Retroselect loves BBC Antiques programmes, and I know it is easy to sit at home and play the expert. However, the BBC's excellent, but rather old-fashioned, Antiques advisers often seem a bit at sea when it comes to anything post-war (notable exceptions being the excellent Mark Franks, and the Cash in the Attic team).
The basic problem seems to be a lack of research. To help put this right, please email me if you have spotted any gaffes, and please suggest a book for the expert to read.
Flog It! (March 2007)
The excellent Mark Stacey picks out a wall plaque, showing three white birds on a blue ground. Stacey has a good eye for contemporary objects, and it is obvious to the viewer (but not, alas, to any of Flog It!'s experts) that this is a rare Sgraffo Modern plaque from the mid 1950s designed by the legendary Peter Mueller. Unfortunately Stacey does not recognise the backstamp and had not heard of Sgrafo Modern! Naturally, Paul Martin pours scorn on the object, and the BBC then consign for sale at a depressingly dingy provincial auction house full of blue-rinsed old ladies - the whole sale looking like a raffle at an old folk's home. Not surprisingly, the plaque sells for a mere 20 pounds.
On the internet, professionally catalogued and described by experts, this plaque would have made at least 4 times as much.
What book could the Flog It! experts buy to bring them in touch with the modern antiques market? Perhaps Horst Makus' standard reference book, 'Ceramics of the 1050s' where Sgrafo is proufusely illustrated, its backstamp shown, and its output and designers described in several essays.
Cash in the Attic (date unknown)
Jonty Hearnden finds a Score for Rhapsody in Blue, signed by George Gershwin, in somebody's attic. Astonishingly, the BBC consign it for sale at a seedy provincial auction house where it sells for a derisory £890.
Shortly afterwards, the score was resold by Adam Andruiser Autographs for £4,745
THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW AWARD FOR TACT AND SENSITIVITY
Eric Knowles casts a disdainful eye over a table-full of mainly 20th Century ceramics brought along by two black women (the first, and probably, after this, the last, black people ever to be seen on the Antiques Roadshow). After trashing one of their Art Deco pieces, he goes on to say:
"We have to wade through tons of rubble to find gems on this programme. The things you have here are, unfortunately, typical of what the public bring to us in vast quantities ... except these two wonderful Victorian dishes!"
Embarrassingly, it transpires that the wonderful dishes belong not to the ladies themselves but to their friend. The unfortunate implication is that everything owned by the ladies themselves is ... crap!
Bargain Hunt, 14 March, 2006 (BBC Prime)
A 1950s wall mask appears, and you can see from a mile away that it is by Cortendorf, one of the most famous and collectable of all German wall mask manufacturers from the 1950s. It is snapped up by the contestants. The experts both proclaim that the piece is unmarked, saying: 'it is very difficult to identify a maker on these pieces'. Tim Wonnacott also declares the piece to be 'unmarked' and says 'maybe it is Goldscheider'. The Auctioneer gives his expert opinion, too, saying: 'we can't identify the maker'.
Incredibly, the camera close-ups show a very clear crowned "C" Cortendorf backstamp.
Since not one of the four experts could recognise the Cortendorf backstamp, maybe they could all chip in and buy a book? The standard reference book "Wall Masks of the 1950s" by Horst Makus, in which Cortendorf and its backstamp are prominently featured, would be an obvious starting point.
CLASSIC QUOTE
David Barby, adressing a female punter who has just bought an object:
"This piece would have belonged to a Lady of Quality"
Bargain Hunt, 14 March, 2006 (BBC Prime)
A Royal Worcester lookalike vase is chosen, and expert Tim Wonnacott tells us that it comes from "Bavaria". Wrong country, Tim: it was from Bohemia, in Czechoslovakia.
Which book could Tim read? A school atlas, perhaps?
THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW DISCOVERS A GHASTLY MODERN THINGY CALLED ... THE INTERNET
"When I heard that people were buying antiques on the Internet I thought they were mad. But I have since heard that people have bought some good pieces that way"
David Battie on Antiques Roadshow in 2006, 11 years after eBay was founded, and at a time when 10 million people in the UK are using eBay
Bargain Hunt, 14 March, 2006 (BBC Prime)
Dear old David Barby - normally very reliable - recommends that the contestants buy a wonderful set of 3 Wedgwood graduating jugs. His reasoning: the jugs "feel lightweight, and this is a sure sign of quality". Errr, right. He leaves one of the three jugs on the stall because it has a broken handle. Later in the auction house, the auctioneer points out that one of the two remaining jugs is cracked.
That leaves just one saleable jug out of a set of three. What a bargain!
Flog It! January 2006 (BBC 2)
The expert spots a Carlton Ware coffee set in immaculate condition. The design is one of the great classics of post-war English ceramics - the famous Orbit pattern (Carlton Ware page 1).
Astonishingly, the expert says 'I don't know what this design is called'!
A good book for the expert to read would be the standard work 'Ceramics of the 1950s', by McLaren, where Orbit is illustrated on page 9. Anyway, she did a superb of the valuation, putting it at £100-150 the set: it sold for £150 - spot on. I guessed, wrongly, that it would go higher.
DOUBLE YOUR MONEY FROM THE LICENSE FEE!
David Battie on Antiques Roadshow describes retro ceramics as:
"Rubbish from the 1950s"
Not long afterwards, David appears on the BBC's "Thoroughly Modern Antiques" programme singing the praises of.... 1950s ceramics!
Flog It! (date unknown)
A Dutch antiques appraiser has emailed me with the following story:
"A large ceramic vase was offered. An art Nouveau vase of great quality. The only thing the guy who presents the program could do was giggle about the Dutch name of the Factory [retroselect note: inane giggling? I wonder which presenter that could be?]. They were so glad it made a stunning 400 pounds. And now the reality:
Here in the Netherlands the vase would make at least 2000 pounds.
"The vase was an absolute top piece made by the Brantjes Factory in Purmerend in The Netherlands in about 1900. A large charger produced by this factory is on permanent display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. My opinion is that it is not a shame if an expert does not know everything. You cannot know everything. But one can at least do good research on a piece. If a piece is very special they could tell the client to go to the larger auctions who operate on international scale."
