captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions it's a long night at the iowa caucuses now reporting in iowa with indemnity romney in a virtual tie. ron paul is a close third. then it's newt gingrich back in fourth. with michele bachmann. >> so judy, what are you hearing tonight from people down there about how close this is.

it's such a tight race? >> well everybody had]çcd+j?z p, not everybody but many people had predicted that this was going to be a tight race. no one had predicted it was together to be this tightly bunched with the three of them. and now we're seeing very tight request almost 90 percent -- with almost 90% of the precept of the vote counted. very tight between rick santorum, the former senator from pennsylvania and mitt romney the former governor of massachusetts. ron paul is still hanging in there with almost 22% of the vote. but you have to say the three of them are considered so close that it could end up anywhere between now and when they end up the counting. what is clear from these r xso far is that the other three candidates who are far back in the numbers are going to end up with a pretty tough night. that's newt gingrich, governor rick perry and michele bachmann. perry -- beginning wich rich

with 13%, perry about 10% and michele bachmann about 5%. not a particularly promising night for them but we're still watching the numbers come in. >> one of the things i find most interesting about this, judy how we have very clearly two tears now. among those top three with 90% of the vote this we're talking about less than 100,000 voters, caucus goers tonight combining those three top candidates. and then some distance behind them are the three bottom candidates, two of whom say they're not going to be to new hampshire, straight ahead to south carolina and try to survive, if they do;n/w that. and the third, rick perry, and michele bachmann are going to south carolina. but third newt gingrich saying he's going to put on his boxing gloves and go after mitt rule knee. it looks like with mitt romney, rick santorum and ron mal ron pl duking it out there at the top is something like a grudge

match. >> all the conversation about iowa may not pause determine who the winner is it does play a role. materiamichele bachmann is goino south carolina line and you quoted newt gingrich saying he's still in the fight. this has to be a blow to their campaigns and when they're going to havesome momentum coming outf here. gwen, one other point i want to make is for all the attention on these caucuses, for all the media coverage, i think one would have thought that the tissueouturnout this year wouldp better than 2008 when it wasfsh5 under 120,000 iowans who turned out for the republicanyeqmnñ ca. far fewer than turned out for the democrat caucuses. but they had a 120,000, it was a record turnout. this year's turnout looks to be, if not much lower, certainly not much greater than what they had four years ago.

and i think, we have to scratch our heads and wonder what is going on in the minds of these voters. did they just not think it was worth turning out and casting their vote. >> among those who did turn out, we're talking, i mean this time four years ago we had already declared the winners, both barack obama and mike huckabee. now we're on the cusp of 11:00 eastern time some hours after the caucus began and we still don't know the outcome. i'm going to let you go and gett this as we stand by here in washington. >> gwen thanks, we're going to turn now to newshour regulars, david brooks and mark shields. of course that's mark shields syndicated columnness david brooks columnnes columnist for w york times." mark when you look at these numbers that have santorum and romney bunched so closely at the top and ron paul right on their

heels. >> it says among other things that they had a great weekend. that's the way they called it going into the final days. much to the surprise. they caught the santorum surge. but the point you were making in your conversation with gwen is the salient, judy and that is rick perry and newt gingrich together, together probably scraped together to get maybe as many votes as ron paul and fewer votes than rick santorum. so they have to be staring into their hold card tonight. it's a long long time from the 3rd of january to the 21st in south carolina and the world's going to turn many times. the toughest decircumstance is newt gingrich. me has new gingrich newb?does hd say no more mr. nice guy. calling mitt romney a liar and just go scorch to earth for the

next week. if so that could certainly change the dynamic of this race. >> david what do these numbers say to you and particularly i'm interested in what happened to mitt romney. he got this% of th in 24% of thd mike hum be who had 37 percent pemplets hiand yet he's runningn one would assume to iowa republicans. >> demography is destiny. what wewwn%ó saw four years agon the clinton/obama race, there were more educated people obama did well. none of the campaigns really changed that basic dynamic. i think we're seeing something similar here. we've got a establishment wing of the republican party if you will and that's 24%, 25%. romney's been locked in that range almost everywhere forever. he's locked in that range tonight. you've got a libertarian wing with probably a little inflated here in iowa, paul doing

reasonably well in third and then you got a social conservative wing. so the common view is this is great for romney because he's got these two other candidates who are probably not going to go to the distance. but the bad news for romney he can't crash out of his wing to get votes from the other wings. when you go to south carolina if perry or gingrich or bachman drop out there are more conservatives that romney can't apparently reach so. these danger ahead for romney. this is in general a negative night for him. pretty good night for barack obama, if you can see anything that there's going to be a long republican race this will be probably good for the democrat. >> judy, i just want to say. >> sure. >> excuse me. now just -- >> go ahead. >> i'm saying winning is coming in first. mitt romney does win here and there isn't an upset or upheaval and obviously we saw that in

