Antiques Roadshow UK Series 13 Episode 1 Islington, North London

and now by appointment only a priceless consultation with the experts pitching camp at the start of the 13th season of the Antiques Roadshow [Music] [Music] for this first program in our new series of the Antiques Roadshow we've come to London each of the London boroughs has its own distinctive character and history not least where we've come today to his legion just two miles north of the city itself and it was that very proximity to the city that led to the phenomenal growth of this part of London in the 19th century the forerunner of the familiar London bus was a horse-drawn vehicle and when it was first introduced in 1829 first of all hundreds and then thousands of local people began commuting between Islington and the financial heart of the city of London in the space of just a few years the local population doubled until the 18th century Islington was not much more than a village the first real development began here in the 1760s and many of those elegant Georgian squares and terraces still give this part of London its distinctive quality yet despite its closeness to the city Islington still manages to retain much of its village atmosphere not least here in Camden Passage more or less totally occupied by antique dealers restaurateurs and booksellers perhaps a good omen for the Antiques Roadshow just across the road from the antiques market is the business design Center a new face on a much-loved old building it began life in 1862 was the Royal Agricultural Hall fell into disuse and more than a hundred years later was given a new lease of life as a center for promoting new ideas in design and incorporating within it the large Hall which is our home for the day among our experts are of course many familiar faces but on pottery and porcelain we welcome a new Cup after the antique stretcher Paul atabrine he's joined by a friend of our Reese and Enrique will be casting her net over a wide variety of objects and of course John Bly will be looking out for the best of the furniture that takes his eye so let's now join them with the people of islets commemorative mug here coronation event 30 years yes oh yes it's one of the Paragon factory while yes this is the original box it's been in here since so when does the coronation 1937 seven yes but the coronation that never was right yes it's a splendid piece isn't it isn't that nice it got sequins a lot of people think that such things are gonna be terribly rare because he wasn't crowned but in fact of course they the factories produced all this stuff in readiness and sold it most of it before the event and these things do exist so that they're not as rare as people imagined in fact of course the the coronation that followed George the sixth the factories had to rush like mad to get some stuff out so those things tend to be rarer than it so it does puzzle people but use of splendid things I like the lion I think he's tremendously at the handles these are the basic Paragon shapes that they use for all coronations they even made the same shape form the present Queen yes I bought it off a dealer over five years ago yeah yeah well it's going to be about double that yeah somewhat certainly over the 300 pound racking yeah that's pushing the 400 back because as I say they're very lovely and people who collect this whole series of coronary illness need one of these obviously to do so American highly collectible this is a society now the commemorative society actually I'm Vice Chair but we seem to have a fabulous copy of the first edition of Tolkien's The Hobbit so let's investigate now the first thing I want to see is the condition of the dust wrapper it's a little bit chipped but I don't think particularly badly for its age first edition freaks I'm afraid really insist on dust wrappers they are rare people used to take them off and lose them and all that sort of thing so it is quite important for a first edition of this quality to have a dust wrapper the binding seems to have weathered reasonably well a little bit of dust staining at the top on the bottom of the spine and a little around the edge but generally I mean there's no tearing of the cloth or anything like that so again full marks there nearly four marks there eight out of ten there shall we say and then a complete knockout two things that knocked me out one a magnificent letter from talking signed Ronald but two sticky tape at the top now that is a thing that Euler's will never do never ever do I'm not saying that you did it or anything like that but people did this sort of thing is tack interesting bits of information in the front of box but you should never ever use sticky tape look at the back of this you can see it all comes off and actually sticks into the paper and it's incredibly difficult to get out in fact it stains the paper completely so here wonderful letter my dearest Jane here is a copy of my little book which I send you with much love and so on and so on and I hope it would amuse you you're loving Ronald now who is Jane do you know is this a family I'm not certain who Jane is but I know that it's a distant relative I believe it was an aunt of jr. ours so you are you are related to the tokens well by marriage my husband is Jr's grandson turning over to the front free n paper I see another signature here for auntie Jane from Ronald I assume Ronald I mean Jr's Jr's arm Jane and Simon tolki yes that's my husband he the book came to him when the library when juniors library was broken