Episode 13 Priceless Antiques Roadshow

So you think you know the Antiques Roadshow? Here's a trivia question.

Which ceramics expert is the son of a famous actor?

Just one of the things you'll learn on this edition of Priceless Antiques Roadshow.

Hello again from the archive of the Antiques Roadshow.

In today's show, stand by for surprises as we open our book of revelations.

-So as a lad you never took these screws off and looked what was underneath?

-No.

-You're not serious?

-I am serious.

-You've had it all this time.

-I have it... it must be 70 years now.

Three Roadshow experts go on a mission to hunt down bargain buys.

This just sums up everything you can think about 1950s and 1960 design.

It's like a UFO landed.

And Lars Tharp on his love-hate relationship with all things musical.

There is a conspiracy to point strange, unfamiliar,

unplayable, ridiculous musical instruments at me.

Some of the best moments on the Antiques Roadshow are when our experts reveal

things about an heirloom that the owner knew nothing about, and the bigger the surprise, the better.

Look at that,

isn't that amazing?

In 2005, one couple sought Tim Wonnacott's advice

about some inherited Oriental rugs.

Well, you would think that Captain Birch, having been an Army officer

and been in the Middle East, would have bought something in the Middle East

that came from the Middle East.

-Well, you would think so.

-Well, you'd be wrong.

One of the great joys, of course, is explaining something to someone

which surprises them.

This cannot be more Islamic looking as a cloth in all the wide world.

This is machine made in Brussels.

-Good heavens!

-It's a Belgian machine-made cloth,

made in Europe, sent to the Middle East and sold

in some souk, bought by the Arabs, or the visiting British military, and brought back to Wales.

I'm sorry about that, but that is the truth of the matter.

Well, that is absolutely marvellous.

This is what we have been trying to find out for years.

Tim comes along

and shatters all our dreams completely...

-I'm sorry!

-..and says the ruddy thing's made in Belgium!

It's wonderful when people bring things to the Roadshow, one of

the first questions they want to know is where it was made.

You look at it for two seconds and you say it was made in Germany, and they say, "How do you know?!"

And you say, "Actually, it says 'Made in Germany'",

and they think you're ever so clever.

The fact is that people live with these things

all their lives, and maybe all their parents' and grandparents' lives, and it has never been looked at.

I received it when I was probably about four, and the judge of that is

the fact that I could sit on it and with my little legs pedal along.

A case in point was the P2 Alfa Romeo that came into the Oban Roadshow.

A fabulous toy, a big toy, bright red.

An important toy, except it had been pushed out of shape by the owner's bottom.

It dates from the 1930s.

Now, you've got it in its traditional Italian racing colours,

the exhaust zipping out to the back here.

The big filler cap so that you could put the petrol in.

And it is extraordinary that he hadn't realised that it was, in fact, a clockwork toy.

When I said, "That's where you stick the key in..."

Here is the arbor where it would have been wound up with the key.

I take it you don't have the key?

Do you know, I never knew it had mechanical innards.

-You are not serious?

-I am serious.

-You've had it all this time.

-It must be about 70 years now.

I was the engine always.

-So as a lad you never took these screws off and looked and saw what was underneath?

-No.

It was a revelation to him.

It was a great moment, and I hope that it has now given him

years of enjoyment with it actually running around the living room.

I would have thought we were talking around about £1,200 to maybe £1,500.

When you get it home,

see if you can find a clock key to fit this and you'll never have to sit on it again.

Thank you.

But the best revelation of all is when an owner simply has no idea what they have on their hands.

David Battie will never forget a 17th century Delftware plate

which had been dug up in pieces on a London building site.

When I first saw the plate at the Mansion House my first reaction was, "oh, what a tragedy!"

But it was immediately replaced by the thought of, "Thank God he saved the bits".

Have you tracked down who this is?

No.

You don't know who it is? What did you think this was?

Just a couple of letters.

A couple of letters, OK.

It was a fascinating plate.

