00:00Now, I've been doing the Roadshow for just over 10 years now, and this is the one thing I've always
00:06wanted to see.
00:07I know you're going to think I'm weird, but why have you got them?
00:10Well, my dad bought a box of junk at a boot fair. He paid a few pounds, and they were
00:14in the bottom of the box.
00:15And what have you found out about them?
00:17We know that the one plate is gold, the springs are gold, and the pins that hold the teeth in
00:23are gold.
00:24Now, you were pretty wealthy if you had a set of teeth like this. Like you say, they are in
00:28gold.
00:29And the rare thing about them is they are porcelain teeth.
00:32And the history of anything like this is fascinating, because with teeth, during the 18th century, the wealthy obviously had
00:40vast amounts of sugar,
00:41and generally their teeth were rotten. Their breath stank, and they would lose their teeth, and they needed something to
00:48sort them out.
00:48And they tried, I mean, surgeons tried everything, from implanting teeth into chickens' heads to see if it would take.
00:55And you would pull out your tooth, if you were poor, and sell it instantaneously, and they would try and
01:00implant it.
01:01None of that really worked. So, when they came up with a set of teeth like this, it was the
01:07obvious solution.
01:07Now, these are made of porcelain on a gold background, but the earlier ones, from the Napoleonic Wars,
01:14they actually went round, say, after the Battle of Waterloo, picked up the teeth from all the bodies and corpses,
01:19pulled them out, and then sold them to make denture sets like this.
01:22So, English people were going around with French teeth in their mouth.
01:26Fantastic.
01:26So, when porcelain came in, and this is why I love it, I know it is disgusting and horrible,
01:32but it's a fascinating history, because here, I mean, I would say they were sort of 1845, 1855 in date.
01:39Did you get a date on them?
01:411850 to 1860.
01:42Okay, so around that sort of period, mid-19th century.
01:45They're still, the fact that they're porcelain, I love.
01:48They are, I'm not going to say any jokes like rare as hen's teeth or anything like that,
01:52but they are, they are incredibly rare, and the fact that they're gold, the fact that they're porcelain,
01:58er, two, two and a half thousand pounds.
02:02Whoa.
02:04Well.
02:06I'm amazed.
02:09Wow.
02:10So, this is a rare survivor, which is why I say I've been waiting ten years to see a set.
02:15Thank you very much.
02:16No, you're welcome, thank you.
Comments