that says... "mayer & meltzer," which to me would indicate not a cutlery maker necessarily, but more of a medical instrument type. - you think so? - yeah, but they did some pretty peculiar things with some of these instruments as to where they stuck them and what they got up to with them. but frankly, i don't really know. but i'll tell you what we will do, let's ask somebody else. and then there's a kind of competition between the experts. it's shown from one to the other to the next one. or you're cleaning something, pulling something through. woman: that's just what i was trying to work out. what's the something through the what? i don't know. and they all give an opinion and very often fundamentally disagree with each other. so what would you do with that? say you got a crab claw, and you were trying to force a bit of crabmeat out of a crab claw. might you not use that droopy thing on the end?

you would use it once, - and then a bit of crab claw would get stuck in there. - yes. it would get salmonella. and the next time you had the crab claw, you would be dead. oh, it's one of these. it's one of these. yes yes. what do you mean, "it's one of these"? i've never seen this before in my life. kay: i think it's for making holes in roast lamb, for slotting in a garlic clove. - extracting gunk out of your ear. - ( laughing ) - still no answers? - no definite answer - but a lot of food for thought. - definitely. bruce: and a few weeks later, all became clear. there were lots of letters written in saying, "we know what it is." and one of the best was from, i think he was the curator of the collection of the royal college of surgeons who said, "of course, this is what it is." it was actually a tracheotomy instrument and he came with the missing bits. man: and this was used as what is called a pilot, in order to penetrate an incision

which is made in the neck when patients were suffocating to death. and this would relieve their breathing. so that would be introduced with this blunt end on it - so that you could make an easy passage? - yes. then that-- presumably that guide would then be withdrawn. and then the patient could breathe - through the tube. - yes. had we had the other bits there, we wouldn't have been flummoxed at all. she says confidently. ( laughs ) bruce: sometimes a mystery object can take years to reveal its secrets. - they have no idea what it is, have they? - not a clue, no. i remember we were in oldham in lancashire once and a lady came in with an object. it was a little bit of a puzzle, really. but no one could exactly identify it. someone picked it up on the junk store and brought it to me and asked me if i was interested because they know i collect ivories. and i said, "yes, i'm very interested. what is it?" so they said, "i haven't a clue." so i thought, "right, i will bring it here

and ask anyone here if they would know what it was." 20 years later we were in oldham again, and again the same lady turned up, this time telling us what she thought it was. this is an interesting little bit of "roadshow" history. there's arthur, of course. this is you 20 years ago - on our last visit to oldham. - that's right. and i'm playing angela rippon. arthur: you remember the occasion, do you? i do, because they didn't have a clue what it was, you see? and you've still got it and nobody knew what it was. and did you ever find out? what is it? it's used by elder chinese ladies to pass on their leisure hours. it is a chinese puzzle. - wonderful. - like the old cat's cradle. oh, the cat's cradle. in other words, she'd spent 20 years after the first "roadshow" doing her research. you see, if at first you don't succeed, someone somewhere will come up with an answer.

now in this series, we're asking our specialists to nominate an all-time favorite roadshow find, the piece that stands out from the rest. for hilary kay, there was no mystery the day in scarborough a very rare set came her way. the scrimshaw work was very important. the fact that they were on a carving knife and fork was neither here nor there. it was the actual handles themselves, those sperm whale teeth that had been carved, which were very important. before i came up to scarborough, i thought wouldn't it be nice because of its associations with whaling, historically, wouldn't it have been great if there were some whaling things that came in? and you've answered my dream. thank you. now tell me how you got hold of them. they've been in the family since the 1820s. and they've been passed down each to the eldest son of each generation. my father was the last crowder as there were mainly girls in the family. and so they were then passed down to me.

- kay: do you like them? - i do very much. yes, i think they're fabulous. kay: the depiction of the ship elizabeth was beautifully done. not only did it show the ship itself, but it showed a whale tied up to the side of the ship. it was beautifully inscribed. and on the back, there is a representation of a whale hunt in operation. every single quality that a top american scrimshaw collector would look for. i'm almost certain that it's the work of somebody called edward burdett who was a very important person in the history of scrimshaw. the importance of edward burdett as a scrimshaw artist really can't be overrated because he is one of the very first that is properly documented. and his work is instantly recognizable and widely collected as that particular artist. his style is very distinctive.

and although these aren't signed, they're recognizable. they're instantly recognizable as his work. and i would have said we're talking between £10,000 and 15,000. - gosh, as much as that? - yes. and very sensibly, the owner decided not to keep it and sent it to america eventually for sale where it went for $61,000. $61,000! to sell or not to sell? no contest. now we're taking this chance to show you behind the scenes with some of the members of our team to understand more about how they acquired their specialist knowledge. furniture expert lennox cato has been with us on the "roadshow" for five years now. - the main wood is rosewood. - oh, yes. and even though you use it for your suppers and things like that, - it's really a brkfast table. - oh, really? he first cut his teeth in the trade during the swinging '60s in brighton.

