All language subtitles for Antiques Uncovered S01E02 HDTVi

Antiques.

What do we really know about them?

Apart from being beautiful
to look at, exquisitely made

and often hugely valuable.

Fabulous!

It was the equivalent of the Rolex
watch of its day, let's say.

'But why were they made
in the first place?

'And who were they made for?'

This is totally brilliant.
It's a folding bed in a suitcase.

Whether from a country house
or a market stall,

they unlock a fascinating history
of the way we lived then and now.

This is like taking your satnav
on a journey today.

'I'm historian Doctor Lucy Worsley.

'And I'm going to uncover

'the stories behind
some of these remarkable objects.'

'I'm antiques expert Mark Hill.

'And I'll be looking at
why some items have become priceless,

'whilst others are the collectables
of tomorrow.'

"Can I be a butler when I grow up,
Mum?" We know exactly what he's seen.

We'll meet the people
who preserve them.

Those who still make them.

Oh, my goodness!

And the passionate enthusiasts
who collect them.

When's it going to end - when East
Anglia is covered with your railway?

HE LAUGHS

'We're going to put antiques in
their historical and social context.

'In this programme, we're examining
antiques from the world of travel.

'We'll discover who made them,

what they cost, how they changed
our behaviour,

'and follow their journey
through history into our homes.'

Quex House in Kent
is a monument to travel.

It was home to a wealthy
Victorian landowner

who explored Asia and Africa.

So it seems like the ideal place
to start.

This house was owned
by Major Powell-Cotton,

who was the most
terrific Victorian explorer.

I've heard that it's stuffed
with treasures from his travels.

Many former travel essentials are
now just glorious relics of the past.

And nothing sums this up more
than a globe.

Globes have been in existence
since the ancient Greeks.

Here at Quex's house, we're looking
at some mid-Victorian globes.

Why are you so obsessed with globes?

For me,
they're a snapshot of history.

A snapshot of our social history
and our exploration of the world.

So, at this particular point,
Australia has been discovered.

There it is.

And we can tell that Captain Cook
has done his stuff

because his route is marked.

Absolutely. There are two routes.
Cook's voyages from 1768 to 1774

help us to date a globe.

I like to imagine your Victorian
or your Georgian gentleman,

or particularly a merchant,
sitting at home in his study,

caressing his globe and thinking,
"My ships are over here

"and I've got good links
with China."

It must've felt like being
a master of the universe,
to twizzle your own globe.

Absolutely. These were the playthings
of very wealthy people.

Certainly during the Georgian period,

when globes really rose
in popularity.

They're still the playthings
of the wealthy.

Indeed, people still commission
globes to be made.

If you wanted to buy antique globes,
a set like this, quite a small size,

would probably set you back
around £2,000-£3,000.

And they wouldn't be very useful

if you wanted to visit the
South Pole because it's not marked.

We hadn't got there yet.

I'm heading over
to the Isle of Wight

to meet a globe maker and collector.

Greaves & Thomas is one of only
two places in the UK

that still handcrafts globes
the traditional way.

Mark, do come in.
Welcome to the Globe Works.

My goodness! Looking at
all these globes hanging here,

I can almost imagine being
in an 18th-century shop

selling scientific or navigational
instruments. It's fantastic!

Why globes? What kicked you off?
I have a passion for globes.

And it's because it is man's image
of the world he's on.

And because of that,
there are such diverse, different

possibilities
of what to make the globe of,

what the subject matter is
and what the globe actually does.

These traditionally-made globes

take more than three weeks
to produce.

The process starts
with master globemaker David Gower

pouring plaster into a mould.

Once it has dried, David reinforces
it with hessian sack

and then adds more plaster.

The globe is blown out
using pressurised air

and then left to dry for two weeks.

The two semicircles
are joined together.

The globe will then be hand-papered
with segments of map, known as gores.

There's a special technique to
pasting a gore onto the plaster ball,

which makes it appear
three-dimensional.

But this process is a trade secret
dating back over 500 years.

And here it is, the finished globe.

It's a reproduction of the earliest
surviving known terrestrial globe,

and it was designed by Martin Behaim,
a German,

around 1491 or 1492.

But what's really significant
about it is the fact that

if you spin it around,...there's
no America.

That was because it was produced
before Columbus returned
with his discovery.

Across the surface, you'll find
all manner of inscriptions,

including ports and major cities.

But I think my favourite inscription
is somewhere in Mongolia,

where it very clearly states,

"Here grows much rhubarb."

James specialises in making
historical reproductions,

but he also has a collection
of slightly more unusual globes.

So, what's the craziest version
you've come across?

I think the most unusual globe
I have is that cow,

which depicts a world map on it.

So you could call it a globe.

The landmasses are in black and the
ocean is in white. You don't see it.

You think, "Why is this person
showing me a cow?"

But it's actually a globe
and it was made about 1921.

Now, this to me
looks like a Phillips globe.

They were a very prolific maker,
weren't they? Yes, they were.

They were making globes from
late Victorian times up until 1988.

The most wonderful thing for me
about these Phillips globes

is that they're much more affordable.
That's right.

You can buy a Phillips globe
on an Internet auction site

for as little as £50.

A good one
will sell for a lot, lot more.

What's the oldest globe
you have in your collection?

I've got here a pocket globe,

which was made about 1810, 1820.

Thank you very much.

What a gorgeous thing!

This is in a fish-skin covered case

and it has the map of the heavens,
the celestial map, on the inside.

That's right. And hand coloured.
Both aspects hand coloured here.

