Silver Discoveries That Left Experts And Owners Speechless | Antiques Roadshow UK

So I think you've done brilliant. Well, my wife did well. Good grief. My goodness. They belong to my aunt. That one in particular I have known for about 50 years because she always had it as an ornament. Right. And the other one, I haven't noticed so much, but then of late it was in her china cabinet. Well, they both were. Right, yes, so rather put away and not used. And she gave me them at Christmas. Have you used them since then? Oh, no. That would be rather fun to use. This little fellow, Pepper Pot. It is Pepper. That one is for Pepper. You can see the piercing just at the top. And of course, the lid detaches. He's rather fun. And marked underneath there, and the maker in this case is the maker you really want for owls, Charles Thomas and George Fox. Yes. Very, very good makers. I think one of the best makers of the middle years of the 19th century made so many very really original objects. And the date we're looking at for this little fellow is 1856. The larger one, now he was marked or made and then marked in 1852. So a little bit earlier. The maker in this case is one that you don't find quite so often. And that's a chap called George Richards. And with the size that we've got there, I think he's really been intended for sugar. Yes, well, that's what's been in that one. Right, right. Fox was the better of the two makers. And actually, when you start to look into the detail, if you look, for example, at the way the feet are produced, the much better feet that you've actually got on the Fox one than on the other. They're sort of, the feet are there, yes, but they're rather sort of puddingy feet. So very collectible. I would think the little fellow here by Fox, he at auction, you'd be thinking of somewhere between seven and eight hundred pounds. And the larger one, I would think say a thousand to twelve hundred. Well, unless you two are the youngest silver dealers I've ever set eyes on, I'm guessing that you must have been given this gorgeous collection of quite interesting silver. Is that the fair guess? Yes. Who gave it to you? Well, it was our grannies, but before that it was our great great granddad. And is this him? He's the one at the top. He's the one at the top. So that's your great great grandfather, Walter? Yes. And this fellow? That's his father, so our three great grandfathers. And who's this fellow? His grandfather, so four great grandfathers. Four great grandfathers. Yes. That's an incredible thing to own, you know. Not everyone can make that boast. Yeah. Well, you're very lucky because he had a good eye for silver. I think probably the best thing to do is if you could each pick out, you know, one item here that is your particular favourite. Which is your favourite? My favourite's the bird. The bird. Why do you like the bird best? He's really pretty and he just looks nice. He's a beautiful little jewel, isn't he? Yeah. And your favourite piece? The cow. The cow. And why do you like the cow? I don't know, it's just nice and I like how the back comes off as well. Yes. He's very cartoonish, isn't he? He's rather cute. Well, they're both lovely. We'll start with the bird. The bird is a pepper pot. His head comes off, you fill him with pepper and you sprinkle your pepper on your vegetables. And he's lovely, isn't he? Sweet. Yeah. He was actually made about 150, 160 years ago. 100. In a town called Srinagar in Kashmir. That's a long way away. That's a long way away. He's flown a long way, this little bird. He's absolutely super. Little glass eyes. They look like garnets but in fact they're made of glass. But he's a very nice little bird. Your cow, again, good choice. This is what's known as a cow creamer. The reason he's a cow is because you open his back up here, you fill him full of cream and then you pour the cream out of his mouth. And you put, yeah, his mouth's got a little slot in there. And he's a most collectible little model, him. Relatively modern, he's only 150 years old. He was made in Holland to sell here to a market that were very keen on cow creamers. I know, they were terribly fashionable. Everybody loved them. And now, would you like to know who's chosen the most valuable piece of silver among these? Yes. Who do you think it is? Which one do you think is the most valuable? I don't know because I thought the bird's eyes were rubies but it turns out they're glass. So that's changed your opinion a bit, has it? They're both the same age. So what are we going to say? I think the cow because it's bigger. The cow, well, that's a good answer. The cow because it's bigger. Actually, it turns out you're right too. The cow because it's bigger. Your cow is worth somewhere in the order of 800 to 1,000 pounds. Yeah. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And your bird here is still a very lovely thing. He's worth sort of somewhere between 300 and 400 pounds. Still a lot of money. And there are other things here that are worth quite a lot of money too. So you will take care of all this lot, won't you? Yeah. Well done. We've brought along a really good looking piece of Victorian silver with silver gilt panels on it. And it's got some interesting initials engraved on it but appear to be the V for Queen Victoria, A for Prince Albert and LP which I think might be Louis Philippe, King of the French. And it has a date, October the 14th, 1844. In 1844, there was a visit from the King of the French to the UK estate visit. Upon his return, a storm brewed up which is depicted in this print here. And he couldn't get onto the boat. So they put a call out, however they did it in those days, to the guy who lived in the house we bought, Thomas Grant. And he was told to boot out his guests because the Queen was coming for tea. So she came with her party, including Louis Philippe and Albert. And that was a gift that the Queen gave to Thomas as a thank you. Good heavens. Extraordinary story. And you live in Thomas Grant's house? We bought Thomas Grant's house as a wreck about 20 years ago. Right. Now, he was a very, very good, if not famous, inventor. Is this the same chap? It is. The first thing he invented was a mechanized way of making ship's biscuits, which made the making of ship's biscuits 12 times more efficient than it had been, which was pretty important in those days. Then he did a number of other things, including inventing a way to desalinate water, which again was pretty useful. That was very important. And then he got his knighthood for bitchling the Navy at the Battle of Crimea. So how did you end up with this? My wife and I first bought the house. We went to a local gallery and got talking to the owner, and we told him we lived in Thomas Grant's house. He said, oh, I bought the cup a number of years ago. I'd love to have been able to sell it to you because it belongs in the house. He sold it to somebody else in the interim or before I met him. But over the years, we badgered the guy who bought it. And one day he said, it deserves to be back with you. So he sold it to us for the same price he paid for it, 3,300 pounds. Right. OK. Well, let's take off the lid. It's got a set of marks in here for Robert Garrard. And Garrard's were the royal jewelers at the time. It has a date letter here for 1844, which ties in. And it's all in the very high Victorian style. But overall, a very handsome piece. The fact it's royal, the fact that Grant is a reasonably well-known character. If this came up for auction now, I can easily see it making 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 pounds. So I think you've done brilliant. Well, my wife did well. Yeah, fantastic. You've reunited it where it should belong. You brought along this very pretty small dish. But I think you know who made it, don't you? I think it was made by Guild of Handicraft somewhere near the beginning of the 20th century. Absolutely. And how did you come to get it? It's given to us by my Auntie Jean, properly my great-aunt. She was born in Fife in 1912 and then subsequently moved to Edinburgh and looked after children, families, and then ultimately old ladies. And it was one of these old ladies that she looked after who gave her this plate that she then gave to us as a family. What a fantastic present to have. Absolutely. You're correct in saying that it was made by the Guild of Handicrafts. And the Guild of Handicrafts was started in London by Charles Ashby. He was one of the pioneers of the Arts and Crafts movement. He was a great follower of William Morris and John Ruskin. The Arts and Crafts movement was all about a reaction to machines. They wanted to produce things in the old-fashioned hand-raised way. And if you look at this dish, you'll see all the hammer marks all around it. And that just shows that it was a flat sheet that was hammered up into the shape required. As you say, it's got the maker's mark and G of H, Guild of Handicrafts at the top, and the date letter for 1904. But what is particularly nice about your dish is that it has these three enamel little bosses on here. That is quite rare. You normally get stones, cabochon stones, sort of rounded stones set into the side of mustard pots and things like that. Then you've got what I think they're poppies behind them. So you've actually got quite a rare dish here. Everything is right about it. That's good. And collectors really go for rarities and things in good condition. If the enamel was chipped or broken, the price drops by half. Has anybody ever looked at this or given you any idea what it might be worth? No, not at all. Well, I think at an auction, you could easily get £2,000. Good grief. My goodness. I didn't expect that. So she did have an eye for things, my aunt. She certainly did.