cato: as i was growing up, the lanes, they were unique because there was an antique dealer in every other shop. ceramics, furniture, pictures, brass, clocks-- it was special. now as you know as we wander around, they're all gone. my grandparents, they had a number of shops. i think they had 11. on my mother's side, they had shops in the lanes. they were furniture makers. and so my brother lincoln has become more of a rniture maker. hi, len, how are you? nice to see you. - lincoln: keeping well? - yeah. - good. - let's have a wander around brighton. so i wonder what all these shops would have been. i think they wer more antique shops, to be perfectly honest. antiques were big things in those days. cato: my brother and i were both adopted when we were very young. d our adoptive parents were antique dealers.

so we grew up in the antique trade. then when we lived in brighton, it was when dealing really hpened. my father, his name was-- they called him dicky compton. he was a bit of a character. he always wore a hat. and he used to wear a cossack hat. he would take us around to different shops. you could walk into one shop and buy something and walk 50 yards and sell it to another dealer and earn yourself £10 or 20. at the end of the day, the more dealing you could do, the more money you would earn. and i used to work in his shop after school tidying things up. with the dealers in the lanes, especially what i would call the old school, dealers just love to talk. and when they've got time on their hands, they're not doing any business, they will start reminiscing and just tell you stories. they will test you. "do you know what that is, son?" and you would say, "is it so and so?" "oh, no no." you would pick up knowledge from them.

i started dealing really when i was at school. i used to do the paper round. and i remember going to school and this particular house just before you walked into the area of the school, that had this clock in the window. and that particular clock is called a skeleton clock. and they were very very popular, quite valuable. so i put a note through the door and lo and behold, they got in contact and i ended up buying this clock. i was 14 or 15. it was cheeky, but it's showing an entrepreneurial spirit. and that's what you have to have. if you're intimidated or afraid, you're not going to go forward. people want to see you have drive in all works of business. bruce: and it wasn't long before lennox opened his first antique shop at just 18. then come in to see my little shop here. that's incredible. it's a burger bar.

- look at the size of it. look at it. - lovely shop. lincoln: what sort of things were you selling in them days then? pretty much what i'm selling now, but obviously different quality. - yeah, tables and chairs and general furniture. - lot more smalls, i suppose. a few more smalls. - it was a start anyway. - yeah, it was a start. do you fancy a burger in there? should we leave it? cato: when i was a kid i used to watch the "roadshow." and i had no idea that i'd ever be one of those specialists there. i mean, we'd have a vision and a dream. that was never a part of it. and so yeah, i feel very honored and great to be part of the team. lennox cato there on a trip down memory lane. now back to that word-- provenance. proving an object's direct link to a maker

or a famous former owner can make all the difference as to whether it makes a million or just a few pounds. nailing once and for all those important connections is a vital part of our experts' work. and it's a game they love playing at the "antiques roadshow." rupert maas: one of the nice things about the "roadshow" is that you see things for the first time quite often. no academic and the market, for certain, has never seen it. and you're seeing it for the first time. and that's really exciting 'cause it's a little discovery all on its own. geoffrey munn: when we hear that it's a family heirloom, it gives immediate context. not only to the person sitting beside you who's brought it, but it also gives context to patronage and to ownership and it puts the present generation in touch with the one before. - man: who made it? - as far as i can gather, my great-great-grandfather. maas: the word is provenance. it's a french word. and what it means is, "where a thing has been all its life."

and it's very very important because if you assert that something is by somebody, and then you say, "well, we can be sure that it is because, although my family has always said so, we go right back to the artist. he was my my great- great-great-grandfather," or something like that. and then you've got to take it very seriously. it has the strong sense that it's true. paul viney: this is most impressive looking family tree. - is it your own? - yes, it is. and i see it starts with edward austen, who took the name of knight. who was he? edward austen was jane austen's brother. - the jane austen? - the jane austen. and he changed his name to knight when he inherited the chawton and godmersham estate. so you're a direct descendant of jane austen? - yes. - wow! she's my great-great-great- grandfather's sister. fantastic! jane austen-- that's a very interesting case in point. she was an intensely private person. only 5% of her correspondence survives. and people are hungry

for the slightest shred of information about her. viney: now tell me about this. that is jane austen's cup and ball. that is her own cup and ball. how astonishing. and is it recorded that she played with it? yes, it is. yes, that was-- she's well-known as spending hours with her cup and ball. she could do over 100 in the cup, but it's one of the things she used to enjoy doing. of course, you can't put it to a forensic test. there's no d.n.a. that you can test that cup and a ball for to see whether it's got traces of jane austen on it. but the way he told the story and the conviction he had, to me, i thought that man is certainly convinced. but more to the point, he's convincing. if that came up on the market and was accepted by potential buyers as definitely being jane austen's, i would expect that to fetch something in the region of £20,000-25,000. it is literary history, no more, no less. - it's been a complete joy to see it. thank you. - thank you very much.