And then you have the globe here.

These were popular items to have
if you could afford it. Yes.

I think it was the equivalent of the
Rolex watch of its day, let's say.

So something like this, very small,
what would this be worth?

I would have said in auction,
this would be worth £2000-£3000.

But you could pay a bit more
if it was in fantastic condition.

I notice that's a little bit damaged.
A little bit scuffed.

To me, that is not detrimental
to its appeal for me.

If you were to buy this
from a good dealer in the West End,

it would probably be about £5,000
in very good condition.

That's incredible.
And a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Until the middle
of the 19th century,

travellers would have relied on
a public stagecoach

or a private carriage
for transport.

But private carriages
were expensive.

Employing a coachman
with a couple of horses

cost an annual £20,000
in today's money.

The coachman's uniform alone
cost more than he earned in a year.

For the wealthy, there was
an essential travel accessory,

a specially-made clock that could
withstand bumpy carriage journeys

and still give accurate time.

This is called a carriage clock.

You often see these
on people's mantelpieces.

Perhaps your dad got one
as his retirement present.

But here,
it's not in its natural environment.

You're supposed to take it with you
on a journey.

It has its own little
travelling case.

As the name suggests,
you take it in your carriage.

Rich Georgian travellers depended
on their carriage clocks

to be strong enough
to survive the shock

of the 18th century's rugged roads.

The first carriage clocks
were made in Paris in the 1790s.

Originally,
they were status symbols.

A sure sign that their owner
had the time and money to travel.

I'm going to test-drive
the carriage clock

with the collector, Robert Wren.

It's like a big, enormous,
expensive, fancy watch.

Absolutely. Yes.
That's its purpose.

If you've got a proper
carriage clock,

it will have a handle on the top

so you can lift it up
and carry it around. Yes.

And it will have
a little travelling case. Yes.

And the key thing is
that we can hold it like that,

and like that, and it keeps going,
right? Absolutely.

The advantage of the carriage clock
for travelling

was they're reasonably small,
they were portable,

but they were able to keep time
on the move,

they didn't have to be stationary
and very steady.

This clock was made in 1835
and it was made

by Howell & James
of Regent Street, London.

And inside is going to
have a mechanism.

A balance.
A balance with escapement,

which you can see running there.

That's enabling it to work while
it's being bounced along and tilted.

That's your time keeper.

Before that,
clocks had a pendulum in them

and obviously,
if you juggle that about it gets...

It would stop and not keep time.

So, before the carriage clock,
there wasn't such a thing

as Standard Time, was there?

No, you had local time,
your sundial time.

and you would have had
non-portable clocks at home.

It's really the Napoleonic wars,
isn't it,

when people start needing

to know what the time is,
because they've got to get
to the battlefield on time.

Napoleon says all of his officers
must have one of these.

Yes.

This is a super-luxury item,
isn't it? Yes, yes.

This is a very rare example
and today,

the value of such a fine piece
would be about £16,000.

Hold on tight! Hold on tight!

In the 18th century,

young aristocrats would travel
across Europe

in carriages on journeys that
would take up to two years at a time.

They were making what became known
as the grand tour.

This is where the word tourist
originates from.

The most popular destinations

were to the ancient ruins
of Greece and Rome,

regarded then as
the centres of civilisation.

The British in particular were
fascinated by these ancient worlds.

A potter, Josiah Wedgwood, saw the
opportunity and started to design

new products
that looked like classical antiques.

Wedgwood studied illustrations
and drawings

of objects which were being found
in excavations at Pompeii

and Herculaneum.

In 1769, he created four vases,

which were exact replicas
of some of these finds.

Wedgwood called them
First Day's Vases.

Today, they are priceless

and two of them sit in the
Wedgwood Museum near Stoke-on-Trent.

So how much would that have cost
in the 18th century?

That vase would have cost
four guineas -
four pounds and four shillings.

It doesn't sound very much
in today's term,

but, in fact, that would be
half the price

of an annual artisan's wage.

So, it was actually
a huge amount of money.

You'd spend six months working
just to own that vase,

should you want to?

Which is why it's remained
very much the aristocracy

and that burgeoning class
of industrialists,

who were the new money,

who were commissioning
the great new houses.

And of course all this is driven
by an absolute desire

to have the classical again?
Things seen on the grand tour?

It's driven by what the public
demanded,

what they wanted,

the most up-to-date fashion taste
as you said.

But for Wedgwood to become
the success he did,

he had to have more than just the
aristocracy buying his work?

Absolutely. He made a wide range
of tea bowls, teacups,

teawares... Even down to salt
cellars for the tables.

Everybody could have something that
was fashionable and up-to-date?

Yes. Everybody could aspire
to acquiring a piece
of blue-and-white Jasper.

Wedgwood's showrooms
must have been fantastic.

I would have loved to have seen
one.

He even had a bargain basement

where people could go

and rummage for that slightly
damaged or slightly crooked vase,

so that they could
actually have something

like their more
aristocratic friends,

that probably was just slightly off!

The style that Wedgwood used
is known as neo-classical,

which flourished
in eighteenth-century Britain.

The word neo-classical
is often used to describe

architecture, but neo-classicism

can also be applied to furniture,
metalwork and ceramics.

Its approach to design
drew its inspiration

from the classical art and culture
of Ancient Greece and Rome.

There are several ways
to spot neo-classicism.

The design will refer back
to the ancient world,

architectural details will include
pillars or columns,

the decoration will be
simple and symmetrical.

