Episode 4 Priceless Antiques Roadshow


Episode 4

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There are some legendary stories in the Roadshow Hall of Fame.

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the most popular are those that begin with a bargain buy at a boot sale

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and end up with the bids flying thick and fast

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at a prestigious auction house.

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But have you ever wondered which object brought to a Roadshow

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made the biggest profit?

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Could it be this clock? Let's take a look at some

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of the top contenders from 32 years of Roadshow history.

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Have I to tell you?

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Yes, go on! You don't have to...

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-Four pounds, ten shillings.

-I don't believe it!

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People like the idea of something for nothing.

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-I bought it at a car-boot sale.

-A car-boot sale?!

-Yes.

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-What, locally, here?

-Yes, only down the road.

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And if you have bought it at a car-boot sale for very little,

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then I think a lot of people who watch the programme might

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find that appealing.

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-How much did you pay for it?

-25p.

-25p!

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The bargain finds are popular on the Roadshow.

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Because it could have happened to anybody.

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It really could have been you.

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It was about ten shillings when I got it.

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The hunter-gatherers among us, male and female,

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who love looking out for bargains.

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I remember in Witney, this chap came in with a fabulous album.

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These are the most wonderful aquatints of Switzerland.

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And we got into the history of it...

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this is always fascinating,

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finding out where these things have come from.

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Well, it came originally from a jumble sale

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that my mother organised in North London.

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-She paid 50 shillings for this because she thought it was charming.

-50 shillings?

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Yes. This was about 25 years ago, 30 years ago.

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50 shillings is £2.50 in today's money.

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And that was a real bargain.

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And over 37 different views, including, and I saw the binding,

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I thought, we've got something absolutely tremendous here.

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These wonderful oak leaves on the border here. It's beautifully done.

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Lovely tooling. And over 37 different views, including a few watercolours.

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Do you have an idea of how much your mother's 50 shillings has gone up?

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Absolutely none.

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Right, well, I think a conservative estimate would say

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somewhere in the region of £10,000.

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That's incredible!

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What a bargain! That's 4,000 times the purchase price.

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If the person is surprised, clearly they thought it was not worth a lot of money,

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and now it is worth a lot, suddenly,

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they've been given a present!

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How did you come by it?

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Well, I bought it 39 years ago.

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How much?

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Have I to tell you?

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You don't have to, but it would be interesting.

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-Four pounds, ten shillings.

-I don't believe it!

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It's going to be worth in the region of

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£3,000 - £5,000.

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-You didn't expect that?

-No, I've got a shock!

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I think the bargain finds make such great viewing.

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Because there is this lottery element about them.

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It could so easily be any of the people who are watching

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that programme who could have found it in a charity shop,

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could have got it off the internet,

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could have stumbled across it at a fair.

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It's wonderful.

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And it looks to me as if what we have here

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is an extremely handsome microscope.

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I'd like to take everything out of the box and put it together.

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Whilst I'm doing that, tell me how it came to you?

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Well, it was an old gentleman friend of my father,

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who, you know, had it about 30 years.

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And they wanted to sell me a few things

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and it was about ten shillings when I'd got it.

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Have you ever had it set up and used?

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I used to do it regularly, trying to look at spiders' legs and things!

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And how did you find the magnification?

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-Difficult!

-Yes. It's not easy, is it?

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Well, ten years ago I saw one of these sold for £11,000.

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Really?

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That was ten years ago.

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I nearly fainted!

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That's 22,000 times what he paid for it. But there's better to come!

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It would be hard to beat the discovery made by a man who

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came along to the Antiques Roadshow at Witney court.

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He brought along a slipware cup that he'd bought in a local auction.

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It had an estimate on it

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which seemed reasonable by Staffordshire slipware estimates.

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On the day of the auction there was two people bidding.

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They bid up to one below the bottom estimate.

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I put in one bid and I got it.

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It sat on my ironing board for two weeks because I thought I'd been done.

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I thought somebody'd caught me out.

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In the auction, he'd paid just under £500 for this cup.

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Taking a gamble that this was the real thing.

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He brought it to the Roadshow to find out.

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I've got absolutely no doubt that this is what you discovered

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in that auction and that nobody else believed.

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I mean, I didn't know. And I guess so few people have seen them

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that they didn't believe it would be there either.

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I'm just so glad you said that!

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There's no doubt about it at all.

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So, thinking about what it's worth.

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It's worth a lot more than you paid! There's no doubt about that.

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£50,000.

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No!

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Really?

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That's 100 times what he paid for that 17th-century Staffordshire cup.

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But this next bargain, filmed recently,

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broke all Roadshow records.

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I cannot begin to tell you

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how fortunate I was

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to be at Dumfries House at four o'clock in the afternoon

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on a very wet day, when most of the crowd had disappeared

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and two people approached me and they were carrying a carrier bag.

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A lady and her husband.

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And she said, "We're probably wasting his time."

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Where has this rather unpretentious vase been lurking

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before you brought it along?

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We've been clearing out our loft. And we came across this. We thought it was just a heap of junk.

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So we were going to bin it and then we thought, no, we'll hold on to it

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cos we heard the Antiques Roadshow was coming here.

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And that's why we held on to it. We bought it at a car-boot.

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And it had a plant inside it, a kind of purple plant.

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That was the reason we bought it - for the plant.

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It was quite nice in the bowl.

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It was a moment that I find words are just inadequate to explain.

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Because, you know, you hope for certain things to come in,

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over years and years and it never happens.

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Then all of a sudden, it does, it takes your breath away.

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If you'd have looked carefully, there's a name on it.

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And the name is lurking behind here. We'll turn it round.

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And that name is Lalique.

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And so, have you heard of Lalique?

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Lalique? No.

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No? OK, well, you're on a rapid learning curve today, aren't you?!

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And this vase, it was unassuming.

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But it was a vase by Rene Lalique.

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So, car-boot, for a plant, how much were they asking for the plant?

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We only paid a pound!

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-You paid a pound?

-For the vase and the plant.

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Well, it's worth a mere £25,000.

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Oh, my God!

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Now, tell me about your loft...

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-LAUGHTER

-I don't think I will!

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Congratulations, Anne.

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The Lalique made an amazing 26, 000 times

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what she paid for it, making her the current record holder

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for buying low and selling high.

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I was there when Anne brought that unassuming vase in.

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Who'd have believed it?

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E-mail [email protected]

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