[Music] this week's Antiques Road show comes like last week's from Ford Abbey on the banks of the river ax in Dorset The Abbey has a long history it was started in the 12th century by cian monks they were small in number but the Abbey became one of the wealthiest and the most cultured monasteries in the southwest and it flourished for 300 years the last Abbot Thomas chard devoted years to keeping it in good repair he added a tower over the entrance door in the then contemporary perpendicular style but the large monasteries were doomed in 1539 Henry VII ordered their dissolution and Thomas chard and his 12 monks handed over the Abbey to the king it was left neglected for over a 100 Years by absentee landlords and then it was bought by Oliver cromwell's attorney general Edmund prido who had great plans for the building prto favored the Italian petzo style he turned the Abbey into an upmarket family home the principal rooms were lavishly transformed with paneling and plaster work using the skills of the finest English Craftsman fro was succeeded by his son Edmund Jor who in 1680 made a political move that was to cost him dearly he entertained the rebel Duke of mammouth while the Duke was making his progress through the west of England a few years later prido found himself in the Tower of London the charge was high treason and the infamous judge jeffes was in charge of the case it cost prido £15,000 to escape the Gallows no amount of money could save the Duke of Monmouth after the interruption work at the Abbey went on perhaps the pros finally achievement was to commission the mortlake tapestries which now hang here in the saloon once the medieval monks Gallery they represent scenes from The Acts of the Apostles painted by Raphael for the cinee chapel in Rome and were woven at mortlake in London from the artist's original [Music] cartoons Ford Abbey has been owned by the present family since the late 1800s each generation has added to the beauty of the gardens so let's rejoin our experts out there for today's Road Show belonged to my grandmother and came to my mother who gave it to me before she died and it could go back I mean obviously she probably inherited it from her mother or grandmother right but its date is certainly 1760 177 think it's been in the family since it was made it has that feel to it I think one of the nice things about this strikes you immediately is the color and this wonderful shape if you just hold that up that leaf when this one is raised to create this most wonderful double Serpentine and you have this half round molding which is fairly typical of a good quality little table and then if you look it's repeated in the leg you see the molding shape here creates that same sort of effect all the way through but looking down I notice here there's a a gouge being cut in the leg which must have been for something now this type of table quite early as I say was often used as a tea table um alternatively a work table so I want to have another look at it and see underneath um right before we go any further that's a little discovery on its own isn't it that's right this must been this is most interesting aled surely from a tea table to well I wonder if we look if we look here these dovetails yeah I mean they're quite superb and this quality Timber is the same as the rest of the table so you think it started as a library table I think it started as a library table now then let's um put this down for a minute and have a look underneath I'll take that drop it back inside I think can you just tip it that way that's it great oh look at that I had even noticed that lovely bit of fret we'll have a look at that in a moment now then what went in there it's been suggested to me that it was a tray with a fret workor end so it match exactly the other side and unfortunately you know overuse it so it got broken or lost so it does come back to a a tea table tea table but why have a pen compartment if it they took tea in the hbr might be your purpose table absolutely well let's have it up uh again and this time let's just turn it around so in the better light I can have a look at that piece of fret it's super Pleasant I mean look at that it's beautiful lift it doesn't it the severity of this part then lift it up by the that is absolutely wonderful could that be made again today oh yes yes somebody somebody could make TR too yeah sympathetically done it would would would balance up and I think enhance the table that end it would balance perfectly that is absolutely Charming that is as pretty a little pemrick table of that period as you could ever wish to see the the problem of of valuing something with that family history of course is that the value is is not of any great important because about to know what to ensure it for well you should insure it for for £775,000 so your husband's great uncle was in the Far East yes that's right what was he doing there um he worked for British American Tobacco um but um during the war he was taken prisoner of war um and worked on the Burma Railways and um was presumed dead when this chap came back from the Far East um he found his wife had remarried had already got another husband yes so my goodness it was a bit upsetting upsetting but it was all amicable in the end because he remarried himself and they stayed friends the former husband