And any figures on it
will be idealised.

Over 200 years later, the factory
still handcrafts its pottery

and I'm going to discover
how a classic piece is made.

This lump of clay will eventually
become the Portland Vase.

It is made today in exactly
the same way it was under Josiah.

The first step is what's called
throwing the body.

The Portland Vase is a copy of a
blue and white Roman glass vase,

made around the first century.

Josiah Wedgwood was obsessed
with trying to recreate it,
not in glass but in pottery.

It took him nearly four years
to perfect

and was the crowning technical
achievement of his life.

The process now is... I'm going
to start bringing the neck in. OK.

It's probably the most
complicated part of the vase.

'Chris trained for two years
to master this technique.'

Quite proud of that one!
Absolutely. That's a good one.
That's a good one.

'The pot is now the correct shape
and size,

'but it needs to be smoothed down
with a lathe.'

So, Sue, your job is to create
the decoration that's applied
to the body. That's right, yes.

I have to press the clay in...
Aha. Make sure all the air's out.

And all the details put in.

Because the moulds
themselves are incredibly fine. Yes.

Considering what you produce
with this bashing is so delicate,

I'm sort of surprised!

So now you're removing the excess
clay from the top. That's it.

When the clay's put through
the mould, presumably,

it loses this buff pinky colour.

Yes. It will turn out white.
It's only a vegetable dye.

It's just colouring in it
so we can see the figures better.

Ah, and that burns off in the kiln?
Yeah. I see.

It's amazing to think you're using
the same process that was
used over two centuries ago.

Yes. Exactly the same. Pioneered.

Now this is the bit I've always
wondered. How do you get them out?

OK, here we go. Oh, my goodness!
Oh, my goodness!

So...
That's damp. It's just damp. I see.

It's the suction between the tool
and the water that fetches it out.

And because it's such a thin membrane
of clay, it's very light

and it just starts to move.

That's incredible.

Look at that!
And it just lifts clean out.

The final stage is when decoration,
known as sprigging, is attached.

Although everybody's role is equally
important in the production process,

it strikes me that the pressure's
on you.

You get this bit wrong... What
happens if you do make a mistake?

I have about 15 minutes
to take it off.

And that's before it gets too dry.
Before it starts to dry.

After that, it's not worth it.

So what happens to the vase if it has
a fault? It's no good. It's a reject.

It would be smashed. Destroyed?
Yeah. After all that work? Yeah.

I'd better keep quiet then
and let you get on with the job.

'This vase is so exclusive that
only perfect reproductions pass.

'There are no seconds sold of these.'

'Finally,
the vase is fired in the kiln,

'one that was designed by
Josiah himself.'

And here it is,
the finished Portland Vase.

It's exactly the same
as the first copies

that rolled off
the production line in 1789.

I've come to London's
Portobello Market

in search of some more modern
pieces.

It's incredible to think
that Wedgwood Jasperware

has somehow fallen out of fashion
in Britain right now.

But that's brilliant because it means
if you like the look, there's
never been a better time to buy.

Look for the 20th century.
This vase made during the 1950s,

so it's a 20th century piece,
which is much more affordable.

You can get the look
for a very low price.

Visiting the classical worlds
of Greece and Rome

remained the privilege of the
super rich until the early 1800s.

Then a revolutionary invention
came along, the train.

Railways cut travel time
by up to 90%.

Instead of crawling along
in a carriage at 5mph,

people could now travel ten times
as fast and it was much cheaper too.

I'm quite intrigued to learn more
about how the grand tour turns into

mass tourism and 1825's a key
year, the railway gets invented.

That's right.
But this railway isn't all it seems.

It's one collector's dream -

a little railway, many carriages
and a lot of memorabilia.

Extraordinary as it may seem,
this isn't a real railway station.

It's more of a giant train set.

Every single object here,
from the waiting room

to the locomotives to the coal, has
been lovingly collected by one man.

Train enthusiast John Jolly
has been building up his railwayana

collection over many years
into his own private museum.

But it all started off as an empty
field and a twinkle in his eye.

So when you bought
your very first item,

did you have any idea where you
were going to go with this?

None at all.
I was only 16 at the time.

I had no imagination that it would
develop into anything
even approaching this.

When did you get your first
proper big engine?

The first locomotive,

the first piece of rolling stock,
came here in early 1987.

Is that when you built these tracks?
After that.

We started to build seriously
in the middle of 1987.

We started to lay track. Wow!

And then, having got a locomotive
and a bit of track,

we thought we'd need a wagon or two,
as rolling stock.

And it's grown to something like
80-odd wagons

and various carriages
and about 20 assorted locomotives.

I've got this vision
of you personally putting
down all the sleepers.

Quite an estate! Yes, indeed.

It's a bit crazy, isn't it?

It's totally mad!

Well, it is.

But a lot of people do mad things,
especially in the collecting world.

What's the joy of it for you?

That's a difficult question.
There is a tremendous amount of joy.

It's a joy finding something
that you probably never even knew

was going to be available.

Something that had a historic
background

that you thought would never
come your way.

Is it the thrill of the chase then?

Is it the thrill of the hunt?
Very largely.

When's it all going
to stop then? It's not.

You're going to grow and grow
and grow? Not until I'm 6ft under.

It may carry on
because I've got a son

and possibly a grandson who will be
interested. So who knows!

I gather your wife was quite pleased

when you got the collection out
of the house. Indeed, she was.

She started it all off
because when we had the opportunity

of buying the station building
from the next village,

she suggested that.

