Original subtitles

On Salvage Hunters,

Drew and Al dive nose first into Britain's industrial past...

Whoa! Look at this. First thing that hits you is the smell.

..show off tried and tested bargaining skills...

A hundred. He makes that noise.

Whatever, if you'd have said £5,

he'd have gone...

..and have an encounter with a highly endangered

150-year-old beast of the fairground.

They're such a rarity.

If you'd sell me one, I'd be over the moon.

Drew Pritchard is one of Britain's leading antique

and decorative salvage dealers.

It's a great-looking thing, isn't it? Fab thing.

Joined on the road by queen of the haggle

and quick flip, Viki Knott...

275, the lot.Yeah. Yeah, I'll take them.

..and lover of all things weathered and wonderful, Alister Dryburgh...

Just needs a load of cleaning. You clean it, I'll sell it.

Can we do it the other way around?

..Drew is sharing the knowledge...

What are those over there, Drew? They're great little mill carts.

..and expertise...

Three-step anglepoise. Rare as hell. God, it's an education already.

..he's gained over the past three decades.

Would have to be a really buy-me-now price, but I don't think it will be.

Five-fifty, Drew.

So you're taking me to Farnborough today...

We're in Farnborough. ..to see a showman.Yes.

OK. I've not done this before. We're off to see Joey Noyce

from one of the oldest showman families in this country.

The family have been in the business since the 19th century.

Yes.Wow.You know, that is quite some pedigree,

and I find it utterly fascinating.

It is, it's just a great love of mine.

And you've seen... You've seen over the years, all the stuff I've had.Yep.

Visiting a business that's been running for a long time

can mean finding rare or unusual items

that might have been off the market for decades or even centuries.

And today, Drew and Al are heading

270 miles southeast into Hampshire

on an invitation from

an extraordinary centuries-old

travelling fairground family.

So today, erm, signage?

Signage.Folkie.Wherever possible.

Have you bought much of this? I've never bought any of it.

I don't know a lot about it, so...

There's so much to know. ..you can teach me. So much to know.

It's the basics. It's a lot of it is condition.

You know, you very, very, very rarely find anything

that's just been painted once and left alone,

cos they'd overpaint everything every year.

Because it wasn't just meant to last.

It's meant to look shiny and vibrant and attractive and inviting

and brand-new and glitzy, you know?

So to find things in original paint is very, very hard.

You want pieces from the late 19th century,

if at all possible.OK.

All of this showman art,

it takes me back to being a child like that, you know.

Good times.Yeah.Hot dogs. God, I love hot dogs.

And, er, and the dodgems.

And being sick.

The smell of hot dogs, diesel and sick.Yeah.

Those... Those are the three things. Great memories.Great, great days.

In Farnborough in 1908,

an American showman, Samuel Cody,

who claimed to be the son of Buffalo Bill,

became the first person to fly

a self-built powered aircraft in the UK.

But Cody is not the only showman associated with the area,

which has, for over a hundred years,

been the base for the travelling James Noyce & Sons Funfair,

famous for its 19th century golden gallopers.

These days, it's in the hands

of sixth-generation showman, Joey Noyce.

I've been a travelling showman all my life.

Travelling showmen is associated with fairgrounds.

We own and operate fairground rides.

The business was started by my great-grandfather, Nelson Noyce,

at the beginning of the 1900s.

Er, he had his traction engines taking rides and stalls

from fair to fair, from town to town.

My grandfather, James or Jim, as he was known, he progressed.

He had a shooting gallery and then he bought the galloper.

We've got a mixture of memorabilia dating back probably 100 years.

A lot of it relates back to my father,

my grandfather, my great-grandfather.

Yes, it will be hard to let it go,

but it will be nice that it's being reused

and then people will get pleasure from it for years to come.

Hello.Hello. Joe, how you doing? Drew.

Hello, Drew. Nice to meet you.Hi, Joe. Alister.

You all right?Fine, thanks. All right, thanks for having us.

Can we have a look around? Of course. Where do you wanna start?

That looks interesting. Yeah. Carry on. Let's have a look.

People go, "Oh, fairground, circus," and they put the two things together.

They are distinctly different, OK?

So today this is fairground, showman, right? It's a different thing.

It's a fascinating subject. And it's important to the country.

Ah, OK.This is the workshop.Nice.

Yes. Well, it's, erm, it's ongoing at the moment.

We've had one of the horses, the leg had to be repaired.Yeah.

People seem to take it as a step to get on.