and wife so they all stayed friends together did they did yes well that's rather a nice story a story with a happyend happy ending yes and his connection with porcelain um well he went back to work out s there after the war and he he tried to sort of collect as much um blue and white as he could blue and white was his thing it was yeah yes yeah well the piece you you brought is is is nice little example of Chinese porcelain of this particular period um The Mark is the mark of the 18th century Emperor Yung Chang and arguably the Yung Chang period which is from 1722 to 1735 is the best period of porcelain production in the Ching Dynasty it's a nice little dish uh it's nice to have the emperor's mark on it's always good good thing to have the scene around the outside is is not entirely unlike the pond just over our shoulder here uh we've got a Lotus Pond um with little Mandarin ducks and in Chinese uh symbolism it has a particular significance the Mandarin duck usually depicted in pairs represents conjugal Felicity and going back to your earlier story where you end up with two happy pairs unlike the majority of Mandarin duck scenes this piece has four Mandarin ducks on it which is rather appropriate fa yes and then a happy couple of ducks inside as well it's a really pretty little thing and I wonder whether he recognized the symbolic significance of his Ducks but I can tell you that um irrespective of the story The valy of this piece is somewhere in the region of 2 to 3,000 right which is quite nice it is this is a mystery to me because I'm now in my 80th year and I've known it all my life it's been in the family all that time my father was in the Navy my grandfather was in the Navy living in devonport uh corly until today I thought probably my father nicked it after he when he was uh in a Cadet training establishment when they made which time they probably gave up teaching M and Spar but I don't think a bachelor T could pack this around that's true so I now rather think my grandfather acquired it I hope legitimately I'm sure he in dport it's been in the family then I would think uh for at least uh 90 years so there's a there's a strong family Naval tradition yes yes and therefore familiarity with an object like this is something that is in your blood as you might say oh well no this wasn't the Navy I was in my grandfather was in it so you were not a a before the Mast man no no I've never the Davy was entirely uh Steam hard in night right now what we're looking at is in a sense basic training for um Seaman in the 186s that sort of period and later I think and continuing yes so you started with the model which taught you the complete rig of this particular style it Con it showed you all the components it showed you all the blocks all the tackles it showed you the whole sequence of setting sail um on that type of ship yes and you would do all that as you might say um in in in in the workshop in the classroom before you got near a ship yes so at least when you got to a ship you would know the parts the main parts of the thing and so a model like this has to be precise in every way so this would have been made in a dockyard by highly skilled Craftsmen oh I think so who were used to the real thing yes so if we went through it I mean working our way up it um you've got four yards so you start with the main main on then the top yard and this this of course the top Mast here which can of course be struck down the whole of this is collap it is demountable exactly then you've got um the G the gallant and right at the top you've got the Royal which might was not normally carried up there nor so that's that's an additional layer of sale should you need it and these would of course be square rigged yes um with very large sail from here would be sheeting down to here yes yes and this sail would actually uh be set by hoisting the yard up the yard is shown in the position as if there was a sail yes and of course all this required Sailors mounting the m to every yard in order to mount the sails yes and the elite of the L Deck with the upper yarden the traps went went right to the top yes I've seen photographs of the victoriia Navy where the ships are dressed overall and there are Sailors ranged all the way along the yards right up the top that's right and that was a regular that was part of the training that was a normal thing to do is demand the yards for ceremon the uh 1887 Jubilee review they did that I mean the sailors who man this masks would never wear boots they' be barefoot why is that uh because we you can hold on with your toes purely for grip yes yes and when they were going up the rigging up here um they would not go up using their hands their hands were just out in front but they would actually run up with gripping with the toes run up just balancing on it so the were skills were quite amazing D now I suppose although it's such a sort of family heirloom and such a piece of your your own Naval History um one has to think about it it's its value um it's an extraord never actually thought about it value at all we have to now I mean it's my job to do so well good luck I think it's going to be quite expensive because I think it is such a rarity it is also such an incredible piece of model making skill or engineering skill I think I'm going to put something like um £5 £8,000 on