The idea being was
that we could have the station,

make it into a summer house
and you can get your railway stuff
out of the house.

I asked her
if she was interested in trains

and she kind of went like this.

Well, I can't pretend that she's
as interested in trains as I am.

But one of the reasons
that she accepts it is it gives her

a chance to do things she enjoys,

meeting people and travelling.
We've done a lot of that.

'Railwayana collecting doesn't
have to be about greasy engines
and miles of track.

'It is possible to collect
on a much more accessible scale.'

This is all very Brief Encounter.

It is! None of these would have
a brief encounter with collectors.

These are the things
that form a backbone

and core of many railwayana
collectors' collections.

People will think, railways,
anoraks, nutters!

I'm not thinking that. You might
be thinking that. I like them all!

They sum up the romance
of the railways during the 1920s

and '30s and there's an immense
amount of nostalgia

for anything that reflects that

and anything that might have
been used during this period.

All of these things on the table

have been made for
different railway companies,

like this very bossy cup here.

It says "Property of GWR,
return to Paddington Station".

It doesn't even say please.

There were loads of these companies.

In 1846, there were 272 different
railway companies started up.

Obviously, they didn't all survive.
They got amalgamated or closed down.

That was the high point
of railway mania.

A lot of this was actually stolen.

Little pieces could easily
be slipped into a pocket,

as could a teaspoon or an eggcup.

More difficult to put that in.

But we're grateful that happened.

Otherwise, it wouldn't survive
in such quantity.

It's all stolen goods. Pretty much.

I prefer the word "Liberated"
or "saved from destruction".

This silver teapot is from the Great
Eastern Railway. That's marvellous!

Not just for first class either.

Standard-class passengers
got to sip from silver.

And a fan, should the lady get hot.

The London and North Eastern
Railway fan.

These are affordable things.

You don't need to spend tens of
thousands on a locomotive plate.

You can start with around £20 or £30

to buy a rather nice little matchbox.

Or perhaps a plate.
What railway enthusiast

wouldn't like to eat his dinner
off a plate

that was on a railway
in the 1920s or '30s?

Look out for rare items too.

This little eggcup, quite
a scarce thing, for some reason.

That could fetch over £100.

What's nice about them is the idea
people used to do things in style.

All of these things are
quite luxurious, aren't they?

By 1900, railroads had revolutionised
transportation and travel,

pulling whole continents together

and expanding the British Empire
to every corner of the globe.

But it wasn't the only way
Victorians travelled.

By 1833,
the Atlantic could be crossed

in just over three weeks
by steamship.

And travelling by steamer
from England to New York

was regarded as the ultimate
in luxury.

Nothing epitomised this more
than the RMS Titanic, at the time,

the largest steamer in the world
and believed to be invincible.

That is, until the fatal night
of April 14th 1912,

when it hit an iceberg on its maiden
voyage, killing 1,517 people.

I've come to Wiltshire

to an auctioneers who specialise
in Titanic memorabilia.

The market we see now started in
1998 with James Cameron's movie.

There was a groundswell
of interest after this film.

We see ourselves
with the market we have today.

What's the world record price
someone's paid

for something related to it?

For a single item,
just over £220,000.

And what did their £220,000 buy?

A quite unique piece, a 32ft plan
from the British Titanic Inquiry.

Good Lord!
That I can kind of understand.

It's a staggering price,
but that's a great visual object.

Something that could easily
be displayed,

but on the other hand,

something like this bunch of keys
is more difficult to understand.

How much do you expect these to
fetch? Between £50,000 and £60,000.

Do you feel confident they'll fetch
that sum? They're from the Titanic.

That brings them into
that select category.

Most importantly,

we look at the little brass tag,
they were owned by Samuel Hemming.

He was Titanic's lamptrimmer.

This was a man who lit the lamps
on Titanic, but most importantly
was given a direct order

from the captain
as the Titanic was sinking

to make sure the lamps
were ready on the lifeboats.

These are an integral part
of the story.

As a consequence,
they are very, very rare.

I find this rather fascinating.
We have a first-class luncheon menu.

I'm presuming it's first class

because of the grandiosity
of the food here.

Fillets of brill,
chicken a la Maryland,

appealing to the American audience,

corned beef vegetables,
dumplings, grilled mutton chops.

It goes on. Opulence.
Opulence in the extreme.

For lunch,
you had over 40 different options.

It's nice to have
the White Star flag.

Underlined, we have RMS Titanic,
which really places it.

But what's significant for me
is the date, April 14th 1912.

That's why this menu
is so collectible, so valuable.

April 14th was when Titanic
hit the iceberg.

You'd have had luncheon
at 12 o'clock, midday,

and a little over 11 hours later,
she hit an iceberg.

This is, effectively, the last meal.
That's correct.

In the auction,
what do you expect this to fetch?

Between £60,000 and £100,000.

My goodness gracious!
My goodness gracious!

How did it survive? Water
and paper don't normally go together.

They're not happy bedfellows.

This particular menu was owned
by Washington Dodge.

He was a banker from America
and it came off the Titanic,

came from the disaster,
in his wife's handbag.

She presumably had a delicious lunch

and decided to remember it
by stealing the menu! Indeed!

He was travelling with his young son
as well, Washington Jr,

and 12 hours later, they were saved.

So all three survived? That's
correct. That's quite unusual.

Not so much in first class.

The survival rate in first class
was considerably higher

than those in second
and third class.

As travel developed,

so did the types of luggage
travellers took with them.

