's a real excitement in pulling a piece out of the ground

and realising you're the first person to see this for centuries

and to ask questions, to think, "How did it get there?

"What sort person made it and owned it, all those years ago?"

Underneath the barnacles, which I'm sure will clean up, you've got a typical bib of green glaze.

That is glaze, is it? It's not seaweed or anything?

No, the green colour there is the natural glaze.

Right the way down to that last minute, he actually says, this is the value of it.

The expectation is rising and rising and rising.

All the time, you're thinking, "How much is it worth? Do I ring the bank manager or what?"

It's pretty damaged but, even so, after a bit of repair and work,

a jug like this is going to be

-somewhere between £1,000 to £2,000.

-That much?

That's not bad at all.

So did they sell it?

The monetary value, from the research I've done, goes out the window.

The pot is now on display in my wife's china cabinet.

It won't go. I don't think any amount of money now would tempt me to sell it now.

A life-changing moment for one owner,

who's gone on to collect thousands of pieces of pottery from the beach.

John Benjamin, our jewellery specialist,

is an absolute magnet for items found in the strangest of places.

A woman came in, whose husband turned out to be a plumber.

This man, who is working as a plumber, he's fixing someone's

cold water tank or a septic tank, something like that.

He's sticking his hand down.

I had this image of putting his hand down in the tank.

He feels something floating deep down underneath, picks it up

and it's a solid gold Victorian bangle, studded with lapis lazuli. What?

Was it wrapped up or anything?

I honestly don't know.

He'd had it for a long while and he'd had it in his tool box.

-From your point of view, you've been wearing it ever since?

-Yes.

-We're looking at a bangle that's worth £1,500 to £2,000.

-You're joking?!

No.

But John's ultimate odd find came in 2001.

Cliveden, Buckinghamshire.

Sunny day, filming outdoors.

Woman comes in with a metal tin.

"Can you look at this stuff?" "Yes".

Takes it out on the table and it was a jamboree bag of assorted jewellery.

Where did you get all these from?

Well, I've been running a tip for about 17 years, just over.

I've got it through the years, chucked away on the tip.

I've got salvage rights for whatever comes in.

I pay for, it belongs to me.

Chatting away, very relaxed, to me and she's with

this young man, sitting next to her.

Turns out that the young man is her son.

These are the accumulation of jewellery

and bits and pieces and cigarette cases that people have thrown out?

Yes, I've found them in rubbish.

We've had to dig deep or look in rubbish

that some people wouldn't think about touching.

Usually, that's where you find a bit.

Opals, sapphires, jade.

Fabulous things. Chunky bits of expensive Bond Street jewellery.

The main pendant is going to be worth, I would think,

something in the region of £1,000 to £1,500.

The opal earrings here, they must be worth about £800 to £1,000.

£800 for that one, I should think.

So this set is going to be worth at least £3,000.

The woman herself was as good as the jewellery. She was great on camera.

She was relaxed, she was funny.

Find yourself a woman, you can have them.

LAUGHTER

Get off my back!

Well, the things I've got here amount to

something in the region of £4,000 to £6,000.

Thank you very much.

For me, I think that that was a microcosm of what makes

the Antiques Roadshow the programme that it is.

Before we go, one more secret about life on the Roadshow.

I like to think we're a close-knit and friendly team.

Every now and again, there's a bit of healthy competition among the experts about who will discover

the most exciting objects on the day, the one that got away.

Tonight, miscellaneous expert Hilary Kay reveals all about a day she'll never forget.

I tell you, when a Gibson Flying V guitar comes in,

I want to be the one that films it.

Here we have a photo of Marc Bolan with a Gibson Flying V.

A historically important guitar in the history of rock. It's one thing

looking at the photograph of it but what to hold the real thing?

The real thing's here and I can hold it.

To me, that is absolutely unbelievable.

So if we open this case...

On the day, Mark ended up filming it.

I'm a huge rock fan, always have been.

I guess I feel slightly territorial about rock 'n' roll memorabilia when

it comes into the Roadshow, because it was me that held the first ever

auction of rock 'n' roll memorabilia

when I was working at an auction house back in 1981. I sort of feel,

quite wrongly, that it's my right to film all the rock 'n' roll stuff.

What can I say?

I'm holding a piece of rock history.

He set a trend which was a huge influence on British rock music.

What about the sailor top here, as well?

It's important because Marc started off as a hippy, Tyrannosaurus Rex.

This was the first item he wore on Top Of The Pops in '71

to do Hot Love on the BBC.

You can say, historically, that this was the turning point

to the new phrase that we know as glam rock.

# La, la, la, la-la-la-la... #

He filmed it absolutely beautifully.

There's absolutely nothing more he could have said.

It's just, I wanted it.

I apologise to the great man himself but I have to do it,

just to say I've strummed Marc Bolan's guitar.

Do you know, the best bit was, Mark didn't even let me strum the guitar afterwards?

SHE TUTS

That's it for today. I'll be back at the same time tomorrow for more

secrets from behind the scenes as we reveal the very best finds

from the Antiques Roadshow.

Eric Knowles takes us back to his days in short trousers

when he first joined the show.

Like it or not, you can't ignore it. It really is very, very individual.

Owners reveal some of their pet hates about their family treasures.

I've never liked it hugely. The fact that other people didn't like it hugely either didn't surprise me.

Didn't offend me either!

Until next time, bye bye.

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