it and to me it just as I say brings to life that whole period in such an evocative way I was a small child it was in my mother's bedroom and we weren't allowed to sit on it except very gently so I sat very gently on it and where is it now it's in our sitting room and when our grandchildren come to stay they immediately realize it's a a small chair and rush and dump themselves on it absolutely it's asking to be sat on but in fact it isn't really a child's chair you're quite right to treat it with care um it was basically made for putting a doll on it's a miniature chair and it is quite fragile it's made of Rosewood it dates from about 1860 and what's really nice about it is that it's got its original needle work cover so you've obviously revered it it's got no breaks which is quite surprising because the spindles are really um quite insubstantial so when the grandchildren come and sit on it they may sit but they may wriggle you'll never stop them sitting on it cuz it's just asked to be sat on it's a really really beautiful chair and worth £1,500 that's wonderful Michael I thought you'd be interested in this what would you do with it if it was yours well I would keep it for a start um the way you've asked me means that I wouldn't put flowers in it which would be the first instinct although somebody has a live ant in here um would I drink from it I didn't think you would no it's a [Laughter] spatoon it belonged to my mother but it was given to her by an elderly gentleman that she befriended yes and he had no family and as he knew she treasured old things he gave it to her but it was made by his wife um in finishing school I believe what's so interesting to me is in Britain we would have books um with pages of different stitches and and of course this is done um I'm sure abroad this is um typical of what they would do in France or Belgium and here we have an M well I think when we get to the end it might explain what the m stands for it could be the person who made it but it could also be the place where this girl was at finishing school um to me um it looks like like a young younger person's work so it might well have been someone in their teens rather than someone in their late teens at finishing school that's a lovely um silk Stitch yes it's beautiful lovely colors still and you kept it very well cuz you've had it rolled is that right yes that's right I had it about 1969 and it was brought by my ex-husband for a present for £10 but it's a Charming piece what can you tell me about it I was in a museum in in Brighton a while ago now and they got a very nice art newvo little section and had seen a Sim on there I didn't know anything about it so I've did find a little bit about it then that was made for Liberties that's right normally I mean it's spelled simri but it's normally said as cumri Kum right as you said made for Liberties yes 1903 1903 right and you see fistina lente yeah I'll tell for the numbers it means time passes comes up on you slowly but surely what's that made of the blue the that's enamel probably a copper face little silver letters yeah against that shaded enamel ground it's very pretty Prett well nowadays I'd have thought it's likely to be somewhere between 2 and 3,000 very very popular at auction whenever a liberty pieces honestly here we have some more stitching and then we come to a lovely little doll's dress um now that's got a lot more stitching than meets the eye because that is handmade uh lace with little buttons absolutely enchanting I love these things you could almost put it all around your room couldn't you yes you could or on one wall anyway um and how you would do late 19th century button holes wonderful work it it does get more complicated does it doesn't it yes more skill we have a date it's run the wrong way and yet all the others were run the other way so that flower is around this way I think she must have meant it to go this way around and she did it the wrong way around don't you yes I think you're right 1898 superb so two sentimental Jewels who do they belong to uh my grandmother your grandmother and so she was live what 1880s or something like that she died when I was 11 so um that was 57 57 right well these date from about 1857 rather conveniently and they represent two types of Victorian sentimentality one to do with love it's a love bird in a in a in a nest with surrounded by Forget Me Nots which are emblematic of true love and so the message there is pretty straightforward and unambiguous what I like particularly is this little heel here where the where the where they forget me not flowers been sort torn off and it's beautifully observed and the message is quite unambiguous this one's a slightly different message can you guess what it is plenty plenty well in a way it is plenty I think this is a morning brooch it's rather a subtle one it's amethyst purple is the color of morning and this is Matic of a life lived to the end a life in full fruit and they are very wearable very small perfect for today and because of that the value is quite nice and I think probably put this one down for3 to 400 maybe a little bit more than that and this one's slightly less appealing immediately but um it's bigger so about the same probably £800 worth of jewelry lovely thank you very much is it no beautiful oh we've got a pink here lovely lovely