maas: that man is certainly convinced. and paul viney obviously thought so because he put quite a large estimate on that thing. and i wouldn't be surprised if he's absolutely right. bruce: although a famous family connection can push an item's value up, sometimes even if the creator is unknown, the craftsmanship can speak for itself. munn: it's a fantastic collection of arts-and-crafts silver and jewelry. - who made it? - woman: my great-aunt bertha goff. - and where was she trained? - at the holloway school of art in london and later at the camden school of art. she's a name that hasn't quite come to the forefront. probably will on the evidence of this work. we're more used to names like henry wilson and ashby and liberty, indeed. and you see accents in the work here that are a lot to do with all that. well, the extraordinary thing about the collection of jewelry and metalwork made by bertha goff was that it had a resonance from william morris. he would have loved it. it was made by hand. it was made by an individual who honored craftsmanship above intrinsic value.

and it was lovely to find it as an archive, really. it was not only the jewelry, but the drawings and the descendant. although these things look in a sense art nouveau, in a sense arts and crafts, they are revivalist. they draw on 16th and 17th century prototypes. these angels here are renaissance angels. and here is a most marvelous figure of aphrodite against a blue sky, an art nouveau figure. and most wonderful hatpins. these are very elegant jewels that don't get worn so much today. well, provenance and context were everything in this situation because there was no signatures that i could remember on the jewelry itself. and it was only the family history that identified the maker and her intentions. and now if it's blown apart and sold separately, that just goes to the four winds. it's absolutely exceptional work. it's very inspired. and i think as a group of objects, i think you've got to think of about £25,000 to 30,000. good grief.

i hope really in my hear that that collection will find its way to a museum because its dispersal would be too awful to contemplate. bruce: now you wait around all day for a turner and then two turn up at the same time. this is a mezzotint after the great man-- - joseph mallord william turner. - yeah. and it's by his namesake, but no relative, - charles turner, isn't it? - yes. tell me, how did you get it? it came to my wife whose grandfather was a descendant of turner's. i see. straight through the family? - yes. - fantastic. maas: the owner of it was descended directly from turner, the painter. and so it began to all add up into a really precious object. the two turners had a very unique relationship. they worked very much together. they were fellow students at the royal academy. and turner would go out and he would search for views that would look well in engraving. and together they published them, - and money was made. - right.

and we believe tt some of the little pencil scribbles on it are by turner himself. i saw the pencil marks. you can see them up here in the hills. it was quite clear that somebody had drawn on it in pencil, and there was lots of marks on it. and somebody was trying to get that mezzotint looking right. now the question is who? now if it had been charles turner, the mezzotinter himself, well, perhaps that would have been just a little less interesting. but if it's joseph mallord william turner himself, the great man, then the whole thing begins to mean something. i love the idea that charles turner has produced a print to this stage and then he's taken it - and he's shown it to joseph mallord william turner-- - yeah. --and said, "what do you think?" and he said, "well, i think we could do with some more trees up here." - and you see these pencil marks, - yeah yeah. and from behind this castle, just the very top of it, he's added a turret all to make it more picturesque. to make it more sublime. toive it that god-given light that it appears to have. it's a really really beautiful thing.

i may be going out on a limb somewhat, but it's going to be worth up to about £8,000. blimey. blimey! good lord. maas: i doubt anyone who really had any great outside interest in turner had ever seen this thing before now. and so for me to see it for the first time, what a thrill. bruce: and in the same year, graham lay was also thrilled to intercept a forgotten national relic. graham lay: it has been an incredibly busy day as it is very often on "roadshow" days, and i was feeling quite exhausted. and somebody came up with a wrought iron handle. pam smith: before we went to the "antiques roadshow," it was going down to the imperial war museum in london to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the great war. and meurig saw the advert in the paper. and of course i then had to ring the imperial war museum and say, "hang on a minute. you can't have it yet because we're taking it on the 'antiques roadshow' first."