A need for more personal
and lightweight baggage developed

with the increasing numbers
travelling to far-flung lands.

Luggage became something
of an art form.

Look what I've brought you.
What is this mystery box?

REW. It belongs to Mr REW.

I would never go on a journey
without my wash bag

and if I were a well-to-do
Victorian gentleman about town,

this would be my wash bag.

Oh! Look at the way the mirror
works! Fancy and clever!

Isn't that impressive? You could
stand it in different positions

or you could have it on the top
like that. Exactly.

When I was standing at my wash stand,

I can tweak my moustache,
shave perhaps. It's fantastic.

Let's have a look
at what's inside then.

We've got a little case
full of tools.

Tools for shaving. Razor blades.

Each with nice bone handles.
That's ivory.

That's a little button hook
for doing up buttons.

A pair of scissors
for trimming you whiskers.

Look how everything fits in together.
It's so dinky.

Here's his toothbrush. Look at that.

Now this is an age in which

the proper Victorian gentleman
is very clean.

Unlike the Georgian gentleman
who would be wearing, perhaps,

make-up, scented with perfume,
a powdery old wig on his head.

The Victorian gentleman
is supposed to have a daily bath

and not smell of anything apart from
general cleanliness.

That takes a lot of time.
This is all of his kit.

I really like it. How much would it
cost me to get one?

A couple of hundred pounds.
They can be very hard to sell.

Do you know what the least desirable
part is?

I'm guessing it's the brush.
You're spot on.

Who wants to use somebody's
old hairbrush?

That contains the grease of dead
people's hair. You put it so well!

And that is the reason why.

Even with beautiful handles, it can
be difficult to sell such pieces,

which is why we often see them
in car boot sales and jumble sales,

sat there as the sun goes down.

Do you think that Mr REW would have
taken other matching items with him?

But of course! This would have been
the smallest part of his luggage,

which would have consisted of trunks,

all manner of different items. Some
of them can get incredibly complex.

You'd be surprised about
what a lot of them contained.

On a quest to find out more
about travelling in style,

I've left Quex House to visit
an antique luggage shop in London.

One of the best known Victorian
luggage brands was Louis Vuitton.

He stamped all of his trunks
with the iconic LV monogram

to stop his competitors
copying them.

Now this is very recognisable.

This pattern here, this says to me
footballers' wives and handbags.

I think it does today, perhaps.

I think it is a classic piece
of its time.

When does this company date from?
People won't believe how old it is.

Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854

and without going out
of production,

they've been producing items
for that long.

The big innovation of this maker
is he stops the old curved lids,

which were fine cos the water
could trickle off,

but you couldn't stack them
in railway carriages.

That is correct.

One of his key innovations
was making the flat-top trunk.

Louis Vuitton became synonymous
with making that style.

What's the date of this trunk?
And what's inside it?

This dates from around 1935
and is, in fact,

if we open it up, you will see...

..a wardrobe trunk.
Do you know, I need one of these!

Isn't it fabulous? It is wonderful.
How does it work?

You could hang all you required
along the rails here.

And then these straps would keep
the clothes from flapping around

and getting creased.

And then, in the bottom,
you could keep a few pairs of shoes.

Why was he so successful
as a luggage designer?

He came from fairly humble
beginnings.

He started off as a packer.
A trunk packer? He was.

That's an actual profession? You
can be employed as a trunk packer.

Yes, he actually packed other
people's clothes to go travelling.

There was quite an art to fitting
a whole wardrobe into a small space.

There was because you wanted
the clothes to arrive

in pristine condition,
not creased and not damaged.

He had a real insight into how
to get everything in

and this helped him design
state-of-the-art trunks.

That's exactly the way it worked.

This is a big surprise. What's
in here? Well, let's open it up...

..and have a look.

OK, it's not a croquet set.

It's a puzzle, is what it is.

It is, in fact, a bed trunk.

Vuitton also created
this fold-out bed.

Intended for use
in a tropical jungle,

it's lined with zinc to protect it
from being eaten by insects.

Originally it was sold complete
with a mosquito net

and its own mattress.

Perfect.

Look! He's branded it again.

Any opportunity to put an "LV"
and he does!

Look, the person lying in bed
can read that!
THEY LAUGH

He's very proud.

I think, understandably so.
This is a very ingenious device.

The well-prepared, wealthy traveller

also required the Victorian
equivalent of a laptop.

Well, this doesn't look very light
or portable

but it's a travelling writing desk.

It all opens up
and look what's inside.

There's places for the pens
and the envelopes

and there's a little clock in here
and there's a calendar

and goodness knows how many
little filing cabinets.

And look at these -
for pens and rubber bands.

What period is this from,
is this from the early 20th century?

It is, it's about 1905.
It's a fantastic piece.

It even has beautiful
little candlesticks... Oh!

..which clip up, very stylish.

There's something sort of
Whitehall-y

and civil service-y
about the thing -

a very particular way
of doing things.

Letters in, letters out.

Here are receipts.
Here are accounts.

But actually this one belonged
to a lady who travelled to Ceylon

and wanted a piece of furniture
to go with her.

She was part of the British Empire,
wasn't she?

As it was then, yes, indeed.

I see this desk as a form of
soft power, if you like.

This is the British saying, "This
is the way we do things and we're

"not going to make any concession
to the local climate or culture

"and we're going to go on pretending
we're in Tunbridge Wells."

I think to some extent
that was true.

We were very good at taking our home
comforts with us when we travelled.

It's not travelling light, is it?

You'd need thousands
to lug this along.