work here we go oh the mashon 1898 now p means really at school in a Convent I would say uh mashon which is in Belgium um they would have been extremely strict I went to a Belgian Convent so I know how strict they were um and so you had no alternative but to work extremely hard and this was in your um Recreation you did these if this were to come up for auction what what sort of price have you no idea I really haven't no idea it is very difficult to put a figure on it but uh when one does come up at auction um it would normally make somewhere in the region between ,500 and £2,000 really it was almost certainly collected by people called Evans who owned the a in the last century and were distant cousins of my grandmother and actually left the Abby to her but they really produce most of the contents and I'm sure this was bought by one of them it's a very very interesting dish because at First Sight uh it belongs to a 16th century group uh but it's far far too colorful for the 16th century in fact uh looking on the edge of the piece we have the factory name abiso t that's where it was made and it was made in the 19th century when they were beginning to to show off uh before going back into the pond let's just turn it over and have a look at the back cuz there you have an early trade ticket good Lord it says abiso T is a little bit smudged but I think it says 1853 never been washed I think this is an exhibition piece really I think this is a Potter a French Potter at tour showing off just how good he can be and that's why you have the mark on the front let's turn it around now how do you actually go about making a dish like this I cannot imagine you get your dead animals and you actually make models from the animals really out of now this is a technique which was used in the mid-6th century by a very very eminent French Potter called Bernard palisi and this dish would be cataloged as a palisi style dish and Bernard palesi took anything he could get his hands on whether it was an animal or a shell or rocks and he was famous for creating Grotto well imagine grottos were very very popular in the mid-6th century and this is a sort of grotesque subject matter the word grotesque comes from Grotto and um but he was a very interesting man actually he he was such a perfectionist that he had to achieve high temperatures in the firing and this in one particular occasion he could do only by sacrificing his own Furniture whilst the firing was in progress he actually tore up bits of his furniture burn stairs and burnt the stairs burnt the seating in order to get the right temperature so he he had become a mythical character in the history of French potting and when this was made in the mid 19th century they were referring to an esteemed predecessor Bernard palisi and this was made almost certainly I think for an exhibition and it would have been an expensive luxury item at the time um it's difficult to put a value on something like this I've not actually seen one of this caliber ever sold but I think it would be a very difficult thing to replace in the market for less than three or £4,000 gracious me a nightmare to dust now what kind of ship was SS stentor um General cargo ship uh belonged to the blue funnel line or give it its proper name Alfred Holton company out of Liverpool um and who made that that was actually made by my late grandfather who was Captain of that ship among others of the line um he actually served for 30 years with the company 20 years of which he was Master Mariner so what bubble happened to SS stent um well how when when I came here at reception they suggested that the best place to go would be the Liverpool Museum and I'm quite seriously contemplating getting into touch with them now and eventually bething it to the museum has one of our experts had a look at this yes indeed um earlier on this morning and as as a an amateur model it would be worth around about £250 and a great asset for a museum yeah yes certainly what in Earth turned you on to this well my mother bought me that piece there and the largest bowl right and then when my husband retired I happened to come across this piece and he said to me why don't you start a collection do for something for a hobby and that's how it all started it's Tak over it's well it has rather I'm afraid what is it all over the house uh no I've managed to confine it to two rooms um the majority of the Dolphus is in the dining room but it's ready to burst out of those yes I'm afraid so now it is very demanding potra but I think it's fantastic and it's so bright and so cheerful we're looking at the pool Pottery of course um starting in the early 1960s and through to the mid '70s they suddenly went into this production of fantastically bright colors um Robert Jefferson lots of people were involved in the development of it gu Sid them and so on but I think the great thing about them is that they are so representative of their period you know these half these shriek 1960s don't they I think we should say we've got two types here we've got the very colorful delis wear and then we've got these Browner colors which the aian wear now they came a bit later yes which do you have any preference of the Styles just I I like the more muted styles of the um of the delist and I'm very fond of the uh drawings and the uh I mean this one fish