So we've had to repair that. Oh, yeah, yeah.

These are Anderson horses.

There's only of that size, I think, 12 ever made.

Two's in here. The other ten is in that trailer outside.

Wow.What are they worth, then, Joe? Something like -

I don't know. You don't know?To me, they're part of the gallopers.Yeah.

I bought a pair of emu, like running, galloping emu

and one horse, and I paid 10,000.Really?

For the three, 15 years ago. They're valuable things.Mm.

It goes back to my childhood. My father was a signwriter.

One of his best friends in the world,

his family were showmen.

My father became a signwriter, thus becoming their signwriter.

I was brought up around it. One of my earliest memories

was spending an entire day on the dodgems

while my father painted the rounding boards,

and I fell in love with the magic of it, and there is a magic to it.

And because I'd been around it from such a young age,

I wasn't scared of it when I first started buying and selling things,

I understood it. I got it.

These are parts of the gallopers. My grandfather made these

probably mid-1950s,

but we clean them off every year. Yeah.I touch them up, varnish them.

Same with the horses. Same with the centre panels.

These centre panels, you hardly ever see those.

They go around the centre of the galloper. I think...

Used to hide the... Used to hide the engine.

Yeah. That's right, yeah. Steam engine.You're right.

It's all about the nostalgia.

It's about the fun of the fair. It brings smiles to people's faces.

Everything's just so bold, so bright.

They're just great decorative things, you know.

I don't buy a lot of fairground art, so it's gonna be good today.

It's going to open my eyes to new things and I'm going to learn a lot.

There's a nice panel at the back there as well.

Jim Noyce & Sons. That was my grandfather,

and they were either side of the organ on the galloper.

You've got to keep that. Yes. It's wonderful.

Well, yeah, it's a bit of history, isn't it?Yeah.

There are an awful lot of pieces of original decoration

and signage lying around.

Some of it needs to stay here, cos once it's out of the family's hands,

somewhere along the line, the story gets lost,

and with it does a little bit of the soul of this business and, well, its life.

So no, leave it there. Leave it there.

That's only the second of those I've ever seen.

I think they were original when the galloper came out.

They are.We had... I think there were 24.Yeah.

The other 21 were rotten.

But they're double-sided. Interesting to see

what's on the other side of them, how they've survived.

I wouldn't know because they've been hanging up there for over 40 years now.

And they're on sheet steel, aren't they?Yeah.

They're such a rarity.

OK, well, like I say, they are quite rare.

We could possibly have a conversation

over maybe one or two of them.

I'd like to retain some of them, just to keep.

If you'd sell me one, I'd be over the moon.

And what I would say if I did buy one off you, I won't sell it.You won't sell it.

Cos I never thought I'd see another one.

These painted shields, I was buying showman art for 20 years

before I even saw one of these things.

And then I walk in and there's three hanging from there, clearly, by the same hand.

So this is an opportunity not to be missed.

I'd really like to buy at least one.

It's unusual, to say the least.

Can I bring the other two down? If you want to.

Yeah?Yep, yep.Oh, wow.

These hung between the gallopers. So when you're on the galloper, riding away, up and down,

a golden horse with a lion's face in front of you,

the magic just goes on and on,

and the noise and the smells, you know.

Look at that. Oh, hang on. Look, it's signed.

Is it?Oh, wow.

Look at that. Can you see that?

I can, yeah, but I don't know who that would have been.

I've never heard the name. No, nor have I.

So I see the signature on there and I'm like, "Wow."

Cos that's, that's... That opens up another whole world.

We're gonna find out now who did them, who produced them.

The signature on this double-sided shield

includes the name Bonheur,

which most likely refers to Alfred Bonheur,

a Bristol-based artist born in 1884

who painted theatrical scenery and fairground art.

Highly collectible, with a different painting on each side,

Drew thinks this extraordinary piece could be worth around £700.

Would you part with one? You don't have to.Which one?

I'd really like one with the name on.

I think that adds a lot to it for me.

500.I had a higher figure, but...

..if you're gonna hang it in your house...Yep. For sure.

..I'll let you have it for 500.

But all I'd ask is when somebody comes in,

if it's a conversation,

you tell them that it came off a Noyce's gallopers.

Deal.Done.Thank you.

Wonderful thing. Wonderful thing.

Whoa! Shivers down the spine.

That's a good piece. I'll enjoy that.

In 20 years' time, if I'm still around,

I can go, "Yeah, I bought that off Joe Noyce,

came off his gallopers that was handed down to him."