up when he died Simon was about 10 so they thought that the Hobbit would be the most appropriate book for him to have out of it because it was a children's book yes yes well the Hobbit as you know was written in what 1937 1937 and it was the first book in Harold's day his famous trilogy the Lord of the Rings which everybody knows about and so really this is this is Tolkien's first famous book now there's one other point about a first edition of this book let me take the book out this is for dust wrapper briefs tolkien in fact corrected this rapper himself or at least it is said that he corrected it himself there is a mistake on these two notes or on one of these notes on the end papers here I didn't if you've ever noticed it well it is a point Dodgson yeah as Annie and with black ink it's been crossed out so the first edition freak is not only looking for his first edition he's looking for a first edition with the dust wrapper he's looking for a first edition with a corrected duster he corrected a crossed out like that possibly done by told him not sure and then he's looking for a nice inscription like this and then possibly a letter he's got everything so what do you think it's worth have you had it it's a family thing you don't really you don't really want to think too much further than that I would say that this would fetch at auction or some collector would be very happy to pay three and a half thousand pounds for it wow it's amazing it is I really am surprised well I saw the Roadshow some time ago and a lady came up with a round base and it had the same name on so people cross and the Assessor says that there were a father and son here and the father was a Potter to the kidney but which King I don't remember but Moorcroft was came from a Staffordshire family and he became a designer in 1898 in Staffordshire for a company called James McIntyre and in 1913 he set up his own factory in Coe bridge which is a part of the Staffordshire Patras and he built a small unit a small plant which specialized in a particular type of decorative pottery and this cake icing style of decoration was his particular trademark as you might say every piece was designed individually decorate individually not by him himself but by the girls and assistants he enjoyed from 1913 until his death in 1945 he ran that factory how did you come by them well they were given to me by my mother-in-law yes or must say for the very great old lady yes I've had them over 50 years right and she's had them well I can't say how long she's had them right well the date of these if one can establish from the marks on the bottom from the printed marks is probably between 1916 in the early 1920s so whether she bought them new or then I can't say just secondhand is hard to tell but certainly from what you say that goes back nearly so when they were made this particular blue he developed himself and he called it powder blue or blue porcelain and he was originally made for tableware so you could buy a complete sets of cups and saucers toast racks everything at dinner base in this lovely speckled color he then later developed the design and the color to be used for decorative wares and the way this was made was that de vars was dipped completely in the blue and then the white panels were cut away because the clay itself is white so it's a coating of blue slip you then carve it away very carefully which reveals the panel and then you pipe or draw the design onto it and so it was a very laborious process that's very time-consuming but he was very successful in his time he was sold by major to shop such liberties and he became quite a famous man he was actually Potter to the Queen to the late Queen Mary Queen and this was an award he got he was given in 1928 and from then on his his pieces carried the stamp on the bottom otter to Her Majesty the Queen that's right I mean do you know how much these are worth now well Moorcroft is a is someone whose work is accrete appreciating almost daily it's going unsteadily and a pair like this and of course it's important that there is a pair would now fetch I would think between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds so it's you know quite a dramatic price you I just thought you had to have something just show them to me and the original drawings by alex is a gonna serve the Morris Minor and Minnie these were the original pencil sketches that he made of both cars I think they must be because they're very much working drawings I mean nothing's finished he's working out here the grille and whether headlights would go and so on this is the mini wonderful and done in Barra I mean you can't get more to be sketchier than that what does he say that how the mini would look with conventional sized wheels apart from foreshortened appearance there would be a marked reduction in habitable room within the car so there was obviously a debate going on about the size of the wheels of this and in fact it doesn't very strange into our eyes yeah with conventional sized wheels isn't it so the small wheel version won the day yep so an extraordinary record of two Great British medicals yes and this last one stated in fact 1945 237 with his signature in form somebody somewhere is going to love to have this perhaps the Morris minors owners club yeah it's exactly hearing about something which was an executive toy of the Edwardian the whole thing is is a cold painted bronze now this would have come from Austria at auction I pleased to see that Granger 1 500 pounds really well