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Antiques Roadshow Season 48 Episode 9
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00:00today we're in the North London suburb of Finchley set within its own park this imposing Victorian
00:10mansion is Stevens house it was once the home of Henry Stevens whose nickname was inky because he
00:18made a fortune from the stuff Stevens Inc was invented in 1832 and it was a bit of a sensation
00:24because not only did it flow beautifully from nib to paper but also it was indelible before that ink
00:33was pretty rudimentary Jane Austen made her own Robbie Bairns used beer coming up I've got a great
00:42spot for her at home I know exactly where I put out enjoy it or sell it sell it these are the stuff
00:51the dreams are made on welcome to the Antiques Roadshow
01:21I'll tell you a little secret we love seeing a leather box that has a bit of age to it and has
01:30some decoration over the top and then we think what could be inside when I held this I thought whoa
01:39this is heavy so that was excitement in itself please tell me the story of how you've got this
01:45my father bought it for my mother about 30 35 years ago I think they were out shopping and saw
01:51something beautiful apart from that we know very little about it so your father just just bought
01:56it for no special occasion he must have been in trouble I assume he's trying to earn some brownie
02:03points well he certainly had an eye for beauty I'm going to pick up the bracelet oh my goodness it's
02:12seamless it is absolutely gorgeous you felt it have you felt it and I do I do adore it I think
02:19it's stunning I mean the manufacture is is superb the craftsmanship and you know we've really got to
02:25protect the craft today and so it's so lovely to see something that is so beautifully made now the marks
02:33on the back here the hallmarks are telling me it's 18 karat gold and it has the Garrard and Co
02:40hallmark it also has an import mark okay so this particular bracelet was retailed by Garrard not made
02:50by Garrard it would have been made from maybe Italy from one of the main manufacturers of chains and
02:58bracelets what's also interesting is that inside the label here the Garrard and Co and that's 112 Regent Street
03:05and they moved there in the early 50s and that ties in really well with the date of the bracelet so
03:13together it has that complete story and because it has got this wonderful sort of almost matte finish
03:22together with its movement I can imagine wearing it and just feeling really special in it how did you
03:28see your mum wearing it I did see my mum wearing it quite a bit it wasn't a daily piece I can assure
03:34you of that so it's I mean it's just beautiful I thought it was stunning yes well you're absolutely
03:37right and gold has never been so high so you've got the combination of a beautiful bracelet a high gold
03:45price and a great retailer thank you who was the crown jewelers yeah and so at auction you would be
03:55looking I would say in the region of about eight ten thousand pounds that's good news I think my
04:06daughter's got her eye on it I think her love for it's got greater than my getting the money for it so
04:11I think she will win oh that's good I like that yes don't sell it enjoy it thank you so much I really
04:16appreciate it my mother Christine she's come with me today she's very excited I just looked at it
04:24and my husband knew me so well but yes he knew I liked it absolutely would like to give it to our
04:32daughter it's from grandma it's been in the family there's a lovely story behind it and if she can have
04:36it and enjoy it we would be thrilled
04:37well 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the art deco movement that incredible design statement that
04:56came out of the 1925 Paris exhibition and here before us I think is something that really sums it up in one
05:03fabulous moment but before we start revealing more about this incredible figure tell me how does she
05:09come to be in your life well about ten years ago we went to an antiques fair up in North London actually
05:15Alexandra Palace and a family of French dealers had come across a channel with this lady in a box and
05:21they open the box and two of them lifted it out and put it on the table and that was it Diana the
05:28Huntress what did you pay for if you don't mind me asking I pay the time I paid actually 595 pounds 10
05:35years ago the dealers actually said to me that they weren't sure that it was by the famous art deco
05:41sculptor Oriano whose full name is Ugo Cipriani he didn't always sign his sculptures they thought it could
05:49well be but they couldn't prove it well Ugo Cipriani is a name to be conjured with born in 1897 in
05:56Florence born within a family of artists there were sculptors his father you know siblings around
06:02him it was noted that in 1935 there or thereabouts he actually left Italy being mindful of the rise of
06:08fascism the rise of Mussolini and actually parked himself very firmly in Paris in the city of light
06:15in a city that for the previous ten years had embraced art deco and he'd already been working in
06:21this style and boy look at it it's fantastic so is it by him well as you say look at the fall look
06:28at the drive look at the dimensions even down to the finish here this fabulous detail coming down into
06:36this just this drape of fabric there is nothing here that is unnecessary but everything here that remains
06:43is completely and utterly valid I'm going to absolutely agree and say that I think it is by
06:51Cipriani the other thing that's worth noting is the fact that she has not been touched so many times we
06:59see these figures nowadays they've been polished tampered re-enameled refinished yes there's areas of
07:05lovely gentle wear there's bits but everything is exactly as I want to see it and this wonderful bow
07:12here again made of horn absolutely fabulous well done I'm in a great spot thank you very much talking
07:20of great spots I've got a great spot for her at home I know exactly I know exactly where I put