That's the stuff I love.

We've got more bits upstairs.

It's a bit precarious on the ladder, but I'm sure we'll manage it.

Do you want me to go first? Will it hold us all?Well, we're gonna find out.Yeah.

It doesn't look like it will, does it?

Come on.You'll be fine.Yeah.

My grandfather made these for me and my brother.

They're just a little trailer.

It's a Raleigh Chopper and a Grifter.

I've come here for fairground art, mad things.

But I didn't expect to see two Raleigh bikes up in a loft.Oh!

But I've bought a lot of old bicycles,

particularly Choppers. And they've, at the moment,

they're very, very collectable. And there's two of them up here.

These are hardly used.

I thought, "Oh, I hope they're for sale."

Raleigh was already a successful bicycle company

dating back to two Nottingham inventors in the 1880s,

but the 1969 Chopper,

with its nod to rugged motorbike styling,

started such a craze that it became an icon,

almost synonymous with the company name.

Its mid-'70s successor, the Grifter, was also hugely popular,

and the two models are now prized nostalgia pieces.

In amazing condition, Al thinks these two bikes

could be worth around £1,850.

Right. Do you know what you want for them?

No. Make me an offer. I can say yes or no, can't I?

For the pair.For the pair.

£850.No.

What?When I got 'em down,

I was looking at around a 1,500-quid mark for the two.

You're going to have to meet me a little bit nearer, I think. How much nearer?

Well, I'd like a lot nearer, but, you know.

Got to be some skin left in the game.

Of course. No, I totally - At 1,500, that's all the money.

Yeah.I think you're right, so...

Yeah, it is, it is. It's not going to be anything left in that. Erm...

In Surrey, Drew and Al have been invited in

by a showman family who can trace their history

back at least two centuries.

There's only of that size, I think, 12 ever made.

Two's in here. The other ten's in that trailer outside.Wow.

And tucked away in a loft space,

Al's made an unexpected discovery,

a pair of highly collectible vintage rally bikes.

I was looking at around a 1,500-quid mark for the two.

There's not going to be anything left in that.No.Erm...

Grand. I think that's a...

That's fair. That's very fair. That's a good offer.

Cool. Thank you very much. Yeah.Thank you.

Oh, I could have done with it being 850,

but I'm not going to let these bikes go,

because they're good examples.

And what saved them is they've been up in that loft,

they haven't been in the elements, they've just got dusty.

These will be shooting gallery. My mum's.

Erm, they would have been painted in the '70s, I would imagine that will be.Yeah.

Looking at the prices on there, 30p.

These are appealing because they're just fun. They're a bit of a giggle.

Also, they're quite collectible.

Age-wise, they're probably heading towards the latter part of the '70s,

cos when the '80s and '90s came in,

it was all plastic lettering and fibreglass by then,

so you can date them fairly accurately as well.

I was just looking on the back of that one

where it's been shot a few times, and the shots have still stuck in there.

They are.Yeah, shot's still in it. The lead's in there, yeah.

These are great. These are really nice.

Everybody's gonna want the five shots ones

for their home bars, aren't they? Yeah.Mm.

Do you want to... We both want these,

so do you want to go halves on them? Yeah. Yeah.

What would you want for all of them?

How many have we got? One, two, three, four, fix, six, seven.

What are they worth to you, Drew?

Er, 300.

Yeah, I'll go with that. Is that fair?Yeah, it is.

Cos I was thinking 250. Cool. Righto.

I sort of bought them.

I think Drew bought them on my behalf

or we went halves on them. He was very good today,

Drew was, at spending my money.

They were £300 for seven.

That's OK. Get 80 quid each or something for those.

Just follow around. We'll have a walk down the end.

That's a hell of a truck. It was my grandfather's.

He had it in 1947. Then my father.

And it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to my son.

Oh, nice.My father, he left it to my son, yeah, so...

Nice.Erm, we haven't got a lot in this one.

Er -Oh, hang on, you have. OK.What about that?

This?Yeah.Put that down.

That would have been original.

That's -Yeah, that's really good. That's nice.

That's -That's an early bit.

It's a carved panel with a mirror

as a centrepiece, a cut glass mirror.

It's really good. It's early fairground.

It's got layers and layers of old paint.

There's lots and lots of colours coming through.

Is that a bit of you? Oh, yeah, I do like that.

It's fantastic, isn't it? What would you want for something like that?

This isn't off the galloper, different carvings completely. No, it's separate.