this is an enchanting family Rose plate that you brought along quite lovely these these are morals I suspect the memorial plate made in about 1760 in China part of a large service which you may have some more pieces in the service good what is the family here your were you connected with the family no it's my husband's family married into the Vaughn family so it's your mother-in-law's side of the family yes yes I suppose they were made specifically for the family in say 1760 yes it's it's a lovely crest - isn't it with this charming child and sneaked you know the the crest you know anything about that all this is very enchanting and these flowers here are very prettily done their family rose stunning so-called company the company design style which is a European side of ours seems in fairly good condition except I note there is a small chip there which you've had one of these terrible metal slate well before I about to tell you any more about what it's worth it's you can give me an idea how many other pieces are involved it's a beautiful thing well I have six very large suit with cupboards yes suit currents yes yes and twelve dinner plates this size yes and all what condition have you any idea pretty good condition no no cracks perhaps maybe the only one that's children twenty octave dishes the are they big yes I wish we could have seen these they made a wonderful sight anyway this is a example twenty dinner plates twenty meat dishes rather serving soup tureen yes austrians yes they're smaller and smaller variations of the suture range ten marks I think that's enough today's exercise now good lord well it's going to come to quite a lot out of respect in each of these plates is worth in the region four to five hundred pounds each you can imagine us all the multiples were talking about when you said to me soup tureens I couldn't believe my ears because I think you said there were six soup tureen yes and they're about this size yes if I tell you they are another big shock I'm afraid probably a minimum four thousand pounds each superior what yes and say we go on and if we had sought we had suits or styrenes would it which would be the small ones are possibly a thousand pounds each and the meat dishes say if they graduated from that size to that size big ones can fetch two or three thousand pounds each so if we took a mean average say even for the meat dishes alone a ser of a region of a thousand pounds each but talking in talking in terms of very big money indeed I think we would come to something in the order of over fifty thousand pounds worth of Chinese export in a sense it's amazing tisn't maintenance I've really liked this I'm really grateful to you for bringing it in because it's it's my favorite sort of Victorian picture this is it one of your favorite yes I love it too it's actually a very English picture isn't it yes and of everything in English because it I guess you're not actually no I am French yeah the temper to this appeal to is an image of English I love it absolutely English that that I visualize an English lady well it is it's it's charming since 1852 it's dated down here and it's signed CJ Lewis Charles James Lewis who was a very nice very good English painter of genre scenes and this is him at his best I think but you say it's very English and I suppose it is very English in a way but there's one little element here I didn't if you've made this yellow book here a French book I'm afraid and quite often one sees this in English pictures of the date that once want to suggest that perhaps the the woman in the picture is not quite all that she might bit because she has a French book at the moment she hasn't got around to reading it but later on she may but I think it's it isn't it charming it's it's a couple of the Thames do you think I think he was really worked round London and on the Home Counties say it could well be a Thames backwater have you got it in short well it is insured I think for about 2,000 yes I think it's it is an extremely fashionable picture it's the sort of picture that people want in today's market so I just think your insurance figure is a little bit low I mean if that came up at auction one could well imagine it making three four or five thousand pounds you bet so Charlie nice thank you so much for bringing it Oh welcome so you bought them because they retrieved when you get married I've got a lot of money have you know about may I ask how long ago that was 58 years how are you to bring these things bones out brought this wonderful well he bought wisely and that time these things were of course far less valuable or interesting than they are now but I like them because they typifies furniture of the 1860s 1870s the whole shape design of them is clever and it shows the Victorians inventive because they look like a pair or a matched pair of work tables they what little drop leaves and you look as if you've got two drawers in each one to take so but you haven't they are little pot cupboards they do that for that oh yes they stood at each side of the bed and they took the potty and medicines and all sorts of other things booking a lamp on top wonderful the difference between these and most that we see is that these were made both made by gillers those are probably a ticket underneath probably worth wearing on was it wearing oh yes well we're obviously wearing and gilens absolutely but this company gillers patil on castor made the most wonderful quality furniture whatever it was whether it was a pot cupboard like this or a grand sideboard the quality was always super but if we look at these two together you can see the quality extends right the way through the whole thing from the casters the wheels of which were gilded they put gold on the wheel you know really yes look that you can see shining through because it's not polished brass that's gold on that Curia gilded yeah wonderful turning so sharp Oh fantastic and this is walnut that one's mahogany you literally paid your money and took your choice in 1865 walnut veneer or plain mahogany whichever you prefer whichever you wanted to pay for and here by some fluke you've got them both together in the same house and I would call them a matched pair they're slightly different in size but that's all and they are very very interesting examples of that companies work and a furniture of the period now have to think of what they're worth today well individually I suppose each one of these would cost you somewhere around about 1,800 to 2,000 pounds really really the gillers stamp would make a lot of difference to that I mean that's that's why they're that sort of price as a matched pair you can double it and add a little so really and truly you're looking at best part of four and a half thousand pounds well my stepson did some research and he traced the it back to the area in Sussex and I think possibly back to the early 17th century well let's have a further look this is the outer protective case which is made of silver covered in leather and then decorated with this lovely pin work which we refer to as PK work it is an absolutely typical outer case to protect this sort of watch the main reason that this sort of watch needed protecting was the superb engraving around the bezels all the way around and the front bezel which is typically split at that stage and the back which is centered with this lovely stylized rose there that's why the watch has stayed in such lovely condition we shall open it up and the dial is perfect you couldn't ask for a nicer dial the original hand of course the whole Center is silver and engraved with tulips absolutely typical of the period and the period here just looking from the outside of the watch is going to be about 1670 possibly a fraction earlier and then on the outside we've got a calendar ring there's the calendar pointer and that moves round obviously in an anti-clockwise direction well look at that I mean that is that is absolutely superb we've got a lovely lovely flowing signature looks like a Richard Ricard signed Lentini and of course of London his dates well roughly from memory at about 1675 I think he's recorded in Baileys and the balance is absolutely typical of the period very very finely pierced and engraved with flowers with the actual table of the really not a lot bigger than the foot that's wonderful the only thing one can fault it with at the moment is obviously this rack and pinion setting up for the barrel spring that wheel of course is very much later edition it's quite normal for watches of this period that's who have been significantly altered over the years but the blued steel work there and the brass work is lovely the pillars absolutely if the sort of section one that would have expected to see at a time yes it is a very very nice watch do you have it in short or not no you really haven't no gosh well you ought to because it's the sort of thing that at auction at the moment although for only watches like this prices have dipped a little bit over the last year or two it would still fetch I think six to eight thousand pounds so I would ensure for certainly ten quite a hard thing to replace anyway super really nice watch pending a bit on deciding I've only they are amazing reporters they'll be worth about unique the fifty one days later probably only ten or fifteen this is what a chocolate Easter egg from about 1914 I think it's about 40 I'm sure is it safe like that oh I've been inspired to be the lady with it survivors started back in 1820 and they were still making in the 1920 those jolly nearly 1920 I mean their leaders are both of our ports again you know they're not they're not repro they're not forgeries they also be continuing useless and they stopped smokers companion this is a sort of you would have had on the after dinner table you know and could well have come from artillery company that's the sort thing that one would expect on a regimental table I mean the whole master chief told me it was made in 1892 by James Vicary who has got a small work I do this all this small work around here the wheels are out because the rest of it is all silver this is the methylated spirits container here in this and this of course would be held against see the flame and then the cigar and then you pass it on to the next person the moment you put it back in of course we should it's a sorting attack gladly pay for I'm 600 in Seminole County so it's a very very much you know in the 19th century there were two great revivals of the Chippendale style Rococo period of the 18th century one was a sort of interpretation and the other was a reproduction almost to the point of view of sheer pure copy this is the interpretation this is a Victorians idea of the grand Rococo style and in fact it's quite magnificent I would see in a year at least twenty or thirty of this model but not of this quality and but it's a side why I suppose of the sideboard what you've got you weasel is a china get the China sideboard china cabinet fulfilled the Victorians desire to show the collection of things that they've got from all over the world whether they went there or bought them in the local shop didn't matter put them in the cabinets the mirrors would double up the image and you had this grand display as well one thing that I want to look about it with this one is the makers label which you've got in your drawers is can we take it out have a look now this is it's not a maker's label it's it's a retailer's name and this is where your father was yes he bought it in we think 1925 at Bowman's in Camden tail but they're interesting the label says genuine secondhand furniture well I always understood that it belonged to mr. belman but maybe I think I could well have done what you want to look for when studying any of this sort of furniture is quality and this is an exemplary piece the quality of the carving on this is quite superb we're talking about how it was done well this was done by machine at least were the use of machine so although it was hand-carved by one man working the major part of the tool there would be a set of jigs on which he could reproduce precisely other examples of this so they wouldn't just make the parts for one but they'd make the parts for several also in this part of of the furniture industry they were very much peed on on making parts in separate workshops and so unlike the Chippendale workshop where this would have been created in one place this was made up of pieces the drawers with one factory or the carving in another place the legs somewhere else the cupboard door somewhere else the frames another place yet and so it was very much put together from pieces brought in from the ad workers in the Clerkenwell area considering that you have got here an extremely good example of a well balanced piece although it's slightly over the top the best part of all is the carving on the front of the door which is quite outstanding and lifts it from the normal furnishing the example into a collector's item they're not big money items yet considering their grandeur but on the market today the current price for a more ordinary example would be in the region of two to two-and-a-half thousand pounds this one I would suggest would cost you to replace in the region of four thousand so you should insure it for that and in perhaps twenty thirty years time we're going to be talking about big money for such a fine example have you got the key oh right okay that's a very good sauce we'll look II son who loved kids and who's with a loin didn't he look fine well that's the first thing is that most of the musical boxes that we see on the Antiques Roadshow are wound by a ratchet the key wound musical boxes are much earlier and this one would be certainly before 1850 now I can also see that there is a number cast on a bed plate now that would indicate that it's that that's the serial number and it would indicate a particular date of manufacture the name of the maker of this box is Nicole frere and it's one of the few makers who actually stamped his name into the comb very often they use little trademarks or some other way to indicate who made it but he actually was proud enough to stamp his his name in it so it's a Nicole frere box and it's numbered the serial number that I just gave you I think that it was probably made in the 1830s or 1840s which is actually very early for a musical box the other thing that's very interesting is the cylinder is quite fat now I don't if you've seen many musical boxes so you never have anything really to compare it with well it is a fat cylinder the majority of musical box cylinders are about half this diameter and it was designed this fat cylinder so that you could fit a lot more notes onto it and it would play for longer and it would play overtures now if you look at this very nice silvered plaque which is inlaid in the lid it lists three overtures that are being played and another song it meant that they it really means a great difference in quality the quality of these overture musical boxes as they're called are much greater than the normal musical boxes if you look at the comb itself that makes the noise the teeth are very close together it was the top of the range if you like of musical boxes having said all that it looks as if it's been given to a gang of Road repairers to go off and play with it and bring it back now who on earth has treated it like this well that's very now what did you do - did you just say here you are chaps girls who say my family's been friends and they used to listen to it you know it's gonna pleasure - a lot of children we can't play it because there isn't a key but I wonder if I can get I'm going to do something which I really shouldn't my ladies love there but I'm gonna try and get it just to work a little bit see if we can get a song at home [Music] lovely lovely tone I'm doing two things that you should never do first of all getting it to work by hand rather than by using the spring motor and secondly leaving it in the middle of the tune I'll run it through to the end later the name of the maker Nicole Freya is already indicating that it's a box of some quality the fact that it has a silvered label as well indicates that it's a box of some quality but we have to balance all that against the damage that it suffered it's missing one two three teeth from the comb now those are upwards of 50 pounds each to replace and obviously some work will need to be done to the mechanism to get it working I don't know if it's something as simple as just winding it up but I can see that half the governor butterfly at