2008 after barack obama rode out of here and hillary clinton came back in new hampshire. if you put it together back to back sick tree victories in newe and iowa these a formidable candidate. the candidate for the potential for the national candidacy, they're not seriously wounded here in iowa. if anything, new hampshire is moresaãsy hospitable ground fore kind of libertarianism that ron paul represents. rather than that which santorum represents. i don't know if -- santorum had an incredible performance by him and turn out. no question about it. i don't mean to pave the way. i'm not sure where his campaign goes from here.

>> david, what is clarified coming out of iowa? we don't know of course the final results i'm looking down, i don't see any later numbers than what we saw just a few minutes ago with 24%, 25% shared by romney and santorum. what is clarified if the results are pretty much like what we see right now. >> i think it's a valuable exercise. we don't have a clear winner but we do know who has been tested. rick perry -- let me read you some numbers. the amount of dollars spent per vote. rick santorum spent $1.65 per vote. mitt romney spent $116, and rick perry spent -- these are not the super packs. they're just not working for them. the same is true for newt gingrich. this is a test of people. we've seen the frantic energy,

the last final days some people like mittdisciplined and pretty, some people are not. >> we're going to come back to the two of you david brooks and mark shields in a few minutes but for right now let's go back to washington and to gwen. >> thanks judy. congressman ron paul speaking to some of his supporters in the courtyard in iowa. >> jay mentioned one of three tickets out which is obviously true. and one of two that can actually run a national campaign and raise the money. but there's nobody else to have people like you working hard and enthusiastic and believe in something. [cheers and applause] >> here with me is the annuity hours political editor and editor of the rothberg political report. very tight night, very tight race. we see maybe mitt romney edging ahead but just a couple hundred votes we're seeing as a margin. stu, what are you taking there it are.

>> i think i'm going to disagree with david brooks. probably something i shouldn't do. he referred to this as a negative night for romney. if we had said six months ago that romney was either going to win iowa or finish second in a squeak behind rick santorum and ahead of ron paul we'd say that sounds like a right good night for mitt romney. it is true he continues to have a ceiling problem in the republican party and he's gotje. because conservatives will start dropping out of this race and that vote won't be divided. he's got to get some of that. at this point we clearly have a three-person race and we have some wild cards. what kind campaign does newt gingrich run over the next week or two. when he looks at these numbers and talks to people, does he decide that he still wants to engage in the if fist cuffs the says he does. right now we have the two tiers and we know the first three in the top tier are. >> now that we have the beryling

of the votes in and we still don't know who the winner is and the losers are, let's fake a look at the map and -- take a look at the map dispiend out where the votes came from, who met expectations and who didn't. >> one interesting thing is recall kneromney is all over th. not all of of these are completed counties. what's interesting is those two orange counties there in the southern portion of the state. rick perry won t those counties. that's taylor county and union country. that's surprising given he's coming in fifth here and gingrich certainly all over the map as well. then there are six counties where there are none happening yet. and no votes in and one of those 3t&s. one that rul romney won sy on the western part of the state. this numbers are going to continue to just edge here and there. i will point out in michele bachmann's home town of waterlieu, all of those presijts have been counted and bachman only captured 262 votes in her

home town where she grew up. ron paul won that county. >> how about in a county like aims county. we say ron paul won and that's where iowa state university is. did he do really well in university town. >> he did much better with younger voters than the other candidates did which we were sort of expecting. he got a lot of first-time quaw cusquaw -- caucus goers. ig#nzvk fascinated by the clip e listened to because he took a shot at rick santorum saying i'm the one of the three candidates, i'm the one that can run a national campaign. that's suggesting that santorum wasn't able to really raise the money or havehe has. >> david brooks just+how much m. one way of looking at it is he made a good investment and got a lot of votes. the other is he doesn't have more money on the bank. >> mall will focus his attention on santorum instead of romney which again means perhaps it was a better night for romney. >> do we have any sense what the

issues are once we drove these caucus voters. they didn't come out strongly and enthusiastically for any one person. romney doesn't look like he's going to crack that 25% ceiling at least not in iowa. >> the entrance paul asked about the most important issue and combined budget deficit. economy in general was number one. and romney did very well there. the budget deficit was number two. ron paul did well. and a very distantébfgs third wo santorum did very well among those people. finally, just a very few people identified healthcare which was interesting if you consider how healthcare -- >> the obamacare -- >> it was in the last couple years. so it looks like 9 voter the voe focusing on the economy but depends on what their focus is. is it broadly on jobs and the economy or on the budget deficit. those caucus attendees are dividing between paul and romney on those two issues. >> republicans weren't the only ones caucusing tonight.