It looks Edwardian to me. I don't know,

I'm selling something that I don't know the price of.

So I need to be around about three, don't I? 100.

100?Yeah.

Erm, I don't think I'll sell it for 300.OK.

That'd have to be £500 for that. Mm.

I don't know. Can we do four? We can do 450.

There's probably a bit left in that.

There's a bit. It's not worth having arguing over 50 quid.

No.Shake his hand. Go on. Get it bought.

Done.Good man. Thank you.

I was hoping for something like that today, if I'm honest.

I wanted to buy something fairgrounds.

And I didn't expect to get something so early.

Now this. That's great.

You saw the horseshoe price tickets? Yeah.Yeah.

They would have been made to slot in on the original ones.

I dare say, if you look on the backs, they would have something. Yes.Ah, look.

Ah, yeah.Yeah, a long time ago.

These are great. Did you do this? No, no.

That would be not me. That would be my grandfather.

They're great.Yeah. They're really nice.

There's another mix of signs in here, and they've got, you know,

six shillings and whatever on them. I like them, they're charming.

For me, that one and that one are the best ones.

Do you want to split them? If you want, I don't mind.

Yeah.Cos we'll sell these.

Yeah. They'll sell. Yeah.Yeah.£200.

Thanks very much. I'm spending your money here. Is that all right?You never push him up.

Well, no, I haven't. I'm sorry.I'm being generous with them as well.

I will, next time.You'll have him next time.I will do. Yeah.Definitely.

They are what fairground art is all about.

They're nostalgic, you know, they can relate to everyone.

And these should sell quite fast, I'd have thought.

Today with Joe, it's been great.

A true travelling, fabulous family business.

Obviously, the piece I bought today,

which I just love, is that shield.

That piece, whenever mentioned,

I will say, "This came from the Noyce family

and it came off their gallopers, which they still owned."

It adds so much. It has a perfect, perfect provenance.

Thank you. Thanks for coming.Wonderful day.

Yeah, it's been interesting. Brilliant.

Thank you. I've enjoyed the company. Thank you very much. See you.Bye-bye.Bye-bye.

It's been educational. Looking around,

they looked and bought things that

I never imagined them buying.

Yeah, it's been a fun day.

That was good. You've not been to one of those places before,

have you?Never been to a showman. Erm, loved it.

It's good, isn't it?Yeah. There's something about it.

I don't know why I have such a... I can see why you've got it.

..affinity to it. It's addictive stuff.

The next day, the boys are embarking

on a 185-mile ride into South Yorkshire.

Having enjoyed all the fun of the fair,

they've been invited to a business which is very different,

but which also holds a long pedigree,

with the promise of precious items accumulated over the years.

So we are in Sheffield

and we're off to see father and son, Richard and Tim,

at Woodware Repetitions.All right.

They are wood turners. Wood turners?Yes.

OK.So, you know, basically handles. Yeah. For tools.For tools.

Screwdrivers, chisels, all of that.

These guys, this is what they do.OK.

If it's got a wooden handle on it, they make it.

So what are you hoping to find today in somewhere

like a wood turner's?Who knows? Something to make a quid on.Yeah.

Sheffield has an unparalleled reputation

for the prowess of its steel craftsmen.

But skills such as wood turning have also thrived here for centuries,

with woodworkers drafted in to create items such as handles

for the vast quantities of tools and cutlery produced in the city.

Established here in the 1940s, Woodware Repetitions has preserved

traditional wood turning skills for the best part of a century.

For the last six years, the company has been under the management

of a father-and-son team, Tim and Richard Hinchliffe.

The machinery that we use on site here

is probably from the 1940s, some of it.

The modern machinery now is all computer controlled and programmed.

A lot of these machines are set up by hand.

Not much has changed. When we're making the wooden handles out of beech, ash,

all sorts of different timbers, exotic materials,

we create start to finish. We don't buy anything in.

The idea is that we want to retain

some of the items that we feel are part of the fabric of the business,

but at the same time, we've got to have a bit of a tidy up

and just make a bit of space and what have you.

Reasonable offers will be considered on almost anything.

That must be the doorbell.Yeah.

Brilliant. Can I do it again?

Hello? Hello. How are you doing? How you doing? Drew.

Richard. Nice to meet you. You doing all right? Yeah? How are you?

How are you doing? Alister. Pretty good, pretty good.

Nice to meet you. Loving the doorbell.

Yeah. Come in and have a look. Come on in.Thank you.

Whoa! Look at this.

First thing that hits you is the smell.Yeah, it's the smell of wood.It's lovely.

So, what are they making here? They're turning wood handles.

For wood turners' tools. These are wood turners' tools.

They're really beautiful.Yeah. Aren't they?

First impressions are handmade.

You can smell it in the air. You can sense it.

There's guys working on machines

that are coming up to sort of 70, 80 years old.

For me, seeing great British companies like this,

small businesses still going and vibrant and busy,

that's never gonna be boring to me.

These are the blanks that we cut

from the board you've seen outside. Yeah.

Er, obviously, they're all cut to a dimension on site here.

And then they're centred and turned.

Blimey.We do about between 500 and 1,000 handles a day.

A day?A day?Per day.

Start doing the maths. It's a lot. Yeah.Yeah, it's a lot, that. Yeah.

There's a lot of noise here. A lot of dust, a lot of dirt.

And you can see these objects, things I want to buy.

As soon as I walk in, there's a green cupboard.

Beyond that, there's something else.

That's fab.It's nice, isn't it? It just needs a handle.

From the outside, it doesn't look much.

Then you open it up. Pigeon holes all the way through.

They're very desirable. They were so desirable, in the '90s,

we used to buy those things and take the doors off,

because people preferred to have the open pigeon holes.

Do you know what you want for it, or do you want me to make you an offer?No idea. Offer.OK.

170.

In Sheffield, Drew and Al have the chance

to trawl a wood turning factory

where the craftsmanship dates back the best part of a century.

These are wood turners' tools. They're really beautiful.

And within minutes of arriving, Al's keen to close a deal

for a highly saleable industrial-style cupboard.

Do you know what you want for it, or do you want me to make you an offer?No idea. Offer.OK.

170.

Make it two and then we're there, aren't we?

You just could see that coming, couldn't you?Yeah.

Two hundred. I had that in mind, yeah.

You had that in mind?Yeah. Go on, then. Thank you.

£200 straightaway was fine.

You know, he would be able to get rid of that with relative ease, I think.

More pigeonholes.Of course.

Surplus to requirements? Yeah?I think so, yeah.Yeah, yeah.

OK. I'm not gonna bid you strong on them. Sixty quid.

A hundred quid?

No, I'd rather 70 in that, you know.

Seventy-five, then. Thank you.

OK. Yeah. Cool.Yeah.

The pigeonholes, we could just flip them in the trade,

make a couple of hundred quid each or £100 each.

People always want storage, and that's what they're really good for.

Into the ferrule shop.Ferrules.

The bit on the end there. Yeah, on the handle.

We make them here on site, all out of brass tubes.

So brass, steel, copper.Brilliant. Everything start to finish on the handle is done here.

We went into the ferrule room, and a ferrule is the bit,

the steel, brass, whatever bit that goes around the edge of that,

it's where you can secure knives, et cetera, et cetera,

screwdrivers, whatever. It's the end of that.

So what's this? This is to go, is it, this pigeonhole?

These pigeonholes, these are to go.

So we're currently using them for storage.

What timber is that? It's not pine.

No. See the grain there. That's pine.

That shelf's pine. That's not. That's a type of hardwood.

Yeah. That could be sapele.Yeah.

There's a big pigeonhole, open pigeonhole

on the right-hand wall. And it's made out of tropical hardwood,

the supports and sections of it. Why would they do that?

They would do that when that type of wood

didn't have a massive, massive value.

So it's probably the very latter part of the 19th century.

Interesting.

What would you want for something like this?

Do you want to go halves on it, split it?We could.

I think it's worth 400 quid as it stands.

That would be my top bid. I wouldn't want to spend any more for it.

It's a yes or no on that one for us.

I think we could go with that, yeah. Are you happy with that, Al?

Yeah. We'll go halves, yeah. Sure?Yeah.

Thank you.Appreciate it. Not a problem.Nice one.

It's quite long, but not too long.

It's about the length of a kitchen table. Great.

And it's not painted, which is another bonus.

And the shelves will slide out. Happy days.

This is something you can sell.

Ah, this is the saw shop down here.

We'll wheel the timber up and cut it up into the lovely turning blanks.

What a fabulous room! Make a brilliant showroom.

It would, wouldn't it? You've got the river just under the windows.

I mean, yeah, people come and fish out of the window sometimes.No.

Yeah. One of our neighbours comes down on a Friday afternoon

every so often. Fishes out the window?Yeah.

Really?Or gets the ladders down and goes and sits on the bank.

Oh, yeah, those tubs may be up for grabs.

What a great room. And I can see these green trolleys.

I just like the colour of these.

I like the look of them, the rustic feel they've got.

They need a bit of work, but nothing a couple of screws won't sort out.

It's a bit more than that. Is it?Yeah.

Yeah.You have to make them retail or home-friendly.

So I used to say to the lads who work for me, I'd buy loads of stuff like that,

and I'd say, "It has to be clean enough to push across a white carpet."

Makes sense. Yeah.Are these a bit of you?Yes. Definitely.

Yes, thought so. They all need repair.

They're all in about a similar shape to each other.

These two ain't that bad.

Every mill in this country has got these in or had these in,

mainly for cloth, all the way through

to steel shavings and sawdust.

And here, what they've been using them for is just moving the blanks.

And then Al, straightaway, "I'm interested in these."

So what would you want, £100 apiece?

Cos there's a lot... There's a lot of work if you want to part with a couple of them.

Do you want that little one as well? That's the best one.

That's the best one of the bunch.

What would you want for that one? Probably 150.150. So £100.

Couple of the green ones. And then 150.150 for that.

Yeah.Yeah. Got it. Cheers.Cheers.

People buy them for log baskets, and that's what they are these days.

Or put your toys in them or just put them in a shop,

fill them with blankets. Fill them with cushions. They'll look great.

Old roof finial. That roof finial.

People bring them to us saying, "This has fallen off

as I've done the roof. Can you do it for me?"

That's something I'd want to buy,

purely cos it's just a sculptural, beautiful thing.Yeah.

I think it's fab. I really like that.Yeah.

That's a great-looking thing.

So when you look at the gable end of a house in the Victorian era,

from the sort of late 1860s onwards, they had this sort of finial.

So it's a tall, vertical square section with a turned finial.

It's one of those. And he's just cut the good bit off the top

to use as a blank to make another one. It's beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing. So we would term this in the business

as an architectural element.

For that as it stands,

I'll happily give you, max, 150 quid.Yeah. That's fine.

You happy with that?I'm happy. You are. Yeah. Cheers.Yeah.

There we go.Thank you, mate. Thank you. Cool.Thank you.

That's all the money for that. But it's just a nice one. And it fits in the boot.

Yeah, it's really good. Just a nice one. Thank you very much.

I want it, I want it a lot. So I went in with a strong bid.

I think half of this would have bought it, but I wanted it.

So I paid 150 quid for it, which is a lot.

But when it's that little bit better, pay the money.

Make sure you get it.

I'd be very happy to own that at 150 quid.

Well, my loading of the van's easy. I don't know, yours is going to take forever.

You're helping.Thank you very much, fellas. Shall we get loaded up?

I've really enjoyed today. My love of British craftsmanship

and the small family businesses that run them is well-known.

And this family are keeping up that tradition.

But my favourite buy is definitely that finial.

It's somewhat a useless thing,

but it's a beautiful useless thing.

I paid all the money for it, don't know what on earth for, just had to buy it.

Thank you very much, fellas. Thank you for coming down.

I appreciate you coming, I really do.Thank you. All the best. Thanks very much.

Nice to meet you. Yeah. Take care. See you later.Bye-bye.

I'm more than pleased with what they've purchased today.

And it's gonna help us tidy the place up.

Yeah, it's nice tidying up.

It's been fantastic knowing that there is value

in what's knocking about. You know what I mean? That it's worth something to someone.

Fab. No, that's good. Nice people. Good businessmen.

You know what I mean? Proper businessmen.And it's just nice to get into those places.

There isn't many of them left, is there?

When I started warehouses like that, there wasn't many people

that really wanted the stuff out of them.Right.

And I remember getting laughed at for buying a lot of it.Yeah.

And then it became in vogue, you know. And all of a sudden,

we all felt we were really clever.

It's already been a week of outstanding finds,

but before they head home,

the boys are stopping off in the Midlands to see

if rich pickings might be on offer from a dealer

with a century and a half of treasure hunting behind her.

Right. So we're off to Warwick

and we're off to meet a lady called Debbie Reeve.Right.

And she runs Quinneys Antiques. OK.Right?

Yeah.Now, they've been antique dealing

since the second half of the 19th century,

and Debbie, who we're meeting today, is fourth or fifth generation,

er, specialising in doing their own restoration in-house.

I'm looking forward to it, especially somewhere I've not been before,

who's got such a huge history.

Warwick's famous castle, on a bend in the River Avon,

was built by William the Conqueror

to guard against rebellion in the Midlands,

subsequently becoming home to successive powerful families

who played pivotal roles in British history.

In the 1970s, the town of Warwick also became home

to an antiques family with a formidable reputation

dating back well over a century,

now in the hands of fifth-generation dealer, Debbie Reeve.

I started work with my father about 30 years ago.

Unfortunately, he died a couple of years ago. He was 92, fair age.

And so I've been, yeah, I've been in it for 30 years.

We really specialise in Georgian period furniture. Good-quality.

The main reason is cos they're beautiful.

They're beautiful and they're beautifully made.

I mean, look, look, you see these dovetails?

Handmade tiny, tiny dovetails, serpentine front.

I mean, nobody could do this these days. You're buying history

and love and skill that just doesn't exist any more.

Debbie. Drew, how are you doing? Hi.Nice to meet you.

Hello, Debbie.Hi.I'm Alister. Are you all right? Good.

Very beautiful, traditional antique shop.

Can we have a look around? Yeah, of course.Go in there?Yeah.

So you guys have been here for a long time, I believe.

Well, five generations. Right, five generations. Five generations?Yeah.

So we started in 1860.

That... I think that one's the longest-serving

antiques families I've ever heard of.

I can't think of anybody else that's longer than that.

Well, I didn't realise, erm, that this is an antiques business

that goes back to the 19th century.

So I think that makes it one of the longest-running

antique dealerships in this country,

and certainly, the longest-running I've dealt with.

Erm, quite incredible.

So lots of nice things. Erm, I don't know what I'm looking for,

but I know it when I see it. Anything for you, Alister?

I do like those dumps. They're nice.

OK.They're a nice colour, aren't they?

With the lights going through them. With the lights, they're lovely.

I don't know a lot about these. I've got to start learning more about these things.

I know they're called dumps. What they are basically

is the wastage from glassblowers.

But they've become very, very desirable.

The practice of making dumps began in the Victorian era,

when bottle manufacturers were taxed on how much glass they produced

rather than how much they used.

To reduce expensive waste, ornamental objects were made

and sold for uses such as paperweights and doorstops.

Al thinks this typical example made from green bottle glass

could be worth around £100.

How much is that dump? A hundred.

In Warwick, the boys are trawling the collection

of a fifth-generation antiques-dealing family,

and Al's started the ball rolling on a Victorian glass ornament

known as a dump.

How much is that dump? A hundred.

OK, but you might - He makes that noise...

Whatever, if you just said £5, he'd have gone...

No, what I was thinking, Drew - We'll have sighing lessons. Sighing lessons today, yeah.

Could we call it 70?Yeah.

That was easy, wasn't it?

Put it somewhere in the shop where there's a bit of light going through it,

it'd look a million dollars, and then there will be profit.

I've just got to market it right.

What's that little head in there?Can I - Yeah, you can look at it.

It's wooden, is it? It's a wooden one. It's an old wooden doll's head, yeah.

I've kept it because I don't know enough about dolls' heads.

It's really interesting. It's carved in the same way as a lay figure from the same period.

Right, OK. Give me a figure.No.

It's not for sale, or you just don't know? I want to know more about it.

Some things, you just want to hang onto until somebody can really, you know...

That's intriguing, though. There's a carved head,

extraordinarily beautiful little thing. And she said,

"I've kept that because I'm finding out about it."

And I absolutely, completely agree with her,

which is, I would have kept that too.

What a marvellous little thing.

There was one thing out here that interested me,

which was this mirror when I came through, it's just really unusual.

It is. Cushion mirror, circa 1700, I think.

Can I take it off the wall? Yeah, let's do that. It's heavy.

Go on. Now...

The plate's obviously wrong.Yeah, yeah, the plate's been replaced.

It's just been... Is it a continental - ..covered in French polish.

Yeah, yeah.Mm.Caked in it. But what really interests me

is this sort of jagged tooth-type design

and wave running around the edge here that I really like the look of.

Once restored, it will look really something,

because that timber around the outside, all of that decoration

would be really, really vibrant, back when it was brand-new,

because of the mix of timbers.

Known as a cushion mirror because of the convex cut

of the skilfully decorated mixed timber frame,

this example probably dates from the turn of the 18th century.

It was only in the 17th century that glass began to be used

for mirrors instead of polished metal,

but the original plate is long gone.

If the French polish, which has been added later, can be removed

and the glass is replaced with something closer to the original,

then Drew thinks this unusual piece could fetch around £1,200.

It's just down to price, really. What, realistically,

would you let that go for?

Well, go on, what do you think it's worth, realistically, for you to buy it?

Well, it's your shop, so I don't like to say that.

You've been doing this...1,200? ..longer than me. No.

No. OK. Go on, then.

Erm, I honestly see it cleaned up and repaired at around 1,200.

I think it's worth 400 quid.Really? Yeah. You asked me my opinion.

500?No, I just don't see it. I'll tell you what, here's an idea.

I'll pay 400 for it as it is, right? But could you restore it for me?

Yeah. OK. Would that be all right?Yeah.

Would that sweeten the deal? That would sweeten the deal. Good compromise.

So I said, "I'll tell you what. I'll give you £400 for it as it stands," which is not seeing her a profit.

"But how about you just restore it for me and send me the bill?"

I think that's gonna cost me about £400 to £500

to get that work done. But I'm getting something back,

which I think will be absolutely beautiful,

if I've seen the other work that's gone on in here.

Cool. Right. Are we done? I think so.

All right, I need to give you some money, and then we can load up the van.

Yeah?I'll sort that out. Come on.After you.

It's been great to visit somewhere with such history,

a family and a business with such a huge history,

and I've ended up buying something I'm really pleased with,

and I've got this wonderful, now, expectation

of ending up with something really beautiful

arriving in my warehouse that's ready to sell.

So the mirror in the hallway, an interesting one.

We're going to restore it for him. And that's gonna be nice to see it through.

So let's just hope I haven't made a huge mistake.

So that mirror, it's a valuable and very, very desirable little thing

if the resto comes out right. Clean, yeah.So we'll see.

So hopefully, in a week or two's time, we'll get it back.

So yeah. So you're happy.Yeah. I bought a dump.Yeah, you did.

I did, yeah.Least said about that, the better.Leave that there, I think, isn't it?Yeah.Yeah.

In the Quinneys workshop, veteran restorer Alex

is making a start on the mirror frame

using paint stripper and wire wool

to remove the thick layer of French polish.

The stripping is done on that bit. Now what I have to do

is just go over it and get the rest of the stripper cleaned off.

This is just methylated spirits,

just to clean the paint stripper off the wood.

Boy, I'm amazed, the difference in the colour.

You couldn't see any of the marquetry.

It didn't show up at all before it was stripped off.

It's gonna look amazing when it's finished.

I'm very happy with that. It's come out a lot better than I thought it was going to.

There's no nasty surprises underneath the polish,

so we can get on and oil it.

I'm going over it with a linseed oil mixed with turpentine.

It will sink into the wood and bring out the colours of the marquetry,

and hopefully, warm it up a bit.

I think you can see the difference straightaway

when you put the oil on it. It's a more natural finish.

This is how it would have been done in the day when this mirror was made.

Cos French polish is a later 19th century invention,

so it would not have been used on a mirror of this age.

Over the next 24 hours or so,

this will darken down and ping out at you even more.

Alex has sourced two pieces of period-correct glass for Drew.

Drew's asked for a split mirror to be put in.

Back in the day, larger mirrors would have a split glass in it

because it wasn't physically possible to make

a piece of glass at that size.

The old glass is fitted with wedges that will hold the glass into it,

and it'll stop it falling out, so we'll glue them in.

Well, this is animal glue, which is the more natural glue

that would be used at the period.

It's not one of the modern synthetic glues.

The backboard goes on now, covers all this up.

Whenever I can, I try and use the original holes.

We don't want to put new holes in the back of the mirror.

There we go. That should be OK. That looks fine.

I'll go over it again, and over the next two or three weeks,

we'll have some sort of a polish on it that Drew, I'm hoping, will be happy with.

With the mirror recovering the vibrant look intended

by its late 17th-century maker,

the week's haul proves what can be found at businesses

which have stood the test of time.

This week's been brilliant. We visited three long-standing

established businesses. Noyce & Sons.

Oh, I had a really good time there, and that fabulous Victorian panel.

Washed it, just a gentle wash, and the colours just came out amazing.

The Grifter, the Chopper sold straightaway.

I've got a collector in Aberystwyth.

He is one of the biggest collectors for Chopper bikes in the UK,

so that was an easy one.

Just seeing Drew's eyes light up when he bought the shield,

you know, that was great too.

Woodware Repetitions. The trolleys went out to the trade,

as did the cupboard. So yeah,

another brilliant location, and we did really well.

Let's get back out there next week,

let's fill the van again, cos that's what we do.