this end is missing so obviously some work needs to be done but even in this condition it is a valuable box and I hope your children will pay a little bit more respect to it when I tell you that it's going to be worth between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds in this condition and had it been had you not given it to these these home wreckers of yours it would have been in the region of perhaps four or five thousand pounds immediately you see these Russia is the origin they were given for Easter presence and there are a lot of collectors for them but as you see they're all in various hard Stone's enamels several types enamel you've got Gilliland in a balloon you've got Casone enameling some of them are set with little gemstones is one there and so on it's a lovely collection now it has to been collected by somebody because the these are normally given Easter 1 1 / Easter solving but there there are varying qualities here so I wonder if you can tell me little bit about the history of self well my husband's a London taxi driver and one night a lady handed him this person it was left in the lung in his taxi he then took it to the nearest police station and then it's passed on to the hackney carriage office and it's kept there for three months and then if no one claims it he goes and claims it and that's how it's come into our possession amazing and nobody has you know some has gone to all that trouble to collect all these they didn't quite how much am I using we couldn't say I can't believe some has gone to a lot of trouble that some of them are quite mediocre if you take these a gates and hard stones if they caught mediocre but some of the others are very very fine quality as one here set with sapphires rubies and diamonds and certainly there are company that I recognise incidentally by the the master achieve Faberge I mean this one that's Faberge there are one or two others here instantly won't one would say February I'm very very collectible but it's quite amazing that someone should have gone to all that trouble and I've even the chain itself is 18 karat gold it's a nice pretty link chain I mean that's gotta be worth two or three dollar Belden the eggs but you know it's quite quite fantastic that somebody should actually come with him in a London cab and a lady handed it to him absolutely incredible and he didn't want to collect it was rightly that maiden collected from the actual carriage oh well I'm glad he has because I don't know I mean do you have any sort of an idea on what they're worth right no well I can tell you now I mean there are lots of them a quite mediocre Tusayan and probably just worth you know their 4050 pounds each but certainly some of the more collector ones I mean that one there for instance it's probably worth five seven hundred pounds so to put an overall figure on them you know given the bad and the good there are a twenty-one of them so a hundred one hundred and fifty two hundred pounds apiece so you're looking at three or four thousand pounds John it's somehow fitting that we should end this program from Islington talking about furniture since so much of it was made in this area of London Rhys this has been kind of loaned to us by the Geoffrey Museum in in Shoreditch yeah and these pieces are commonly referred to as either apprentice pieces or traveler samples because of their size and what's your view of this well I don't actually agree with either of those and it's not and they're generally not fine enough to be apprentice pieces they had to be exemplary and this is not it's a lovely thing but it's it's a child's piece of furniture and the other reason I don't believe it it's a traveler sample is of course that you can imagine a traveler in the 1830s getting on a train with six or seven of these on it under his arm and it's just impossible so it's a child's piece if the simplest explanation is about it now tell me about the local furniture trade there was really two parts of the trade in London was there not the West End yeah being the rather smarter end of it where Thomas Chippendale had his workshop Aston Martins Lane and what went on in the sort of eastern and northern part well this basically fulfilled the manufacture of furniture for the greatly and vastly quickly growing city after the 1830s throughout the country after by 1850 where the 50,000 people were involved in the furniture industry and most of them were here and all the new terraced houses all had to be furnished the population of clark and well itself went up but not only here we actually helped furnish the new empire so we were exporting all over the world it was the most tremendous output ever but much of it was made in the way that we saw that piece of furniture earlier with Park work they worked in houses into tiny homes and rooms and they only did perhaps one member when one leg one bit of carving and that's all the man did a sort of inner city cottage industry oh yes totally totally John thank you very much and it's a great pleasure to see you again well that's it we couldn't have really expected a better start to our new series of the Antiques Roadshow next week we'll be going to the Northeast and we very much hope that you'll join us until then from all of us here at the Business Design Center in Islington good

Channel: UK VHS Archive

Views: 52,148

Rating: 4.7419353 out of 5

Keywords: Antiques Roadshow UK, Antiques Roadshow

Id: 83g0CO4mF2U

Length: 39min 42sec (2382 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 17 2018