07:25that well it cost you five hundred and ninety five pounds ten years ago and I would argue that was
07:32at a time when the art deco market was a little bit lower than it is now I think in today's market
07:39we're looking at a piece worth in the region of fifteen hundred pounds okay well that's fantastic and
07:44everybody bought it to see the appreciation in value I loved it I show no mantelpiece I love it as well
07:50and I can see why you did thank you very much for bringing it along thank you very much so it's a
08:00warm day here in London but as you pulled this beautiful 18th century logbook out of your bag
08:07I felt the shiver of a sea breeze run over me could you tell me where it came from it was found in the
08:12attic of my partner's house near London so we brought it down to North Devon when he retired
08:20and the book got mislaid and couldn't find it in the house sadly he passed away last year and a
08:29further search we found this book he was really interested in the book and it was sad that he
08:35didn't have the opportunity to do it so we just wanted to to make sure that we found out more about
08:40it this is a logbook for a ship called the Triton now the Triton was what's known as an East India
08:50moon which is small fast clipper ship that was owned by the East India Company a private corporation who
08:58had enormous power in the 18th century world a logbook records essentially the weather any particular
09:06instances that happen on the ship and gives you a kind of general sense of the daily happenings of
09:12a ship of this nature at this point in time towards the end of the 18th century we're in what we now
09:19know as the age of revolution there is so much activity and movement that as these ships move through
09:25the waters of the South Atlantic the Indian Ocean the China Sea they're constantly coming into contact
09:33with other vessels with whom they are at war but one of the things that I think it's important to
09:39remember is the experience of a sailor on board a ship like this I think it was a really really hard
09:45life yeah it's Sunday February the 24th 1793 we are off the coast of Madras at 8 p.m. we can find
09:55Samuel Adams recruit for drunkenness and making a disturbance on the all-up deck so discipline is
10:03you know you have to keep ship shape what do we do with a drunken sailor
10:07and then a bit of a darker turn a few pages later here this is Sunday March 10th 1793 the Triton
10:20towards Madras Samuel Harrington recruit at 6 p.m. committed his body to the deep and performed divine
10:28service so you know it's a really risky business so there's one final surprise that this logbook has
10:33for us which if you skip to the very end what you see are a series of rather beautifully delicate
10:40coastal views wow wow so this is Prince of Wales Island which is currently known as Penang in Malaysia
10:48down here we have a view of Fort Cornwallis and you can see these ships just so delicately depicted
10:57all the way along the coastline with the little trees behind them also we have this illustrated
11:05quarter bill so this tells you everyone who's on the ship the commander Captain Philip Bernute
11:12and then you get these two rather nice mermen at the top here and would that have all been written
11:18on the ship that's a very good question it probably would have been written on the ship which is quite an
11:22amazing thing to consider if you're using a quill pen and being buffeted around by the oceans it's such
11:28a beautiful thing I'm really grateful for you bringing it along I think if this was to come up at
11:33auction I would expect it to fetch a price in the region of £2,000 wow that's amazing amazing do you know
11:42what you're going to do with it now I think you wanted to go to a museum possibly yeah yeah my late
11:48partner would like it would have liked it to go to somewhere where people would see it I think
11:54that's a really nice idea thank you that's so colorful it's a swimsuit first of all I thought there
12:11won't be any other swimsuits here I think you're right and secondly I thought it was so photogenic
12:17and colorful it's even got its original label on it I mean it must date from the 1950s yes and it's
12:26immaculate I bought it in a car boot sale how much in 1991 I paid 50p 50p yes your 50 pence is
12:37definitely 50 pounds now I think you've got an absolute gem there you know there's only one
12:43thing for it it's gonna have to have an outing I don't know thank you for grabbing your swimsuit
12:53today I bring it in thank you so when I saw this my heart skipped a beat a little bit because I've
13:09seen lots of these but not one as nice as this do you know what it is no assume it's brass I've no
13:15idea what it is my first thought was that it was Middle Eastern yeah you're not far off and it is
13:21brass it's a you are called an after bar from Mughal India for pouring water into a basin probably ritual
13:29hand-washing and so on and you know how old it is no idea 18th century well it's probably about 250
13:37years old so tell me why you brought it here and where you got it from it was found by a friend of
13:45my father's who was a builder yes when he was doing some building work in London just after the war so
13:52about 1950 ish yeah when I was a small boy when there were bomb sites and things exactly yes I used to
13:58play on them unfortunately yeah so did I I was told not to but I was told not to and I did too and he
14:05unearthed it it was black and dirty and crusted really he didn't want it and gave it to my father
14:11I'm really shocked that this was buried and you'd have thought if it was buried in rubble it would
14:17have got dented or scratched you have typical Indian Mughal design these simple plant-like depictions
14:27engraved in the brass and this is cast and hand engraved all over this is a mythical beast a Makara and
14:38this beast here which I think is a tiger goes back hundreds of years and you see them sometimes sitting
14:47upright as feet on vessels like this on bowls but this actually is mouth is holding the handle on to