You did, you had either your own
staff or perhaps porters,

but generally
if you bought furniture like this,

you had people to carry it for you.

And is there a secret drawer?

There are secret drawers
but in the base section.

Let's have a look! Yeah! Everyone
wants to see secret drawers.

So inside here... Oh! Look at that!

Several secret drawers.

This is what we like...this is
the real McCoy.

Do you think that the lady
has left her pearls behind in here?

Sadly not, not EVEN a sovereign.

This writing desk was bound for
the subcontinent of India,

the most economically important
part of the British Empire.

By the 19th century,
India had also become

a popular British
tourist destination,

with the grounds around
the Taj Mahal

turning into a type of colonial
pleasure resort.

Some tourists even chopped off
chunks of the marble

to bring home as souvenirs.

Our Major Powell-Cotton of Quex,

he went off to India on a trip
in 1890

and this is his souvenir
from Agra.

It's a little stone model
of the Taj Mahal.

It was a 17th century monument
to a dead princess,

but by the 19th century
it became a tourist attraction

where the traditional activity
was to carve your name into it

as nasty tourists used to.
But this is carved from soap stone,

it's not carved from a piece
of the Taj Mahal.

I've heard tourists often took home
a souvenir by chipping a bit off.

Like people did
with the Berlin Wall, I suppose.

It is quite nice
the way it's translucent.

If you put a little light inside
it'd probably glow like a lantern.

A little tea light, perhaps.

It's hard to imagine now,

but for 200 years Japan was closed
to the outside world.

It was only towards the end
of the 19th century

that the doors were opened
to Western tourists,

unleashing an intense fascination
with all things Japanese.

So what's the attraction
of these little knick-knacks?

Well, just take a look at them,

they're INCREDIBLY
intricately carved.

FULL of detail and there's
a bit of humour in these.

They've lost the original purpose
these funny little carvings.

Originally they were used
to do up kimonos.

Absolutely.
They're known as "Netske",

or NETSUKE when you write it out,
and they were little toggles

that hung on a cord.

Can you these two holes here? That's
where the cord would go through

because, of course,
kimono have no pockets.

So if you wanted to carry around
money or some herbs or medicines,

you had to carry them in pouches
or boxes on a string

and this would stop them falling off.

But after people stopped wearing
kimonos quite so much

they just became in their own right
little souvenirs,

little portable artworks

that you could bring home
as a memory of Japan.

You can see why Victorian travellers
got excited about these

cos until the 1860s Japan had been
this secret, closed country

for two centuries.

It had had military rulers
that wouldn't let anyone in.

Then, in the 1860s,
things begin to change.

There's an exhibition of Japanese
stuff in London

and this gives Londoners,
the British,

a chance to see this strange
new world.

And you can see that these do look
like the sort of figures that

you get in war games or Dungeons
And Dragons or something like that,

or Lord Of The Rings.

They're totally alien, aren't they?
They are alien to OUR eyes

but a lot of them are connected
to Japanese mythology

and in fact the one you're holding
is a rat catcher and he's a demon.

You can see this rather fearsome
look with his horns there

and his rather sharp, jagged teeth.

He's SO very well carved -
look at the hairs on his legs.

That's just crazy.

And this little rat running over
the top of him, clearly escaping.

This has to perhaps be my favourite.

This is Shoki who was a very
well-known demon catcher.

And if you turn him around,

you can see this rather charming
green face peeping out

from what looks like a sack

and that sack contains a demon.

But if you look a little closer,

look at the way the hair falls over
his straps here.

It's just fantastic and this is
carved out of a very hard

and tightly grained piece
of fruit wood.

Where would you get one
if you wanted to take one home?

They're not too difficult to find.

You can find them at antiques shops,
fairs and auction across the country.

You don't have to spend a fortune
to buy one.

You could buy an early 20th century
piece for perhaps under £100.

But you could spend tens
and tens of thousands of pounds.

Not only that,
the Japanese market has not been

doing as well as it traditionally
has been.

As a result, prices have fallen.

So keep your eyes out
and buy the best you can afford.

The introduction of the railways
had revolutionised travel.

It had also created
a new breed of tourist -

the working-class pleasure-seeker.

But it all started out
with very sober intentions indeed.

In 1841, 500 people got on a train
to leave Leicester.

They were on Thomas Cook's
first-ever package trip,

but it wasn't all that glamorous.

They were only travelling 11 miles
to Loughborough

and their destination
was a temperance meeting.

Thomas Cook charged each passenger
five pence for the day's food,

ticket and trip.

He didn't realise it at the time

but he'd just founded the world's
first package holiday company.

All that the teetotaller Thomas
had really wanted to do

was keep his passengers
out of the pub.

He had an idea to basically enable
the masses to travel,

so how can we use these
newfangled trains, essentially,

to promote temperance which to him

was encouraging people to get out
of their normal routine,

to go and do things more exciting,
something different with their life.

So spreading the word
about the dangers of drink,

this is part of his motivation?

He's saying, "You should travel
instead of sitting in the pub."

Absolutely.
That was what drove him, really.

And what's the significance
of this little book here?

Well, it's a handbook.

Essentially that is, 1845,
his very first publication.

He devised a trip from Leicester
to Liverpool which involved

three different railway companies -
so very complicated.

It says, "The train will leave
Leicester at five

"in the morning of Monday
August 4th."
SHE LAUGHS

Yes, lots of early starts.

Early starts.
"Parties will have to be wide awake

"at an early hour
or they will be disappointed."