you've brought along today a piece of ironwork, which is not something i normally see in militaria. so tell me, what's the story behind it? it's one of the handles, the pattern that was made for the coffin of the unknown warrior - in westminster abbey. - what an astonishing thing. what's the relevance to you? the company founded by my grandfather was commissioned to do the eight handles and the straps on the coffin. lay: the grave of the unknown warrior was incredibly important in our military history up until 1920. if you were killed on a battlefield, you were more or less buried there and nobody knew who you were. there was no focus for the bereaved families to express their terrible sorrow. and so the grave of the unknown warrior

was placed in westminster abbey in order to give that focus. now look, this is dated first of november 1920. - now that's just 10 days before the ceremony. - williams: yes. well, that's astonishing. he worked apparently, once he received the commission, for two days and nights with no sleep. williams: again, there's another side to the story. the ironwork had already been created for the coffin. and seven @ays before the ceremony they decided that it wasn't up to the required standard. so then they asked my grandfather to do the handles and the straps, which was done in that short time. and so because of that, records were lost as to who actually did the ironwork. so when you informed westminster abbey what we had in our possession, they had no idea it existed. i have to say i am truly truly privileged to see these. and i think anybody watching will be privileged too.

normally on the "roadshow," we talk about value. to be very honest, i really would rather not in this case, because i think something like this is beyond value. williams: prior to 2006, it was languishing in a drawer - and we would show it to people... - gathering dust. ...if and when they wanted to see it. but since it's come out into the open, the respect it gets now has made me feel very very proud and also a bit humble. really really pleased. bruce: after appearing on the "antiques roadshow," those pieces went on display in the imperial war museum in london and are now in the royal welsh fusiliers museum in caernarfon. before we go, just time for a revelation from "roadshow" expert paul atterbury. regular viewers will recall that whatever he doesn't know about trains probably isn't worth asking. so here he is revealing the lifelong passion

which took root when he was still in short trousers. ( whistle blowing ) i think we all start collecting at some point as children. but my first collection is not really objects. it's memories. i was that classic small boy trainspotter. i spent hours on windy platforms writing down train numbers, which now seems totally pointless. but it was so exciting... ( whistle blows ) ...standing on that platform watching these expresses thundering through. and of course, locomotives have numbers which come in classes. and so you're driven to think, "god, can i get that last one? i must see that last one to complete the class." you never do, of course, because you can't cheat. you've got to see them absolutely in reality and then write it down. and you write it in your book,

your ian allan spotter's book. and what you do is you tick them off. you underline them. and i look at this book now, which i've still got, and it brings it all back. i can see that eight-year-old dedicated and driven by the knowledge that this represents. it's what started me as a collector, but it's not the end of railways. i still love railways. i love writing about them. i love traveling on them. i'm not a railway collector, but there is one thing i had to have when it came up for sale earlier this year. and that is this nameplate, this totem from a station. i have it because this is the station on which i did my spotting, or one of the stations. and i like to think i might have stood aged eight or 10 beneath this very sign. i can just picture thatcene. and we'll have plenty more memorable momen conjured up for you

in our next installment of "priceless antiques roadshow." ( theme music playing )

man: ♪ well, it's a sunny day ♪ i feel brand new ♪ there's about a million things that i could do ♪ ♪ whoa, would you like to... ♪ do them, too? ♪ yeah

♪ well, it's a big wide world ♪ and it's waiting for me and you. ♪ ( clapping to music ) ♪ let's look around ♪ what will we see? ♪ round every corner, a discovery ♪ ♪ whoa, there's no place i'd... ♪ ♪ rather be ♪ oh, yeah ♪ well, it's a big wide world ♪ and it's waiting ♪ for me and you. narrator: this is a duck. this is a fish. a duck has feathers and a tail. ta-dah! narrator: thank you, quack. that's very nice. a fish also has a tail.

he uses it-- along with his fins-- to help him swim. oh, well, this one's a bit of a show-off! since fish live under the water and ducks live on top, they don't usually run into each other. ( quacking ) narrator: but let's see what happens when they do. quack: ♪ there is nothing like a duck ♪ you can look but you won't have any luck ♪ ♪ there's not a living animal anywhere you'll see ♪ ♪ better than a duck ♪ that's a duck like me. la-du, yahoo. ( quacks ) ( quack quacking and laughing )

what is that thing? ( gasps ) ( screams ) hey, peep. the wind messed up your piles. peep: wha...? ( quack yelling ) what's wrong? there's something cold and wet in my pond! yeah. it's called "water." besides that. come on.

stay there, in case i need you. ( quack gurgling underwater ) hmm, it must have gone away. where did you see it? i didn't see it; i felt it. i was floating along, like this. ♪ there's nothing... dum de do, duck ♪ ♪ you can look, but... de dum... any luck. ♪ like that, and then... ( yells ) scared! ( quack still talking above water ) then suddenly, out of nowhere... ( yells ) there it is again! ( chirp straining ) why don't you stick your head in the pond and see what it is? quack: huh? hmm... hmm.