14:56the year it has gravitas and presence one like this if it came up in auction I think it would easily
15:04make 1500 pounds well really it's not going anywhere thank you so much for bringing welcome
15:11the artwork that I bought today is a ceramic tiled artwork that I found in my loft when I bought my house
15:29the style of it isn't really my thing but I love something that's got a story behind it so if it's
15:34got a great story then I could I can love it this is such an intriguing item from a distance it kind
15:51of looked like just a wall of tiles but when you get up close you realize it is a wall of tiles but
15:58actually each individual little tile is totally different they've all been individually made and
16:06they all have very very different designs so it was about two seconds away from being thrown in the tip
16:13until we just something in the back of our mind said maybe don't take it home few I know glad you didn't
16:21put it into a tip because it's actually a really distinctive piece of work it's by an artist called
16:29Ron Hitchens and Ron is one of those amazing characters that he was actually good at loads and loads of
16:37different things he's probably most well known actually as a flamenco dancer but this is part of his
16:44sort of artistic side he wasn't formally trained but he was an apprentice engineer and so he really
16:52learned how to be very precise and so this is something that he probably created in and around
17:00the 60s it's quite fun to think how he made them as I say these he made them out of clay and then
17:07they'd be fired so that they would then you know get really hard and then to get this different effect
17:14of colour he used Indian ink and then polish and that's why if you get up close you can see they
17:21actually do have quite a sort of shiny effect to the surface I just find them quite mesmerising
17:28because they feel like a bit of a mixture between little machine objects and I wonder whether that's
17:35him thinking back to his sort of engineering days but they also feel quite exotic they sort of feel
17:41like they could be kind of Aztec or Mexican and then when you put it all together I love it there's
17:47there's there's so many different little details where do you have it hanging at home at the moment
17:53it's just leaning up in the living room it's not even hanging somewhere which I know is awful to say
17:57do you like it it maybe isn't my style um I don't know I might like it after um today
18:04so I'm really glad you didn't throw it out in the tip because it's a sort of object that were
18:11it to come at auction today we'd probably put an estimate in in around six to eight hundred pounds
18:16nice so do you like it now I like it a little bit more now yeah
18:21in the grounds of stephen's house is this rather unusual public bench with a bronze
18:33life-size replica of one of britain's greatest comedians and a local resident and he is
18:39see they all know him here spike milligan milligan's career began in radio in the 1950s
18:48starring alongside peter sellers and harry seekham in the goon show a series that captured
18:54the public imagination with its surreal humor although some of his work wouldn't be acceptable
19:00today his anarchic influence on british comedy can still be felt milligan lived in finchley in fact he
19:10was part of the organization involved in the upkeep of stephen's house and after he died many of his
19:15possessions were brought here to the lodge this unusual collection is looked after by spike's
19:24daughters sheila and jane jane and sheila how lovely to meet you both the goon show is something of course
19:33that lots of us associate spike milligan with you've got some scripts i believe they are scripts that
19:39belong to the three boys who were the main goons peter harry and spike so peter sellers
19:44again that's harry seekham that's right and then of course there's michael bentin as michael bentin who
19:48i sort of had i think had left by then but during downtime they were doodling on the other side of their
19:53script so you've got uh harry's strange sketch of spike um that's obviously harry's script and then
20:02all my idea by spike which is was probably obviously weren't concentrating what they should have been
20:07doing at the time like bad school boys i love the idea i mean obviously it was just such a kind of crazy
20:13sense of humor no one had had anything like it and there they are doing all these extraordinary
20:17drawings and using themselves in between did he talk to you ever about his time in the goon show
20:23yes and no i mean i think he saw it as quite a difficult and tough time for him because it was
20:27writing writing writing but he also said it was the greatest thing he'd ever done i only know spike
20:32milligan of course as the public figure what was he like as a dad he used to pass on so much to us
20:38as children with fairy stories and fairy letters which jane's got some examples along yeah i suppose
20:46there's another side of him that a lot of people don't know but but they were as far as we were
20:51concerned they were from the fairy king and queen and where did you find these letters as children if
20:56you had a tooth loose and it went under the pillow you'd get a little a little letter with it oh and
21:01look it says from fairyland dear jane tonight we were sitting around a glow worm trying to keep warm
21:08when our king and queen told us they had a message from a twinkly star saying there was a wonderful
21:13surprise for us at your house i mean that is adorable what was a surprise well often we get
21:18like a birthday present from the fairy king and queen it would be like well actually that particular
21:22thing was a little gold bird cage that was wrapped up in tissue paper in a flower at the end of the
21:27garden he was a great collector as well wasn't he i mean look at all this stuff around yes he liked an
21:33antique tell me about this because this is intriguing well this i think he bought in an auction some
21:39point in the 50s or 60s and it's actually a penguin egg and it says on it from shackleton's expedition
21:46to the pole and it's got in pencil one of two here which i understand that they wrote in pencil
21:56because ink would freeze and why would a penguin's egg from shackleton's expedition appeal to your dad
22:03oh well he had paintings and archaeology he liked weird and wonderful things so you've got these
22:12tapes here we have the goon show what's the plan with these digitize because there are some unheard
22:18rehearsals there so it could be fun maybe we'll unearth something that uh has never been heard before
22:25i've so enjoyed hearing about this is a character i grew up with yeah as a child you know my father
22:30loved spike milligan yeah fascinating to meet you both thank you so much thank you fiona
22:46every so often you just get that lovely thing that arrives on our table and when you were unpacking
22:52this i just you know immediately i just see a corner of it i can't wait to see the rest of that
22:57how have you come by it so this is my father's mother's it was in their house when i was a child
23:02i know literally nothing about it it was something i loved and actually had said that to her she passed
23:08away about 12 years ago and it's mine and it sits on the mantelpiece good well we can tell you a little
23:12bit about it first of all it's japanese and it's lacquer so the construction is wood but then there's gold
23:18lacquer over the top of that wood and what it is importantly is it's a small cabinet but the japanese
23:24call that a cadansu okay and this type of small cabinet was meant for keeping your precious items
23:30your money jewelry or indeed sort of perfumes because they're often referred to as perfume cabinets
23:38if we pick it up we just see it's got this lovely decoration which continues all the way
23:46around the sides if i hold that door it's also beautifully decorated on the top as well if we
23:56just slide open that door there which is a bit we can see a little bit rickety but we can see inside
24:01you've got those the drawers where you'd keep your precious little objects what i was taken and which
24:07is probably the same for you actually is just a the condition of it is so good when one considers that
24:13this was probably made in the latter part of the 19th century during the sort of meiji period in japan
24:21it would have almost certainly been made for exports it would have been made for this sort
24:26of western market there was a huge appetite for all things japanese all things exotic so they were
24:32making quite a lot of this type of wear and they were very proficient at it they were very good at it
24:37even the hinges and the lock the escutcheon over here all of that has got engraved decoration when they
24:43were putting this together it was done with great expertise but you know a great deal of sort of
24:47passion and love and consideration so you've no idea of kind of value um i thought it was in quite a
24:55rickety shape because you know it's sort of the doors is hanging off and that so i know i mean at all
25:00i mean i literally know i did you're missing a few pins okay that can that can be done it fixed you
25:05could get it fixed okay you know there'll be conservators out there of this type of object
25:11don't just go and get something from you know a well-known hardware store and start banging nails
25:16into it don't do that it's a very easy fix and it doesn't detract from its value at all as i say you
25:22know anybody that bought that a good collector would just go and get that repaired i will say that the
25:27japanese market maybe is not quite as strong as the chinese market when it comes to this type of wear
25:33having said that easily at auction i could see that little box making between a thousand to fifteen
25:39hundred pounds gosh no no concept of that at all well it's not going anywhere no well it stays on
25:46the shelf it's so beautiful thank you lovely thanks thank you just six miles from stephen's house
25:53is wembley stadium and 40 years ago in 1985 it was the site of legendary charity concert live aid
26:02after the show many of the show's stars gathered at a mayfair nightclub
26:05and claire tolmore has spotted an intriguing souvenir of that night
26:12well i just have to start by saying i love a guest book because you just never know whose
26:17names you're going to find in it and this particular one looks like a bit of a gem
26:22but before i dive into some of the names included how did you come to get this yeah well my partner
26:28who owned this book in 1970 to 1980s he was running legends nightclub okay so legends club in mayfair
26:37right and they held the after party yes for live aid yes but in fact it was daniela's daniela's idea
26:43it must have sister ah yes that's why you say daniela here live aid raised over 100 million pounds for
26:50charity and was broadcast live via the bbc to almost 2 billion viewers across 150 countries
26:57and this is what happened at the after party right so if we have a little closer look we can
27:02see some attendees at the party we can see george michael was there george michael we can see andrew
27:07ridgely and it keeps going if we turn the page we've got a signature for bob geldoff
27:13and a really large uh signature for cliff richard yes and cliff richard made an appearance at the
27:17after party even richard actually saying life and you've also got this letter and this is a thank you
27:23to the organizers of the art of party thanking them for their support and it's signed by none other
27:29than bob geldoff and harvey goldsmith no you know men who were crucial in making live aid happen and so
27:37to have this memento from that special day is really really remarkable if you were to take it to
27:42auction you'd be looking at an estimate in between a thousand to fifteen hundred i might have to kick
27:48this because it's really a press list it's peace isn't it it's um something for for the family
27:55so today i've brought in a painting that has been hanging in my home my parents home my grandparents
28:10home for a really long time i think i'd really just like to know just more about the painter and
28:15where it comes from that would be really fun to find out about i'm really glad you brought this in
28:28because this is a really perfect example of an of a work that's a bit of a conundrum because it looks
28:3319th century yeah but actually it's a 20th century artist frank cadogan cowper was working in the first
28:39half of the 20th century so how did you come by it my great grandmother she was brought up in
28:45boston she got married came over for her honeymoon pre-world war one and she would have bought it when
28:50she was here and then brought it back to america okay so cowper has always been known as the last of
28:55the pre-raphaelites and the pre-raphaelite brotherhood was a group of english artists its main
29:02artists were john everett mille and dante gabriel rossetti and they were really themselves harking back to
29:10the italian renaissance they focused a lot on detail and a lot of the subjects were literary
29:17and religious yeah so cowper took this on in the 20th century and i find it really interesting this is
29:22a time of massive change in the arts we've got picasso and matisse and yet we have an artist here
29:28who is holding true to his own vision and continuing with this absolutely fantastic pre-raphaelite style work
29:36what about it do you like i've always liked the colors i sort of like that little red dot and i
29:41like the blue and just the way that the light sort of hits it and the color combinations are really
29:47beautiful it's absolutely fantastic isn't it and capa would often have the whole story in one scene
29:52do you know what the scene is so i think it's ophelia i think that's hamlet i'm not sure exactly but it
29:58doesn't look like a happy scene he would always include a lot of symbolism in his work so that people
30:03could work it out yeah so i think the beads probably pay a part in it and even that reflection
30:08of the spinning wheel i mean that's there for a reason have you have you had it valued before no
30:13okay so my feeling is subject to seeing it out the frame and checking for the condition i would
30:21suggest it's worth something in the region of 12 to 18 000 pounds oh my okay all right that is more
30:29than i expected a nice surprise yeah that's lovely oh my gosh i love it well i loved it anyway so yeah
30:36thank you so much my pleasure it's really lovely to see it
30:46i love this clock it's really colorful and really stylish isn't it where did you get it from
30:50so it was passed down my family by my grand to my mom to me and my grandmother loved antiques so do
30:57you know the name of the person that designed this archibald knox absolutely spot on and he was a
31:02really really famous designer and he designed for liberty of london a really beautiful department store
31:10which of course is still there um and this is what we call an arts and crafts clock because it's a very
31:16particular sort of style we could also see several markings on the back there says made in england and
31:24the number there is 0609 objects like this that have that number basically tie in to a list of design
31:33registration numbers with the dates next to them and i know that that is for 1905. i think it's a rather
31:40wondrous little thing do you really love it yeah i like that it's got quite colorful and intricate
31:46designs what if i were to tell you this is worth one and a half thousand pounds wow that was a nice
31:55thing for granny to leave you wasn't it yeah so thank you for bringing it today thank you thank you
32:00sapphire and diamond brooch mounted in gold pendant pearl so what do you think it is well my mother
32:15was had very nice jewelry she had a fabergé piece but she thought this was fabergé as well yes but i've
32:23always thought it doesn't look anything like a fabergé well it does a little bit but yes no it obviously
32:29russian and i had a little look at it earlier on and i looked very carefully at the marks so this is
32:36and shakespearean terms a rose by any other name would smell as sweet i think that's romeo and juliet
32:43isn't it don't ask me i'm from new york these are probably the same hands that fabergé employed to
32:52make his jewelry and by another firm now i had a little look earlier with a very strong lens
32:59and i did find a maker's mark on it he's called vasily finnikoff yes it's good isn't it and
33:07and vasily finnikoff was a highly distinguished jeweler working in st petersburg let's examine it
33:13quite carefully so here we've got a pearl pendant here and diamonds in the leaves but what's important
33:19here is the sapphires are cut to fit the composition rather than sort of taken in arbitrarily and so that
33:26helps the eye understand what this is all about it's a sort of ivy leaf if you like in sapphires and
33:32diamonds what's also interesting about finnikoff as a retailer of very fine jewelry is that he had
33:40attracted the patronage of nicholas and alexandra yes oh yes it was a time of immense wealth and privilege
33:49and of course that led to the russian revolution and the demise of the romanovs and so this is a
33:56tiny souvenir of a very strange sort of claustrophobic moment in european history after the revolution
34:04people fled russia and they brought small portable things out they may have brought this out that way
34:10we'll never ever know it might have been bought in new york yes well that was a place where russian
34:17emigres went and so perhaps that's where it was sold it's a fantastic thing i absolutely love it
34:23unfortunately would be more valuable if it was by faberge we could talk in tens of thousands of
34:30pounds but now we've got forced into the position of valuing this thing at a very modest seven to eight
34:38thousand pounds that's amazing okay that's not yeah that's all right is that all right yes i'll go
34:47with that you'll go with that i don't think i'll ever sell it but no it's marvelous thing that's
34:52fantastic nice thank you very much lovely really brilliant
34:58our venue today stevens house and gardens was transformed thanks to the riches earned from bottles
35:05of ink its owner henry stevens built the biggest ink factory in the world not far away in highbury and
35:13because the ink formula was waterproof and didn't fade it was made mandatory for many official documents
35:20today i have the chance to dip into the history of all things inky with fuchsia vorenberg
35:27future you're our books and manuscript specialist we see you talking about these things on the roadshow
35:31all the time ink though is a hobby of yours as well well look there's no books or manuscripts without
35:38ink you can't print without ink you can't write without ink so it's such a treat to come to this
35:42property that was built on a fortune that ink literally rose and the ink was kept in these
35:47bottles for a particular reason yes so ink is generally photosensitive and you don't want your
35:53ink to be exposed to sunlight these bottles would protect the color of the ink the complex chemical
35:59composition and some of our finest makers made these bottles this was known as dalton of lambeth at
36:05the time became royal dalton and they made these i think they're really attractive and i can see one
36:11sitting on my mantelpiece at home maybe with a flower in it or a quill i mean here we have 2 000
36:16years of writing history the quill is a beautiful bit of natural technology produced for us by the birds
36:22but as you write a document the end would slowly wear down and as you dip it in the ink it would grow
36:29soggy so you can often see as a quill is kind of wearing down in in the passage of writing a document
36:36and then in the early 1800s nibs came along it's pretty amazing once you can create these precise
36:43steel nibs suddenly it becomes a lot easier to write a document and then people's homemade ink
36:50didn't flow so nicely through these nibs homemade ink which was a kind of kitchen chemistry was often
36:56made out of oak galls which you could probably find on the trees in the park around here what are they
37:02so an oak gall is a kind of growth that happens near the leaf of an oak tree and it is created by a
37:09parasitic boss who knew who knew indeed so we go from the quill to metal nibs which takes us to a pen
37:16like this i know that's a really handsome writing implement and you still had to dip the pen in the
37:21ink at this point until the fountain pen came along which would have a reservoir or an ink cartridge
37:28these letters here are from one of our greatest writers charles dickens now i've assumed that he's
37:35writing at least with one of these but actually that wasn't the case was it i'm really excited to
37:40share these letters with you that i have borrowed from a friend of mine now they're written in 1862
37:46it's two letters from charles dickens and even though this is in a period where he could have been
37:53writing with a steel nibbed pen so he could have been writing with something like this exactly like that
37:57his preference was to write with a quill pen so that was just a peculiarity of his writing habits
38:03dickens might have been a traditionalist when it came to pens but as these letters reveal he embraced
38:08new ink formulations writing his later manuscripts and letters in blue ink rather than black the really
38:15nice thing about this letter is that he's writing to a bookseller just like me and he is saying can you
38:20recommend me any collection of remarkable escapes from prison or perils of other kinds also any generally
38:27interesting and good miscellaneous for chance reading so he's asking for book recommendations
38:33and you can see that it really flows across the page and then just accentuates the flourishes at the
38:39end of his signature i find it extraordinary having written with the quill at the beginning of this
38:45program that he could get it as fine as that it is pretty amazing but you have to remember that he's
38:50receiving 60 to 80 letters a day how fascinating i've learned so much about the history of ink today
38:55being here at stephen's house thank you fuchsia
39:10this is an interesting chair isn't it it is i love it and why did you bring it along today
39:20for no particular reason only that it's been in my family forever and we know nothing about it the
39:25jury's out on this particular item because we don't know whether they were actually apprentice pieces
39:30or whether they were tradesmen samples to say this is what i can make
39:35and i can make you a larger version chair itself is what we called a 17th century charles ii walnut
39:43open armchair cane seat and back standing on a ganda a spanish foot and at one stage it had
39:52like a varnish over it and you can see in places it looks like a black and then it's chipped off
40:00you can see another layer of wood all these different layers the other thing which i
40:04admire about it is the wicker work and this is incredibly fine yeah and of course it's all been
40:10hand done it needs a bit of a clean it's got the original dust on it well that's very honest of you
40:19but i'll be going back to king charles ii quite possibly it's not my strong point okay now i take your
40:28point going back to the back here there is damage this would have been more finely carved and it would
40:35have been a crest in rail about this high and a little wear and tear on the seat here so this needs
40:42some tlc okay but nevertheless in this condition i'm quite happy to say this is worth between three and
40:50five thousand pounds that's a bit of a surprise a good surprise extraordinarily good yeah it's beautiful
41:01absolutely beautiful and you've made my day seeing this i've made mine bless you thank you
41:07this is a really good looking rocking horse that you've brought in
41:20how long have you known it so i've known it from a child it belonged to my grandfather
41:25so he played on it as a child around what date was that so he was born in 1904
41:31um so he was one of six children so i think it had been in the family probably from before he was
41:38born i wonder if it could have accommodated every single child of those we were told that three of
41:43them used to sit on it but not all six that would have been a bit much well one's eyes instantly
41:48caught by all the carving but in fact the first thing i've homed in on is the date that's at the
41:55bottom here it's a patent for january the 29th 1880. now in fact a lot of early rocking horses were on
42:05those very big beautiful bowed rockers but this was obviously a patented safety stand and in fact
42:14this pattern was by an american and it's a british patent which lasted for three years so the brilliant
42:22thing about your horses we know that it was made between 1880 and 1883 but we don't know who made it
42:31do you know who made it we don't know you were hoping you could tell us well let's start looking
42:37at some of the features it's a very characterful head and these very long straight ears and then the
42:45dished carving of the head and this enormous sort of flared nostril and then under the main here quite
42:52a narrow neck but quite a sort of square rump in fact i'm feeling rather precarious sitting at this
42:59end i hope it doesn't kick and then the fetlocks this is quite a design feature quite accentuated
43:05quite long but all of those characteristics combined with what they call the hoof board here that the
43:11hooves are attached to all points to this horse being made by a company called g and j lines now they
43:20started making rocking horses dolls houses carts and prams in the 1870s and went until i think around
43:291931. so you've known this horse all your lives do you have any particular memories of it yes well our
43:37grandparents lived in an old house in hereford and it was always very very exciting to go and visit them
43:43and one of the reasons it was exciting is because we could play on this horse and it was just fantastic
43:48for us and so is it a worthless old nag or is it a vintage beauty have you ever had it valued we have
43:57about four years ago it was valued for 200 pounds yes well i'm sure you can pick up rocking horses for
44:05a couple of hundred pounds but because i think this is by the lines company i can quite see somebody
44:12paying sort of a thousand maybe even two thousand pounds for it if they could ever grapple it away
44:17from you no which they won't but that is a lot more than i expected and i've got the feeling there
44:24are more generations to come who will enjoy it yes we're hoping when i first started dealing in
44:42antiques many years ago a cigarette lighter with a clock in it was one of the most exciting things i
44:48could find and you've put one here to the road show today tell me where did you get this well it
44:53was in my father's workshop oh really and he retired what does your father do he was a watchmaker i was
45:00a watchmaker that makes sense yeah and that was covered in gold paint oh really yeah and he was
45:07throwing it away when he retired i mean it does look a bit of a wreck yeah and so what made him not
45:13throw it it was me oh you yeah good man when he gave me the box that was in there so that's the
45:21movement and everything yeah everything was there well this is made by alfred dunhill it has dunhill
45:28on the bar for the snuffer there and this is an early model earlyish this will be before the second
45:36world war um let's have a look at the hallmark yeah that's uh oh which is 1929 and it says ad
45:48for alfred dunhill it also says made in switzerland you know it's a lovely quality of silver have you taken
46:00the screw out of the bottom yeah i have opened it because that's where the wadding goes yeah then you
46:06put the lighter fuel in and the wick goes up and comes out here and the flint goes in there it's
46:12great and here you have all the pieces it just needs reassembling you know dunhill made luxury goods they
46:19were the height of luxury i love the little door at the back so you could wind it up when the movement
46:25was in there it's just a beautifully made thing really superb quality and basically once this is assembled
46:36you've got a lovely article here even though smoking memorabilia is less popular now because smoking's
46:42less popular now this is still very collectible to lighter collectors and dunhill collectors and this
46:49put in an auction or sold anywhere would make two thousand pounds and upwards very nice
46:57let's have a look and see what this looks like in there just to give us a rough idea you see how nice it
47:03looks yeah suddenly it comes to life and it makes sense can you assemble it yeah are you good yeah
47:10put it all together again and enjoy it or sell it sell it that's a tidy sum isn't it and that was
47:19going to get thrown away by your father and you rescued it well done yeah fabulous little thing
47:25really exciting thank you very much for bringing all right welcome
47:35is it a porcelain pumpkin or something more special than that what can you tell me about your piece
47:41no one knows what it is in the family i mean we can hazard a guess but i'm told it was from my great
47:46grandmother and so that would have logically been pre-second world war this is from my father's
47:51family and they were german jews and they lost everything in the holocaust all their possessions
47:56and citizenship and everything it is a little bit of a mystery as to how this somehow made the
48:01transition post-war into us eventually so your piece is a turing probably for soup for soup okay and that
48:08would make sense with this very tight fitting lid to keep the warmth in well you mentioned germany yes and
48:16this is indeed from germany okay it's made at the king of porcelain factories meissen if we flip it
48:24over we can see the mark of the manufactory the two blue cross swords under the glaze that mark dates
48:33it to about 1910. this is a piece that i have never seen before i cannot find any trace of this in the
48:42reference material so i think this piece is an experimental piece i don't think it ever went into
48:50production it was designed by who i think is probably the most likely candidate for a piece so inventive
49:01and so different willie munch k who worked in the meissen factory from about 1895 up until about 1920.
49:10his pieces were always very graphic and very very kind of fantastical in a way and in fact i have
49:17seen a vase that he's designed with a porcelain cover and it has the same finial as your piece
49:23here so i'm pretty sure he was responsible for the design of not just the porcelain body but also for
49:29the silver mounts and would have directed the silversmith as to how to create the silver elements
49:34to your piece okay so if this were to come up at auction i could see it making the region of 1000
49:42to 1500 pounds okay it's nice to hear it has some value definitely definitely although i think it feels
49:49like a family thing for me so i probably wouldn't sell it thank you so much for bringing it in today thank
49:56you very much i've brought a pair of i think victorian egyptian revival lamps with sphinxes on them
50:13they're very heavy they're made of brass i think and i'd like to find out some more about them
50:18i love these lamps they are absolutely fantastic they combine butch victorianism with neoclassical
50:35and classical revival in the most wonderfully successful manner tell me all about them tell
50:41me what you know they've been in my family for a very very long time my parents were bohemians in
50:47the 60s and they collected lots of victorian objects you've always known that they're gas lamps
50:53the taps here are a giveaway obviously i think these are neoclassical 1870s rather than technically
51:03egyptian revival which is normally dated a little bit later and goes all the way up to 1930 and ties up
51:09with howard carter and king tart and all that this very fine example could well be by
51:16winfield of birmingham you made these incredible exuberant dynamic forms into the the mid and later
51:2319th century but they're not marked or signed anywhere this here could very bronze is quite
51:29malleable and that a good restorer could very easily just bend that back into shape without breaking it
51:34these attachments obviously are later the electrical fitments was that done in your lifetime well 60s 70s
51:41probably have you had them valued before never i think the sheer size the sheer sheer quality the
51:48look you'd be looking at auction up three thousand to five thousand pounds
51:53amazing fantastic
52:05you've brought along the face of a queen who died a long time ago but i want to know how this queen
52:11ended up in your family well my my dad enjoyed going around junk shops and picking up stuff that nobody
52:19else perhaps was interested in and where was that in dublin in dublin how many decades are we going
52:25back 1950s the 1950s okay to find anything like this is absolute treasure what we have is an earthenware
52:35dish that has been dipped in a tin glaze a tin glaze is basically a lead glaze which has had tin oxide
52:45added to it which has the effect of turning an opaque white the queen here it says mr maria regina is queen
52:55mary queen mary being the wife of william of orange william the third and the daughter of the the deposed
53:04king james ii i'm suggesting that this is around about 1690. now in years gone by these were always said to
53:13be made in england but i think in the last 30 40 years there's a change in that opinion and most
53:19people are happy to say that they were made in holland i'm going to turn it round
53:26because as you can see this plate has really been through the wars hasn't it i mean look at those
53:34staples those staples look like they were put on probably maybe as early as the the 1790s or something
53:42like that that could be late 18th century so turning it back round i would suggest a modest
53:511000 to 1500 pounds so uh look after this lady okay thank you
53:59so if you're interested in the history of jewelry these are the stuff that dreams are made on
54:14we can say that with absolute certainty that these date from about 1770 and that they're english enameled
54:21gold bracelet clasps circled with real pearls how do they end up here with you i know my mum was given
54:29them by her grandma and that that family came from the northeast of england but that's pretty much it
54:34we don't know too much more when we take them out of the box here we can see they're pierced to take
54:40some sort of material we can only guess what that material is but the fact that they've got woven hair in
54:46the back suggests that they were at least intended to be bracelets entirely made of human hair
54:53if it's a hair bracelet there are two things that are a possibility number one is that they're mourning
54:59jewels that the hair was taken from the deceased and then woven into a bracelet and so when one lost
55:06somebody to death one either had a portrait which is extremely unlikely or drawing and beyond that the
55:12face was lost so to have hair was a link to that person it was intensely personal i'm having trouble
55:18about understanding whether these are mourning jewels or whether they are love jewels because the
55:24little captions here it says united forever and then the other side it says affection gives value and
55:33that's not actually particularly consistent with mourning jewelry so it rather suggests that the hair if the
55:40hair was there that it was from a living person the condition is absolutely superb it has the fitted case
55:47they are gold i've never seen a fuller example of this genre ever wow ever and there are collectors
55:55of 18th century jewels who would want these very badly and so i don't really hesitate in telling you
56:02that these might fetch as much as eight and a half thousand pounds under the hammer my mom will be
56:08very excited to hear that are you excited getting there i'm more excited to hear about them yeah the
56:16price i couldn't agree more and they'd be worth every penny of it to me never seen the like
56:21absolutely astonishingly rare wonderful messages from an era long gone
56:31it's so interesting slightly weird that people used to put hair in it but i guess it's quite sweet
56:37in a way i think mom will be so excited to hear about it i don't think she'll be selling it they're
56:42very close to her heart stevens house has been through many changes since the 1870s just after
57:01the first world war it was a hospital for the raf and this beautiful little cup with a handle enabled
57:08nurses to give the patients something to drink when they're too ill to be able to hold it themselves
57:13and this mark here of course for the red cross and the guilt that signified that all the patients
57:20were officers only the best for them from stevens house and everyone here at the road show bye
57:38you
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