You've to be there on time.

I suppose people going on the trips
wouldn't necessarily know this.

They weren't travelling by train,
were they? No. It was to appeal

to a working-class population
who never travelled.

And how any of these
are floating around?

Well, as far as we know,
this is the only surviving copy.

So if you find one of these
at home, don't throw it away!

So this one's really important
cos it's his first guidebook

that he publishes to Switzerland,
his very first country,

and this is quite rare now.

It is. That's 1874,
Thomas Cook's first guidebook.

The sort of people who were going
with Thomas Cook at this point

tended to be what we would call the
middle classes - school teachers,

clergyman, doctors, lawyers, lots
of those as part of these groups.

This is really his manifesto.
He says in the introduction here,

"Nowadays everybody may travel,
everybody ought to travel -

"in fact everybody does travel."

Well, those sentiments really
just echo what he's been saying

pretty much since 1841.

And he tells you exactly
how to do it.

What to take, how to get
through customs, passports...

Yep, there's details about customs,
passports, money...

Postage of letters.

Here we've got -
"How to prevent seasickness."

He says, "Don't be taking champagne
or brandy, that will make you ill."

Yes, I think he would say that!

It's quite ironic, really, that
his whole motivation is temperance

but today package holidays are
synonymous with drinking too much!

No, I don't think you get
many temperance supporters on
holidays today.

Only 30 year after Thomas'
trip from Leicester to Loughborough

holidays were beginning to be seen
as a worker's right.

In 1871 the Bank Holidays Act
made it the law

for all employees to have time off.

This developed into paid holidays
by the 20th century

and where did everyone want to go?

The seaside, of course.

Seaside resorts
were a British invention.

They started in the middle
of the 18th century

and originated with the Georgian
upper-class craze for sea bathing.

Blackpool was the biggest
and brashest.

In a few years it developed
from an empty beach

to the world's first
working-class resort.

By the 1860s Blackpool was catering
for up to 25,000 visitors,

all there to enjoy the town's
unique offering of sensation,

variety and fun.

We're taking the opportunity
to let our hair down in Blackpool,

but first a stop-off on the way
in nearby Southport

and the Museum Of The Penny
Slot Machine.

Go, go, go, go! Oh.

This is a 1920s, 1930s machine
called the Hand Grabber

and it was made by a man
called Hawkins.

Mr Hawkins of Blackpool.

It's actually quite a scarce thing
which makes it valuable.

These can fetch up to £8,000.

Now, I gather the USP is
that he employed a surgeon

to help him get the hands very
accurate with the tendons and all

and a surgeon's come in
to fix that one!

Yes, absolutely, in need of
a little repair there, I think.

It's a fantastic thing
and also brings back that whole

Victorian idea of something being
quite ghoulish, BUT it brings

it bang up-to-date with the
1920s and '30s with this robotic
chromed effect.

Yes, it looks very futuristic
and fascist almost. It does.

Go on, grab the diamond watch then.
Do you think it's real? Yeah, I do!

Oh... You've got to time this.

Where's the watch? There it is.

We're going for it. You touched it,
you let it go! You let it go!

Oh, no! You let it go
at the last minute, you fool!

Penny slot machines were popular
in every seaside resort.

They were cheap all-weather fun

and provided entertainment for
the masses from the 1890s onwards.

Now, this looks like fun.
It's the Jolly Fireman Racer!

Who can get to the top
of the burning building first?

I guess this is what people did

before they could race cars
against each other.

It would have been terribly popular.

So you have to race
these firemen up the ladder.

It's a seaside classic, isn't it?

Well, it is and it's that which makes
it very popular with collectors

who'd pay up to £4,000 for the beast.

SHE LAUGHS
Go on then, race you.

My fireman is clearly bigger and
stronger than yours, up he goes!

No, no, no, you're cheating somehow.

Go, go, go, Freddy, go, go!

Oh! I'm winning! I've won!
Somehow you cheated.

One of the most popular machines of
its day and still highly collectable

is an early motion picture device,
now worth around £1,500.

Now, this brilliant machine
is called a Mutoscope.

It's an American invention of the
1890s and the idea is that you see

a moving image as all these cards
flick forward but most importantly

you get to see adult material -
that's part of the attraction.

As it is the attraction
of the whole seaside.

You take off your clothes,
you lose your inhibitions,
you have a good time.

Sometimes the machines
were a disappointment

because the final card
would be missing.

You'd never actually see the bathing
beauty naked and that's because

it would've been stolen by the men
who came and mended the machines.

# Every year when summer comes round

# Off to the sea I go... #

The seaside was all about doing
things you wouldn't dare do at home.

And this is perfectly captured
in the work of artist Donald McGill.

In 60 years McGill created
a staggering 12,000 different

postcard designs
and 350 million were sold.

But by the 1950s his work
had fallen out of favour

and some of his postcards
were banned for obscenity.

I'm going to meet one of the
country's biggest collectors

of Donald McGill's work.

No trip to the seaside
would be complete

without sending back a saucy
seaside postcard to the relatives

and there's no name that sums those
up better than Donald McGill.

So what would a card like this
cost? Virtually nothing.

So what would a card like this
cost? Virtually nothing.

A typical 1940s,'50s McGill
card like these

you could pick up for anywhere
between 50p and £2.

So these are really good items
to collect?

They are and they're easy to store
and they're very enjoyable.

And there are a lot of them.

Well, yes, I suppose once you start
you can't stop,

I mean you should know about that!

Sadly.