The thing about it was that not only is Delftware of that period quite uncommon,

but it was a Royal portrait.

That "I" stands for Iacobus - James.

And that DV is actually "DU", and there should be an X on the end - dux, "Duke".

This is when James II was Duke of York during the reign of Charles II.

And it was a rare Royal portrait...

he went on to become James II. You know, what more could you ask for?

This is about 1665,

so it's a very early plate.

The nice thing about it is that the portrait is so good.

Normally they are very cursory and really rather silly.

But that is actually quite sensitively done, and very rare.

The great thing about Delftware is that it can be restored

pretty much so that you can't tell there was ever a problem. And he didn't know what I was going to say.

He didn't know whether I was going to say put it back in another hole.

He was quite quiet to start with,

but the more I told him, you could see his excitement growing.

Although it's damaged,

this would be wanted desperately

by a museum...a London museum would want it, collectors would want it,

and I don't think...I mean, how much would you accept for it?

I don't know.

£20?

-No, I...

-£100? Come on, are you getting tempted?

-After the information you've given me...

-£500.

£1,000, £2,000?

I lay claim to being the first to do the mock auction method of pricing something.

In that particular case, I think it did work actually rather well,

better than other times I have done it.

£10,000?

Jeez.

I think it could make £10,000.

It's such a rare, desirable piece.

And he was amazed all the way through by what I was telling him.

David Battie certainly built up the tension with that valuation.

Acting skills run deep in some parts of the Roadshow team.

I can now reveal it is Fergus Gambon, part of our ceramics line-up,

whose father is Sir Michael Gambon,

and here is Fergus to tell us how he began collecting way back in his childhood.

I'm afraid I was a bit of a weird child.

I started buying porcelain at a very young age.

One of the collections I formed was a collection of English porcelain figures made in the 18th century.

This little chap reminds me of that collection.

He's Bow, which is a porcelain factory in London, and he was made in about 1760 or 1765.

He represents Pedrolino from the Commedia dell'Arte series.

He is just a beautiful, charming little Cockney sparrow, really.

I was born in London and I love him for the fact that he was made in London too.

This particular model was a model that I always wanted

and I spent years lusting after a Bow Pedrolino,

and one hadn't come on the market for a long time.

I saw it in the auction catalogue.

I was broke, I was a child, and I said to my mum and dad,

"If I don't have a birthday present and if I don't have a Christmas present,

"will you buy me the Bow Pedrolino?"

And they both looked kind of..."Hmmm..."

But after a while they said yes.

So I said to my mother, "How much can I bid up to, Mum?"

She looked me in the eye and said, "Fergus, I trust you.

"I trust you to be sensible".

So I went along to the sale and I sat down in the sale room and I stuck my hand up and I started bidding,

and I bid and I bid and I bid and I bid

until I got it for three times the auction house's presale estimate.

And I then went off, pre-mobile phone days, to a call box,

and I phoned my mum and I said, "Mum, I've just bought this figure".

There was a silence.

A long, long silence. Basically she didn't speak to me for a month.

And she didn't give me the figure, which she had to pay for, of course.

She didn't give me the figure for my birthday, and she didn't give me the figure for Christmas.

I got it a year later as a punishment for being such a greedy, unpleasant little child.

But it is a measure of how bad it can get when you really, really want something.

And do you know, Fergus still won't reveal what he paid for that first figure.

It must be a heck of a lot of pocket money!

Now, careful spending is very much a theme of our next feature.

We're asking three of our Antiques Roadshow team members to demonstrate their canny buying skills.

They have each got a budget of £75 to try and buy a collectable that has a useful function.

So let's see how they got on.

Let's meet the specialists, all of whom have a very distinctive style

and equally strong ideas about how best to combine beauty and practicality in one object.

First, there's the flamboyant Katherine Higgins, who loves anything with colour and texture.

Next is Steven Moore, whose eclectic taste means he isn't

afraid to experiment by mixing up different styles.

And finally we have Mark Hill, who has a talent for reinventing

items from overlooked eras to cut a thoroughly modern dash.

It was the famous 19th century designer William Morris who said, "Have nothing in your house

"that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful".

Today our experts have £75 to spend on something that fulfils both those criteria.

When you're thinking of buying something functional you might want to consider something electrical.

It's very important to make sure that it's going to be safe to use.

This lamp here, this 1950s lamp behind me, has been rewired and tested by a qualified electrician,

whereas this lamp here, which isn't for sale,

still carries its original two-core wiring, which hasn't got an earth.

It's important you don't buy something like that

because it's the responsibility of the dealer to make sure it has been rewired. You want to be safe.

At antiques fairs dealers often remove the wiring from old electrical items altogether.

This means an added cost to get them back in working order.

This is fantastic.

This just sums up everything you can think about 1950s and 1960s design.

It's like a UFO landed. Think of all those B-movies and fantastic science fiction movies

that were so popular in the 1950s and '60s.

It is a heater, so you would have it in your living room or hallway,

by a company called Sofono, and it was designed in 1959.

I have seen them sell for a lot more than the £20 price tag on this.

I'd love to buy it... I would love to own it and heat my house with it.

The only problem are these little bits of damage here, and a large bit of damage on the back.

I would like to see it in slightly better condition,

so I think, with enormous regret, I am going to leave this one.

Steven is always on the lookout for something that combines form with function.

This fulfils everything I've been talking about with antiques.

It's a 1950s Thermos flask.

You would fill it with water and then just put the cork lid in

to keep the water cold while you are having lunch or whatever.

You know, it's very elegant.

It could almost be based on the form of a Georgian coffee pot.

It's in practically new condition and it is £11.

It's not for me, but it's a bargain.

After his disappointment over the space-age heater, has Mark found something else to tickle his fancy?

This 1930s chandelier has really caught my eye.

It's made of brass with a cast phenolic, which is an early type of plastic from the 1920s and '30s

and effectively derived from Bakelite, I suppose, which was the first synthetic plastic.

This bright orange colour is typical of what you find today,

but originally it would have been much lighter, it would have been a creamy colour.

I actually quite like it because it reminds me of the 1930s, the age of jazz.

Adding a lighting feature like this is a fantastic way to add a period touch to a room.

I think for £65 it's an absolute bargain.

If this was in a design shop in central London, or somewhere like that,

I could easily see the price being £150, £200.

This is the sort of thing I mean... when you come to a fair like this, it's rainy, it is cold,

but every now and then you find a little gem just like this Art Deco light fitting.

Mark tells me that to have a 1930s light fitting rewired to present-day safety standards

will cost him a maximum of £50.

Not a bad price to pay for a working Art Deco design.

Now, has Katherine found what she's looking for?

This is what I have chosen as my functional item.

It's a piece of fabric, but not just any piece of fabric.

It's actually a curtain.

Personally, I think the pattern itself is very striking.

It's desperately post-war, 1950s, and the pattern title

is called Nautilus by a great screen printer designer called Mary Warren.

Fabric is something that's very underrated as a collectable and has tremendous potential.

The more that is being discovered about post-war fabric and textile design,

the more the price is set to increase.

A little bit of damage here and there, a little bit of discoloration on the side here,

but I am going to take that with a pinch of salt and anything that is left over I will turn into cushions.

It's priced at £75, which is just within my price range,

so I am going to go for it and watch it grow as a collectable.

Katherine and Mark have fulfilled the brief of beauty and practicality.

Can Steven make it a hat trick?

This has just got to be my functional item.

It has got great '60s styling, Regentone, brass Bakelite knobs, walnut veneer. I love it.

I know it may not be functioning now and it may not get High Definition,

but what a great wacky side table this is going to make.

It's £50. It's a wonderful piece of early technology,

and in a few years to come, these sort of things will be really sought after.

A bit of cleaning and polishing on it, a wash down, I love it.

It even comes with noddy dog.

Hmm, interesting choice.

Three very different approaches to the challenge from three very different specialists.

With some attention from a qualified electrician,

Mark's light fitting will make a splendid addition to any room.

Katherine's 1950s print fabric was right on budget

and is set to become a future classic.

I think Steven cheated with his defunct 1960s TV as side table

as he was supposed to find something functional,

but he reckons it's a real talking point.

Yes, a talking point. That's certainly one way of putting it.

One of the guaranteed longest queues at the Antiques Roadshow is to see

the picture team, and they must see hundreds of images every day.

We asked our art specialist Grant Ford to pick one of his more memorable Roadshow finds.

The Steeplechase by Sybil Andrews.

-Tell me where you found it.

-It was at a car boot.

-A car boot sale?

-A car boot sale, yes.

I hadn't seen really anything in the morning, and then suddenly

one of our reception staff turned up with this fantastic image by Sybil Andrews called The Steeplechase.

The wonderful thing about Sybil Andrews was that she was

particularly interested in Cubism and Futurism,

and with this particular print you get a real sense of strength and speed with the horses.

There was definitely a sense in this picture of machine-like movement,

real dynamism and great colour, too.

Three horses taking a hedge, but it was a stunning Modernist lino print,

a print but hugely collectable and very, very rare to find.

In 1918 she was working in a factory as a welder,

so she really got the sense of the machine age.

It was the most exciting thing to find this particular print,

because the print wasn't produced in large numbers

and the gentleman who had brought it in had bought it at a car boot sale for £4.

What drew you to the picture at this car boot sale?

Well, the simplicity and the colours and the movement that is depicted, and the subject as well.

So do you visit many car boots?

I did do at one time, yes. Not any more.

-You think this could be valuable?

-No, I just liked it.

Well, it is marked 32 out of 50, so it is a limited edition.

It is a well-known image, a rare image,

and the sort of image that is very sought after at the moment.

-It is worth about £5,000 to £8,000.

-Blimey, you're joking!

Not a bad boot buy, that, was it?

Thank you very much.

Yes, I'd be pretty happy if I'd picked that up at a car boot.

If you are musically inclined, stand by to cover your ears!

SHE PLAYS "AVE MARIA" BY GOUNOD

Yes, I think definitely a bit more practice required.

A lot of musical instruments turn up at our shows and there are

one or two candidates on the team who always seem to end up with them,

but perhaps that's because they have more than a passing interest in the subject.

It's a shame that not more people bring in musical instruments.

I would love to see somebody bring in a good old drum kit one day.

That would be fun, because they are nearly an antique now.

The other experts have to be pretty quick off the mark

if they want to beat Lars Tharp to the valuation of a musical instrument,

especially if it's something out of the ordinary.

You tell me about this.

He called it his musical glasses.

I think he paid between £40 and £60 for them, which for a canny Scot

and a farmer 30-35 years ago was quite a lot.

The secret is not necessarily to have the glasses wet but to have your fingers wet.

Well, we've got what looks like two octaves.

HE PLAYS "AULD LANG SYNE"

Wrong note.

-Well, done, well done.

-They recognised it!

Even though he's a classically trained musician,

Lars can't resist the challenge of anything that makes a noise.

There is no doubt that there is a conspiracy at the reception

to point strange, unfamiliar, unplayable, ridiculous musical instruments at me.

At Chartwell a woman brings in an extraordinary Victorian multi-horned

object, which I'm sure was put together by some Victorian plumber.

It's a car horn, isn't it? That's what it is.

It's obviously the German secret weapon in the Oompah Band.

What do you call this?

I don't know, that's what I came here to find out.

That was quite fun. It took about half an hour to climb out of it.

The greatest cruelty I have ever inflicted on the great British public was, I think, in Inverness.

It was an interesting instance because the Scottish public who were around me,

watching this Sassenach destroying their national instrument...

BAGPIPES SCREECH

APPLAUSE

They actually started clapping before I had finished in order to stop me!

BOOGIE-WOOGIE

Music is rhythm, and rhythm is in everything we do.

But it's been quite a while since John Bly has had a chance to show off his musical prowess.

What a nice, evocative sight...

you would really think it's coming from that big organ up there.

It's a long time since I've tinkled the ivories on the programme.

In fact it's 1981, and there were two harmoniums.

It was great fun, actually. I played one, poor old wheezy thing.

I'm amazed to see how young I was.

They're still not very valuable, but for insurance, anywhere between £200 and £300.

My playing keyboards

was before Lars joined the show,

and he's a better pianist than I am by far, so I think anything that

comes in with a keyboard now he will play, and justifiably so, too.

-It's not bellows, is it, it's a glockenspiel.

-Is it?

Yes, it's a xylophone.

But it's with stringed instruments that Lars really excels.

I have been playing the cello since I was eight years old.

The cello is actually something that is quite close to my heart.

You wouldn't think so if you heard me play it, but it is.

So whenever a cello comes in I really am quite interested.

The owners of this beautiful cello produced documentation

which suggested it had been made for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III,

at the end of the 18th century.

"A trio of stringed instruments were made by Norris and Barnes around 1790 for the Queen of England."

And the man writing this letter

-thinks that this instrument is one of those three.

-One of those three.

I can't contain my excitement.

Now hang on, just hang on.

Stringed instruments of the violin family, potentially, are very, very valuable.

It was a very special cello. You only had to look at it to realise that.

I do travel in my car with my very poor second-rate cello bow.

Will you let me have a go on it?

Be my guest.

I remember as soon the first notes were played,

I recognised it straight away.

John whispered to me and he said, "That's a piece that my mum used to play",

and it meant so much more to me.

I thought, "That's a wish granted".

I'd waited 50 years to hear that instrument being played.

I never thought I would. It was a beautiful sound.

Well, it is a beautifully mellow tone.

With a letter like that it would take weeks, if not months, of research to try to find out whether this was

indeed an instrument made for the Royal family, so I can't give you an answer to that.

But I can tell you that a late 18th century English cello of this calibre, this quality,

will generally on the market today not sell for much less than £20,000.

So that is a starting point. Now if we were to discover that that letter was right

and this cello had a Royal association, then we start adding more and more value to it.

I would like to verify that Royal connection if ever we can,

but nobody really wants to know about that.

They sort of dismiss it as a bit of fiction, as it were.

We've met a rather a blank wall, really.

So we're living in hope.

He wasn't too shabby at the cello, was he, Lars?

And he was responsible for introducing another musical interlude to the Antiques Roadshow.

A bit less melodic. Yes, it's the curse of the mobile phone interrupting the action.

Here's the first recorded incident.

And Bunny comes over to me in her impressive raincoat and says, "Help me out, Lars, with this Latin."

She'd got a lantern which had a Latin inscription on it.

It's a long time ago since I did Latin O level,

and then suddenly the cameraman said, "We've got to record this now".

I teach...

so teach or illuminate...

And I start sort of hamming it up with what little Latin I had. In the middle of all of this suddenly...

I illuminate the shadows.

And I think,

"Oh, no, I've left my mobile phone on! I'll just muddle through... they won't hear it".

PINK PANTHER RINGTONE It's so simple, like everything when you know how.

But of course the volume went up and up and up and up.

Someone's got the Pink Panther...

-It's not mine.

-Not mine.

-In the end I had to come clean.

It must be mine.

Oh, no!

And it was all downhill from there.

Stand by for the first performance of the Antiques Roadshow orchestra.

Is that a cantata? More a cacophony. Goodbye.

MOBILE RINGS I'm so sorry, that's my pocket.

Is it?!

I've got the Antiques Roadshow playing.

It was my son who put it on. Yes, I believe you.

RINGING How do I turn this thing off?

-MOBILE RINGS

-Sorry, that's my mobile phone.

I can't believe that.

-MOBILE RINGS I am so sorry!

-That is so poor!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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