is great isn't it yes it is isn't it it's quite a favorite of mine for me it's the bright colors I find the delish a bit too muted yes that one's fun collecting delis in a sense you need to know one or two things when they started the colors were much more varied and you get blues and greens later when we get into the late 60 early 70s they cut back to pette and that's when you get the the acid oranges the yellows um that sort of color range and so in terms of collecting you really want to look out if you can for the the blue P pieces with blue yes the great Advantage is it's quite easy to collect because every piece has identification shape number Factory Mark and above all else every piece is usually signed because of course they were all done in individually by girl decorators doing their own thing there were no instructions you just did your own thing you designed it as you wanted in any style in any pattern and you just piled through great heaps of dishes each one another sort of dynamic vibrant explosion of color as I say very 1960s now and what's the most you've ever paid um I think the two vases I paid £35 for the pair well that's incredibly cheap I mean if you can still buy things like that you're brilliant because delus has gone up a lot these are not spectacular pieces you don't you won't mind me saying that I mean a real I think the record price for a piece of do is something like £3,000 I don't get excited here we're looking at 50s 40s 20s 80s I think a pair of vses like that should be about 120 150 so you did very well indeed um a dish like that is probably about 50 or 660 so you know that's the range there's plenty to be bought for under1 if you're lucky and if you're careful condition is absolutely critical nobody wants a cracked or chipped piece but it is an area where there is room for collectors today yes my grandmother bought it I understand in 1994 and paid £6 for it but I've never known whether it was uh new when she bought it or not do you know where she bought it from well she bought it in a corner shop in bridport it used to be Kendall brothers and it used to sit on the sideboard and when I was quite young I don't know how old really it was my job on a Saturday morning to dust the dining room and I would get up on the chair because that was a little perk for doing the dusting to play the music to play the musical book I can tell you a little bit about the maker the maker is Charles Olman that's his sign there um CH and the U made in Switzerland round about 1875 1880 although this type was very popular and went on um up to about 1910 I suppose and in this condition um it does have a a significant value I mean much more than the what was it 666 that was paid in 1904 I would have thought we're talking about between perhaps £5 and 700 so certainly worth looking after and I think certainly worth spending just a little bit on conserving it for future Generations so let's just hear what you heard as your present or reward from dusting now it's let's give it a little bit of a helping hand [Music] super super jar with its original cover I I like this very much how how long have you had this I've had it since 1952 that's when my father died course he had a collection of those collection of how many I think it was 15 and I've kept four and the others have gone to the family good Lord so you got four remaining yourself and the the other 11 are are still in existence should be yes that's jly good cuz they they were made of sets they actually stood in tobacconist shops um they're actually sort of tobacco jars yes rather than snuff jars which they're often called and um uh you you had your particular type of tobacco this would be Dunkirk and number five yes my father smoked a lot but not a pipe I don't think no and his father smoked a lot and those were cigars yes with to pipe tobacco or whatever they would have come in this and sets would lie along the the the dresser of of of a shop and you would order so much they they have on the front of them a scene of of a red Indian or a Native American um with the tobacco pipe and tobacco cuz it it it it was discovered over there wasn't it came in was so Walter rale brought brought the tobacco over first I think but this was made after soal Rally's Discovery in a bit because this is actually Dutch Del team Blaze Pottery um you know very typical Dutch DFT of of around about um 1,700 ined and and they're superbly wonderfully made uh and this is the original cover that would have been on them they don't have ceramic covers cuz they stand in tobac in his shops and um they have a metal cover to take the place of it but I think they're thundering good yes now they're quite collectible objects a good one like this would fetch £1,500 or even more at auction um and if someone was looking for the the missing jar for their set they would probably go a lot higher so look after it w't you and um and guard the others that you have and try and get the others back from the family w't you this is a wonderful and very ostentatious German sword made for the American Market or the sort of thing that would be worn by very senior officer during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 it's very definitely German because it has a small maker mark on the blade although the people who actually retailed It in America are Horsemen