If you look at this you've got
a little scene of a lady and her son

peering into "What The Butler Saw"
and they're both grinning away there.

"Can I be butler
when I grow up, Mum?"

You know exactly what he's seen.
Yes.

A lot of these are slightly
more risque...

"I should like a swim but I don't
want to get my truncheon wet."

Obviously a policeman
strolling along here,

but the innuendo is clear.

But on the back the Blackpool
Post Card Censorship Board
have stamped it, "Disapproved."

By Mr Allen the chairman.
Absolutely.

What's the most valuable card here?

Undoubtedly this one.

"Please, Lord, excuse me a minute
while I kick Fido."

It is worth a huge amount
more than those other cards

for a number of reasons.

The main reason being McGill himself
has signed this card.

So that's what makes this worth...?

Well, I got it for £50.
Good heavens!

So compared to those
it's a lot more.

So without the signature this would
be worth what? 10 or 20p? Yes.

What's interesting also about
this card is that it was McGill's
biggest seller.

Really? Surprisingly.

It doesn't have any of that sort of
McGill magic, that smutty humour.

No, you'd expect his biggest sellers

to be the fat-ladies-on-the-beach
genre. Absolutely.

But this sentimental card
was the biggest seller.

He sold over three million copies
of that card.

So what about the values
for his earlier work,

for example this one which
looks very, very early indeed.

It is, it comes from right
in the beginning of his career,

1907 that was painted.

When he was still working part-time.

Working as an engineering draftsman.

Is that why it says Admiralty?

Yes, he's done it on the back
of the office stationery.

A bit naughty of him, really,
I suppose.

How much would that be worth?

McGill's artwork from that period
comes up so rarely,

so I was very pleased
to obtain that.

So as a scarce survivor
what did you pay for this?

Yes, well,
you'd expect a lot of money.

I expected to have to pay a lot.

I suppose I paid something like
£150.

I have to ask you, what would
you have gone to secure it?

Well, being a stupid collector,

I suppose I'd have gone towards
£1,000.

Just goes to show
how crazy collectors are.

Most impressed! You really are
quite a keen collector.

Along with the growth in
seaside holidays

came a boom in souvenir trade,

particularly for mementos bearing
the name of the place visited.

The most popular was Goss china,
known as the poor man's porcelain.

Until the 1920s,
Goss produced souvenirs

for every town in Britain
with a coat of arms.

So, a Victorian worker off
on the razzle-dazzle in Blackpool

could spend fourpence
and get one of these.

That was quite within their reach.

And there is a statistic that,
at one time, over 90%

of British households had a bit
of souvenir Goss china in them.

Now, here we've got the town crest
of Blackpool,

and it says on it "Progress", which
is their very forward-thinking

slogan that they have.

And if you were going on holiday,

you could visit various
different towns

and you could show you'd been there.

That was a little bit of adventure.

We're not quite talking about
the 18th-century aristocrat

on their grand tour,
but it was a grand tour of your own.

This was the British equivalent.

Today, people might think, "That's a
piece of junk, I'll chuck that out."

But actually, there's something
quite nice about it.

This is the souvenir
of somebody's happy holidays.

If you turn them over you should find
a mark on the bottom,
of this bird with WH Goss. Goss.

Goss were one of the first
and the best, perhaps.

They were certainly the biggest
company producing crestedware

in the late 19th century.

Today they have fallen generally
out of fashion,

but in their day they would have been
incredibly affordable.

And they're affordable today as well.

Although there are rare shapes
that cost hundreds,

you can pick a good piece up
for a couple of pounds.

And it won't rot your teeth
like a stick of rock, either.
Absolutely not.

'Our time in Blackpool is soon
coming to an end,

'but there's just one more thing
to do before we go.'

Time for holiday snaps. Absolutely.

What else would we bore
the relatives with, I wonder?

And look what I've got here.

So, this is a replacement for a
whole carriageload of equipment.

This is what photographers
had to take with them. Exactly.

I mean, you would have had
the tripod, the camera,
all the equipment.

All the chemicals.
All the lenses, the chemicals,
and something to cover yourself up

while you were taking it.
Then, in 1888 - is that right? -
along comes the box camera.

That's right - the Kodak No.1

And this is the Kodak Brownie, which
superseded it and was even cheaper.
It's beautiful.

It is beautiful.
Look at the way it matches my coat,
look at the colours of this.

I chose it just because of you,
of course, thinking of exactly that!

But this is the very posh one.

The Box Brownie itself
was incredibly inexpensive

and cost as little as 25p. But this
would have cost an awful lot more.

So the slogan was "a holiday without
a Kodak is a holiday wasted".

Absolutely. "You press the button
we'll do the rest."

0K, ready for a pose? Here we go.
Strike your best... Monkey.

HE LAUGHS

Fantastic. Three, two, one,
say "cheese".

HE LAUGHS

We've come a long way on our journey.

From classical pottery...

to travelling trunks...

to an early box camera,

the history of travel reveals
what we humans value most

when we venture outside
our everyday lives.

This may be a priceless relic,

a mass-produced souvenir,

or even just a photo,
but one thing will remain the same -

the need to mark our experiences
with a memento of the trip.

Next time on Antiques Uncovered,

I'll be seeing how you make
a diamond sparkle.

That's absolutely huge.

While I trace the history
of royal memorabilia.

This will mean a lot to people
who were alive in 1936.

And reveal the pinnacle
of Victorian achievement...

It must have been the greatest
show on Earth, really.

..as we look at
ceremonial objects.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd