Episode 5 Priceless Antiques Roadshow

If you had to guess which expert was a rock journalist,

who lived in LA with the stars, who would it be?

We'll tell you that and more in today's Priceless Antiques Roadshow.

One thing I like best about the Roadshow is when our experts

reveal the hidden history of an object,

usually a big surprise for the owner.

In this episode...

John Benjamin and Geoffrey Munn

decode the secret language of jewellery.

Thistle is pleasure combined with pain.

So, a little bit of sado-masochism there.

Roadshow regular Lars Tharp winds back the clock 20 years

to his first moment in front of the cameras.

My mother has the complete Lars Tharp recordings on her shelves at home.

We blow the dust of the first of those appearances,

and we hear about some near-death experiences of the antique variety.

-A lorry hit our house...

-I beg your pardon?

A lorry hit our house, we had an accident, yeah. I know!

The vibrations shook it off the wall.

We all love a mystery, especially when something

is revealed that has been right under our noses for years.

Our jewellery experts Geoffrey Munn and John Benjamin

can read the hidden messages in jewellery like a book,

and this lost language is invisible to the rest of us,

but John and Geoffrey are fluent.

I'm completely fascinated by the metaphor of jewellery,

and it's very strange that in the 20th century,

we seem to have totally lost sight of these meanings.

They would be as open as an open book

-'to our predecessors.'

-'Gems always had their own particular meaning,'

and also, they have a power about them.

You know, once upon a time, something like a sapphire

'would be worn, because the limpid blue was supposed to'

keep away diseases.

'It's a bit like cataract operation that I'm trying to do'

day-by-day, to try to tell people what the significance of these...

slightly covert symbols and metaphors are.

# It had to be you... #

One of the oldest love tokens I've seen on the show was an enamelled

'gold dress ornament in the form of a man's hand'

with his sleeve, offering a jewel to a recipient.

This is a hand reaching across time, a hand with a little diamond ring

on its finger, offering a girl, in the 17th century,

a ruby and diamond pendant with a pearl on it.

The message there is that it's diamonds for ever,

rubies for passion and pearls for Venus.

'Very unambiguous in the 17th century.'

# It had to be you... #

In the 17th century, they're very keen, particularly in Shakespeare,

with illusion, and in Shakespeare, there are plays within plays,

and here is a piece of jewellery within a piece of jewellery.

That's why it's so exciting to me.

It says it all about jewellery, that it's a distillation

of what's going on in the fine and decorative arts,

literature and in music. It's a very high art form indeed.

Not everybody likes reptiles, so why on earth did you choose

to buy a ring in the form of a snake?

It was more a case of the jeweller in Northampton about six years ago,

who knew the sorts of things I like,

who said, "I've got a ring you'll be interested in." That was it.

'I think the snake ring at Powys is an interesting object,'

because in a way, people are touchy about snakes.

They find them repulsive, and they couldn't understand why

a snake in the form of a ring would be something for your girlfriend.

The snake biting its tail, did you think

there'd be a hidden meaning to all of that?

I've wondered about it once or twice but I wouldn't know!

It's a very ancient symbol indeed.

In fact, the symbol itself is probably 4,000 years old,

and it was used by the Persians, and it's called the Ouroboros -

the eternally renewing circle. What this is is a very covert rebus,

a little hidden message, a message of love.

This is a gift from somebody to somebody else saying,

-that I love you through all eternity.

-Ah, lovely.

# Wonderful, wonderful roses

# Magic colours To touch your heart... #

'The language of flowers is also as old as time, frankly,'

and it's a very interesting distraction

in the 18th and 19th century, but you also hear of it in Shakespeare.

'Every flower had its own'

particular meaning, naturally,

'red roses - passion.

'Marigolds - jealousy. Thistle...'

which I love, is pleasure

'combined with pain.'

A little bit of sado-masochism there.

The flower that rules above all others is the rose.

The rose always stands for love. It's one of the attributes of Venus.

It's so beautiful and it carries with it the message of pain

It's the pleasure and pain of love because it's a striking,

fragrant, beautiful thing but then you prick yourself on the prickles,

and so it's an emblem of what our human relationships are.

'It's not surprising that it turns up

very often in jewellery, and in conjunction with diamonds,

'it's forever love.'

It would have said it pretty loud, actually.

-It's a surprise to you, isn't it?

-It is because they were maiden aunts!

So enduring love - I don't know where they had it from,

where it came from prior to them in the family.

The owner had absolutely no idea of its emblematic meaning,

and that was the great fun, to demonstrate to her what it meant,

and I think she actually left the Antiques Roadshow

richer in her own mind about her property,

but perhaps richer in a way,

'in understanding what it meant to her predecessors.'

We'll be finding out more about the messages concealed within jewellery

later in the programme.

I didn't know that.

Ceramics specialist Lars Tharp is a master

when it comes to unravelling a story.

He's been doing it in front of the Roadshow cameras for 20 years now,

but even he had to start somewhere.

I was very young, and I was very scared.

Let's now join our experts with the people of Southampton.

'I was with David Batty, my mentor, the sorcerer and the apprentice.'

In comes a lady with this little object

that looks like a, sort of, metallic Tracy Island.

David looks at this, he's a Japanese specialist and David and I...

neither of us have seen anything like it before.

David says to me, "You do this one."

Good(!)

Lots of little men...

crawling all over what appears to be an island of coral.

'Just to give you a flavour of how it started, it was like this -'

"Um... Do you have any idea what this is?"

Do you know which country it comes from?

Um... At a guess, Japan or China. I'm not sure which.

It's Japanese, and it really is a fantastic piece of workmanship.

"It's really rather rare...

"But just because something is rare,

"it doesn't mean, of course, it's worth a lot of money."

Do you have any idea yourself?

-No, I really have no idea.

-' "So, I hope you won't be disappointed'

"when I tell you that I think this really rather unusual piece

"is worth somewhere in the region of..."

£5,000 and £8,000.

'I remember after that show,'

immediately thinking that people would recognise me in the street...!

HE LAUGHS

And of course, it just doesn't happen!

It takes years before you start getting recognised!

Even then, people don't know who you are.

Everybody thinks I'm John Sandon!

Lars has always enjoyed an interest in ceramics,

but some of our team had very colourful careers

before being bitten by the antiques bug.

Glass specialist Andy McConnell gave us access all areas

to his collections and his past.

I buy glass at a rate which most people would consider to be, kind of,

dangerous for one's health, financial as well as mental.

There's no logical reason why anybody should be into glass

as strongly as I am. I do it because I love it, you know?

This is my Crystal Palace. I have amassed, over 31 years,

something in the realms of 30,000 pieces.

There's hardly any value in this, in terms of money.

What did I pay for that? No more than a quid.

That's a pound for that.

A decanter like that, a fiver.

It's never going to make me rich, it's never going to do that.

But it gives me profound satisfaction.

I suppose it's really down to my parents, it's their fault,

they were part-time antique dealers, and they would stop

at every antique shop they ever saw,

so the deal was I either stay in the car with a bottle of Tizer

and a packet of crisps, or go in the shop.

So you go into the shops and you see all this fabulous stuff.

Not only was it pleasing aesthetically, but you could actually

make a living out of it, not that that crossed my mind at the time.

I was into rock-and-roll! I got into that early

and stayed with it hard and fast, and it became my job for quite a time.

I spent four years living in Hollywood,

touring around with the bands and interviewing the bands and all that.

For me, it was the best time in rock'n'roll,

and it was all centred on Los Angeles.

This is me as a rock journalist, circa 1975,

photographed by Rod Stewart.

This was minutes before we had the most blazing row

and he stormed off because he was really about two hours late

for the interview and I said, "Who do you think you are?"

And he said, "I think I'm Rod Stewart!"!

We got in a real fight and it was all over the papers,

and there was this huge barney.

This is a story I wrote for Sounds magazine from...

And it's about the development of Jefferson Airplane.

I remember typing away, you know, and that's sort of a little artefact

that really changed my life, really.

# And the ones That Mother gives you... #

They asked me if I wanted to go on the road with them.

We went up to Hamburg, Germany.

I had some antiques with me at the time,

because I was a part-time antique dealer, and I walked in.

The second shop I walked into to offer my antiques to,

belonged to this chap Gunther Cram.

Gunther just said, "You have good taste, Herr McConnell.

"Perhaps you could bring me karafen and wine glasses from England."

I said, "Well, I could do, but I know nothing about glass."

"Neither do I," he said, "but together we'll learn."

And that was in 1977 and I worked with Gunther for the next 25 years.

I'm still buying, probably, even greater, faster rate

than ever before, but what I do now is, I photograph it all,

because the currency of books and journalism is no longer the word,

it's the image.

I was afraid of selling things, getting rid of stuff,

because, you know, I'd actually lose it,

but the photograph can reach so many people,

so I can concentrate on capturing the essence of that piece,

and once I've done so, basically I've got it,

which lets me release it and pass it on and let somebody else own it.

You watch that as that turns round, and it's like nothing else on earth.

It's absolutely fantastic.

The fire, that's the word we're looking for,

and it knocks pottery and ceramics into touch,

and silver and any other material. This is why it's so great.

Oh, I love it!

The question always is, what's hot, what's coming?

Everybody wants to be ahead of the market and, from my way of thinking,

it's Swedish glass designer, Erik Hoglund, who died in 1998.

He probably did more than anybody else to take glass

from a point of utility, drinking glasses, decanters and the like,

to fine art. I think that's fine art, more, beyond decorative art,

and that's important, that was new.

Another thing that really sets him aside is, I think he's funny,

and I think that's great. (I like funny things!)

This is the escape route.

I'm a real fiddler, because I've got so much energy in me,

and the way I dissipate it and touch base a bit is here,

this is the place where it happens.

INHALES DEEPLY Breathe it, it's absolutely fab.

Is there life beyond glass? Probably,

but I haven't reached that point yet, you know? I'm still lost in it.

I'm lost in this void, which is...

the complexity of the subject that compels me.

And Andy tells me many of his best buys have been made at boot sales,

so it's all still out there, but beware,

Andy sets off for the bargains at 4am!

Earlier in the programme, we cracked some of the hidden codes

used in jewellery, but there are still a few more

for our experts to decipher.

You see bits of jewellery

that perhaps you wouldn't necessarily quite appreciate

just how potent they are. A good example of that

was a key brooch that I did, very recently,

'where you take the first letter of each gem,'

and it goes on to spell a word, such as "regard".

Starting off with ruby, R,

E, G, A, R, D.

you know, a lovely message of love and sentiment, regard.

-Or it could be "dearest".

-Yes.

Or it could be your name spelt out in gemstones.

Which is a lovely idea, this concept of jewellery in the 1820s and 30s,

we don't have that nowadays, that kind of soppy romanticism.

I found one, 1,000 years ago,

that spelt my wife's name, Caroline with the first letter of each stone,

and it was the first jewel

that I gave her.

Love and loss are inextricably linked

in the language of jewellery.

Now, I have to say, this looks like a very simple ring,

almost like a wedding ring.

Is it a wedding ring, from your point of view?

-Or, what's the story behind it?

-No, erm...

'I remember a lady with a gold ring that she discovered after digging'

through her potato patch which is an unusual place to find a gold ring.

A gold ring engraved on the outside and inscribed

'within the hoop with a little motto, that dates it to the 18th century.'

Well, although it does have an appearance

of a rather simple gem ring, there's something

slightly more interesting about it, because it's an old mourning ring.

-Of course, it's very high carat yellow gold.

-Oh, it's not.

-It is.

The top of the ring is set with a blue stone,

and it's not contemporary with the ring.

These old mourning rings were mounted with little crystals at the tops,

-that often contained a little lock of hair underneath.

-Oh!

That has dropped out, so a jeweller has put this lapis lazuli stone in.

'This tradition...'

of people to engrave an inscription in a ring

and then to plug, in the head of the ring, a little block of hair,

was so universally popular in this country - today, taboo,

no one would dream of doing that.

The highest possible moment ever for mourning jewellery

was when Prince Albert died in December, 1861, before Christmas.

It pitched Queen Victoria into a sort of...

Into a passionate grief that lasted 40 years.

I assumed it was a Victorian mourning locket, and would have had

a portrait or lock of hair of the dead person inside.

She made the wearing of black hugely effective,

and the wearing of jet and of strange materials

like bog oak and vulcanite, made of hardened rubber to simulate jet,

and so it was a craze, really.

We can be absolutely sure that it was made

for a widow and that sounds a rather strong thing to say,

but in the Victorian language of flowers,

ivy, which we see here, is emblematic of marriage.

-I didn't know that.

-Black ivy is a signal that the marriage is over.

I'd like to show this because I think

this is just one of those pieces that really does have a symbolism.

This is a piece that belongs to my wife.

It's pearls, in a frame of dark pinky, lilac-coloured gems

and green gems. Green represents hope,

white represents purity and violet represents loyalty. What's this?

It's a piece of jewellery that would have been made for a suffragette.

That for me packs in all of that history, the drama,

and the beauty of a really delicious piece of jewellery.

The story goes that

the green, violet and white, to "give votes to women",

or green, white, violet, "give women votes".

And it's really quite comparatively rare,

but it's something that you do see,

but people don't very often appreciate the significance of it.

I think jewellery is a way into the past.

You have to put your imagination on these objects and they'll repay you.

That's true of all the objects we find on the Antiques Roadshow

and the best thing we can do is paint this room

round a piece of jewellery, or a piece of ceramic or of glass,

and then it really works, and somehow you've raised a ghost.

The experts have great noses, not just for wonderful objects

but also for a good story.

One of our favourite categories is called the Great Escape,

where objects nearly didn't survive a traumatic moment in their lives.

We've been reliving some of those close encounters.

I think it was about

1941 or '42, a bomb dropped in the house

opposite where I lived in South Shields,

and when we fought our way along the corridor and the dust

to what was left of the front door, that was the view that we saw.

Hitler had removed six of the houses.

The man brought in a pair of earthenware figures about this big.

'And I think it was his mother'

had rushed through into the drawing room to say...

"Look what Hitler's done to my lady!"

A little bit of the strap had dropped off.

-This lady here.

-A little bit of the strap had come off here.

The little piece of strap lay on the bottom of this figure...

all my life.

She wasn't too worried about the fact that...

the view from her back door was a scene

'of total devastation.'

These were standing right next to where the bomb dropped?

Yes, on a sideboard opposite the window, which was blown in.

Everywhere was covered in dust and grit and bits of stuff,

and the two figures were just standing there on the sideboard.

I've still got the sideboard and the figures.

-You know why they survived, don't you?

-I've no idea.

-It's cos they're German.

-Oh, really?

-Yes.

-I didn't know that.

It's remarkable that you're so close to a bomb

that takes up so many houses, you would expect a ceramic object

-would just be shattered by the impact.

-Yes.

But there they are, surviving.

'There's no rhyme or reason to whether or why...'

something survives. In my line,

ceramics clearly are going to get damaged in their lifetime.

Even during peacetime, houses still get the odd knock,

endangering your porcelain.

At St George's Hall

er, last year, I think it was, a lady sat down

and produced this fabulous, fabulous porcelain plaque.

Straight away, she was...

'She'd a real bubble about her. She was really, you know,'

you sort of try to hold people down, she was a giggler.

-SHE LAUGHS

-When I was about 13, which would be

about 20 years ago, a lorry hit our house...

-I beg your pardon?

-A lorry hit our house, we had an accident.

Yeah, I know! We lived

on a corner and a lorry hit, and the vibrations,

em, shook it off the wall.

'You sit there and think,'

"Lorry, impact, fallen off the wall,

"hit the floor, and here is this piece."

'And it was just the... She started laughing and I started laughing,

'because it should have shattered. It should be in pieces.'

And there it was, crisp as the day it was made.

And it's a late nineteenth-century tradition of painting on panels

that became very, very popular.

In terms of commercial appeal, for me, it's got everything.

I think that if it went up to auction,

it would carry a pre-sale auction estimate of...

-£2,000 to £3,000.

-Oh, OK.

But I actually think it's the kind of panel that, on a good day,

I wouldn't be surprised if it started to nudge into the 4,000 figure.

'Divine intervention?'

Was someone thinking, "It's not time for this one to bite the dust,"?

Not all ceramics lead such a charmed life,

but Henry Sandon thinks every pot deserves a second chance.

-It lacks the cover. You haven't got the cover?

-No.

-No.

'There was a wonderful Royal Worcester vase,'

painted with swans by Charlie Baldwin.

-Unfortunately, it's had a bad break. Did you break it?

-No.

'Well, Henry came across the room'

at Castle Ashby to have a look at it.

' "Oh, yes, lovely. Worcester," '

cos he likes Worcester. And he beamed, bless him!

-How did you come by it, then?

-We farm, and I took some scrap,

in the pick-up, to the scrap man.

It was raining, so I had a cup of tea in his little caravan,

and I passed comment on the beautiful colour...

And he said, "It was OK until my daughter dropped it."

'I said, "How much do you want for that?" '

He said, "No, you can have it, my duck, if you want it."

'And there it was. She saved it'

from just being smashed up, and bless her for doing that.

She had mended it, not terribly well mended.

She thought it was good mending, but it was quite well done.

-You know what this would be worth in perfect state?

-I haven't a clue.

Even without a cover, you're looking at several thousand pounds.

-Really?

-Yes. One of the great pieces of ceramics, this is!

-Is it, really?

-It's worth having it repaired.

-I've done it all right, haven't I(?)

-You've done a jolly good job!

'I didn't want to have it done professionally, because it was'

such a lovely story behind it,

and to have had it done professionally,

whereby there was no mark of the story, I thought would spoil it

for the children or grandchildren, whoever might have it later on.

We've seen near-misses from the Luftwaffe, lorries, clumsy children,

but your biggest enemy could be in your kitchen.

Do you put all of your pottery figures in the dishwasher?

Well, when they really need washing, they come up very nicely.

Dishwashers are one of the most horrible things invented. I mean,

if you put something in a dishwasher which is a good-quality porcelain,

say, particularly, you could strip off the gold, strip off the colours.

What an awful thing to do!

-You're teasing me about the dishwasher, aren't you?

-No, really.

LAUGHTER

Right, OK. OK, well... Er...

Well, I...I...I'm lost for words.

I wouldn't put it in a dishwasher any more. This is

a particularly tricky enamel, and it doesn't like going in the dishwasher.

You shouldn't put it the dishwasher. Please don't.

I once had the joy of going into the...

Buckingham Palace China pantry, where the keeper of the pantry,

who looks after all the Queen's porcelain, was washing up a service

in a big plastic bowl with warm, soapy water, washing it by hand,

treating it with loving care, and that will survive

for hundreds of years, but it wouldn't if he had a dishwasher!

The Queen has no dishwasher, I understand. God bless her for it.

A lesson for us all to take greater care of our precious objects.

That's about it for this edition. Next time we're reunited

with some of the most memorable characters in Roadshow history.

THEY SING THE STARSKY & HUTCH THEME TUNE

Former host Hugh Scully reveals his top finds

from 19 years with the show.

To find items like that, really... It was one of those things

that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

And David Batty confesses to a secret ceramic passion.

I find objects fascinating, whatever they are, I'm interested.

Before we go, ever wondered about the biggest reaction

from an owner on finding their humble possession

is worth a small fortune? Well, to be honest, we're still not sure,

but here are a few classics to choose from. Bye-bye.

-It's got to be £3,500.

-That's a lot of money!

-£4,000.

-Wow...!

# You know you make me want to shout

# Look, my hand's jumpin' Look, my heart's pumpin'

# Throw my head back... #

Gosh. Whoo...!

£20,000.

# ..Yeah, don't forget to shout Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Say you will... #

-You're joking!

-So it has warmed you up!

-Oh!

My children played with this when they were young!

-You're joking!

-No!

-Never!

-Yes.

-Good heavens!

-About £6,000 would be sensible.

-£4,000.

-Gosh!

-Wow!

-£4,000.

-That's what it was worth!

Wow!

Crumbs!

# All right! #

-Quite useful.

-Unbelievable!

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