and Sons of Philadelphia who would probably be gents Outfitters and um the blade and the rest of the sword would have been put together and then sent to them and then they would have sold it so it's already cross the Atlantic on one occasion is it a family sword do you have American Connections no not at all it was bought in Poland a long time ago my husband sought in a flea market really it's a very very high quality decorative presentation piece it's very typical of the German factories in zham which was the German equivalent of Sheffield our Cutlery City and the blade is particularly nice because as we look down here it's very finely etched and the etching is then highlighted with gilding you got this wonderful Marshall trophy with all kinds of eagles and classical armor and real Illusions to Rome and Greece and then here the is the American Eagle very patriotic and another wonderful trophy of arms with the American Shield on it and further down perhaps the most interesting part of the blade is the actual metal work of it it's made by a process known as Damascus where very thin strands of metal are welded together into a long thin ribbon and then hammered out hammered stretched hammered stretched and eventually you get this wonderful patterning and the German Smiths excelled at that and they were perhaps the best in Europe and it was a way of making a blade that would combine the qualities of Steel which is brittle but Cuts very well and iron which is elastic but doesn't cut very well so you've got this flexibility and cutting effect together and it's called called Damascus because it comes originally from the the Middle East we go to the hilt what's unusual about it is that most sword grips the bit that your hand actually holds are normally made of shark skin which gives you good adhesion but you can tell this was never made for anything more than waving around at a fancy parade because it's made of nickel silver and it's been engraved it's a sort of thing that would have been presented to somebody who scored a great Victory or simply to somebody who was going away from a community where he was a person of some standing and um he would have been presented with that and that was probably the last time that he would ever worn it CU it would been stuck in his baggage so it's it's very much a almost a piece of male jewelry if you want to put it in that sort of context a dress sword or something yes yeah and and and dress really for very very important occasions yes now you say you bought it in Poland what did you pay for it I think my husband paid about 101 me no more I think that it's worth between 2,000 to ,500 wonderful thank you very much for bringing it thank you this is by one of the longest lived and most productive of all Victorian artists really this is Thomas Sydney Cooper well not very difficult to tell that but here's his signature and date uh 1888 now Cooper was a rather unique Victorian figure for long gity really he lived to over 90 and he created a record which which was was that he exhibited a picture or pictures at the Royal Academy every year for 63 years without a break and that is really an astonishing achievement who never been equaled and I don't suppose it ever will uh and what he painted quite simply uh Mr Cooper was was two things he painted cows and he painted sheep and he painted sheep and he painted cows and it always amazes me rather how the victorians loved pictures of cows obviously the tired Victorian businessman you know after a hard day in the office he went home and sat in his chair and he really liked to look at a nice Pieceful picture of cows Grazing In Meadows but uh Cooper was a very uh highly skilled and competent animal painter actually he trained in Belgium with an artist called verboven and this is a very good uh example of his work you know nice size it's not too big he sometimes could paint on a very big scale anyway tell me how you acquired it well this is actually my father's picture now he remembers it hanging um in his grandmother my great-grandmother's apartment up in comt Garden in London and then back in 1961 he actually moved down to Devon to buy a farm and she gave him this as like a farm warming present and it's hung in the farmouse everever since well you might be surprised then to to learn that uh Cooper is is much in demand these days there's a popularity about animal pictures and certainly Cooper is one of the best Victorian painters of cows and I would say in a sale now this picture would make at least 10 to 15,000 and I suggest you should you should uh put it down you know in your insurance policy at 20,000 we certainly will yes that is unreal all I know is we have got actually a pair of them uh You' got a pair of got a pair of them right and uh I've known about them ever since early 50s um when my grandfather died and passed him to my my father right you know about this coat of arms on the front being that William and Mary William and Mary yes and there's the William and Mary Cipher there and the Stewart coat of arms um around and it's it's marked I understand it's Francis gor it is Francis gor 1691 and he was the royal Goldsmith and on the back it has another Kate of arms which I assume to be yours well do you know when they came into your family I've got no idea really I wish I I wish I knew there's a certain way of telling because that coat of arms the engraving on that coat of arms tells me that it is frankly no later than well let's say 1700 but it could be 1691 there's no reason why it shouldn't be so indeed this the most likely reason is that it is a gift from William and Mary to your family for doing something what I don't know well it's well I should I was going to say it they are in the most wonderful condition the marks are mint they gilding is absolutely super it stands on this lovely Central trumpet foot which is also marked part marked and it is just or they are just an absolutely mindblowing pair I mean I it's it's been a long long time since I've seen anything like this presuming you've got some idea of the value absolutely none really no they sit in the bank they sit in the bank well gosh I think I would have to give £100,000 for those that's for the pair yeah which they are just they are absolutely completely wonderful I'm looking at a little toy here which has in fact pedal a long way perhaps further than you imagine how far is it pedal with you it's pedal about 125 M down a Motorway so what's the story we recently moved up from London down to Hunton and um while I was clearing out the attic there's a Dusty old box in the corner and had a look in the box and there there it stood or laid oh very good and who who who opened the box me yes cat you in at too many spiders up there okay well let's have a look and and see what we have um the figure here is clothed is dressed in in cloth his head is actually also made of cloth it's of stiffened cloth so it was put into some sort of stiffening placed on a mold and then painted his arms they're made of pressed brass from the uh hand up to the uh elbow here and the leg from the toe to the knee also press brass and that's really not the way European toys were made looking at it further I'm just going to move it a little little bit there's very decorative um sort of stenciled decoration in the paint down the back of the the work box and here on this side it says patented January the 25th and February 1870 now all that now starts to ring alarm Bells with me uh because it is in fact a very early American toy so when I said that it's pedal a long way actually it's pedal right across the Atlantic so it started off in Connecticut uh and it has come down here it's made by a company called J and E Stevens and they were a company that in fact started off in America making Hardware cast iron hardware so you know things for things for the farm implements things for the home heavy duty stuff they then went into partnership with a company called George Brown in about 1868 and they had a toy making business then and together they produced an enormous quantity and an enormous diversity of toys for the American market and that area of America was the area where the clocks were made and what did they do they put in Clock Works so you have a toy with Clockworks so it's become a Clockwork toy there you can see it's a very robust uh movement it's had a bit of damage the main problem is that the the axle itself has snapped and I guess that at that point it was packed in its box uh and put away at some point or will'll get that mended at some point um it would have been uh really quite powerful because of that spring motor inside wound up with a clock key and then as it went forward obviously the front wheel went round as well as the back wheels and the the legs would go up and down as if it was pedling the velocipede itself so yes I mean it it's it's a wonderful story It's a Wonderful toy and it is in fact a very collectible toy in the history of toy making in America this is very early this is the the um the beginning the birth of the American toy industry and there are a lot of American toy collectors who are very very keen quite naturally on their own Heritage um I mean I suppose if you're talking about insurance valuation uh I would have said you you ought to be valuing it at about um £5,000 sorry yeah is that surprise you she checked it out throw it out last week is that true really Chuck it away oh well I'm very pleased and you persuaded her then did you well it's only cuz I knew you was it's only it's all due to me how wonderful us on the road show we've saved this wonderful piece of American toy history I'm not saying I mean Insurance value is very different to what you would actually get for it if you put it onto the open market today in auction and obviously you need to to spend a bit of money on on getting it restored but it is s certainly it's an important historical piece it's in restorable Condition it's by the best of all the American toy makers and it's here at Ford deby perhaps that's what's meant by the wheels of fortune well now it's going home time and I'm sad to say we won't be coming out to play for a while because this has been the last program in the current series and the end of my first season on the road show it's been an interesting experience on behalf of the whole team I'd like to thank all the people who've come along over the weeks to join us and to show us their treasures and if you'd like to know more about what we've been doing and what we plan to do you can always check up on our website meanwhile once again thank you very much to Ford Abby for having us and until the next time [Music] goodbye