there were actually democrats out casting their votes for their incumbent president. they were not being quiet about this, the president was out there speaking about them. >> he's using an organizing tool to say we still have a lot of support, iowa is after all a swing state in the general election. it was a live telecast to some of his supporters. a little bit of choreographed moments from the campaign where they had him take questions and he basically told them it's obvious that the republicans do have a lot of enthusiasm right now. it's going to be a big battle. i really hope you guys are geared up. it's sort of that reprized fire up ready to go method. >> one thing for sure it's a big battle within the republican party coming out of iowa tonight obviously with the democrats as well. we'll go basket to judy now who has a guest in des moines. >> thanks gwen. i'm here with debbie wasserman schultz, congress woman from the state of florida. beshe is the chairman of the

democratic national committee. what brings you to des moines? >> well, we thought it was important that we demonstrate the dramatic contrast that exists between the direction that president obama has been taking with this country standing up and fighting for the middle class and working families and beginning to get this economy turned personal. the entire republican field which is embrace extreme and embrace the tea party and fake back the republican mom sees has brought usz&:;2ceconomic disast. >> every one of these republican candidates has been saying he or she would be a better president than barack obama and they talk about the economy. they talk about the fact that so many americans feel the country is headed in the wrong direction. how does the president begin to chip away at that perception which the republicans just relentlessly hammered out. >> try as they might to create that deception is it seems that most voters aren't buying that argument. that's why in iowa, for example, there isn't a single republican

candidate that would beat the president at this point in any moll head to head. that's because iowa voters, american voters know that president obama has been standing up and fighting for them and has brought us from the jobs when he took office now 22 months of private sector jobs has begun to turn things around. the affordable care act and the war in iraq. the american automobile industry. they know president obama has delivered and he's been fighting for them. >> what's your take on these results tonight? we're watching them come in almost 90% of the vote in. very tightly. at this point it's practically a tie between mitt romney and rick santorum with ron paul close behind. whatst that say to you? >> well if you're mitt romney you have to be pretty devastated that someone like him who is outspent rick santorum 50 to 1 ended up with just, so far just a handful more votes than rick

santorum had at this point. the romney vote is alive and well here and will be alive and well after tonight's caucus. and it's pretty clear given that they haven't gotten any better turnout, in fact they're likely to have less of a turn out than they did in the caucus four years ago. if there were enthusiasm or a hunger to go after president obama, it wasn't reflected in their turnout tonight. >> at the same time you've got the three, you're right, the three wings, parts of the republican party were not able to agree on a scanne capped can. i've been talking to people and there's pretty fierce feelings about the president some who say they proat videoedvoted for brw. how do you get to those people who won't give it another look. >> we have a dramatic contest

whether it's the person on the other side or president obama. the republicans for president want to end medicare as we know it. want to change social security so they can privatize it, allow seniors to invest in the stock market. that wouldn't have worked out so well for the seniors preserving the safety net for the last few years. they all want to make sure she can focus our tax policy on millionaires and billion years instead of like president obama has in the middle class and working families. there is such a dramatic contrast it will be very clear on election day if we want to continue to move in the direction president obama has been taking us for the middle class and working families that he will be re-elected. >> can the president run on his record on the economy. >> i believe he absolutely can because he took an economy that was on the precipice of disaster because of republican policies and began to turn things around. now we have a long way to go but we are now no longer declining. we have an unemployment rate that is dropping. we've got steady private sector job growth and things are

beginning to improve. the american people understand that president obama is fighting for everybody to have an opportunity to have a piece of the american dream for everyone to be able to essentially be treated fairly. the republicans want to keep their wind at the back for the wealthiest americans. >> debly wasserman schultz who is the chairperson of the democratic national committee. thank you very much for coming to talk with us. >> any time, thank you. >> gwen we heard a democratic voice tonight. back to you. >> thank you, judy. boy we're back here with stuart and christina. the last numbers we're seeing are the top two finishers rick santorum and mit romney separated by 13 votes. that's with more than 90% of the vote in. thoothis is crazy christina. >> this is not what we expected. annuitnewt gingrich spoke in ioa

saying this is the beginning of the campaign. sometimes we might laugh at that. we all remember what happened in 2008 with the democrats, everybody thought that would be over after new hampshire and certainly it kept going. >> yes. what do you think about this incredibly tight race? >> i don't know what to think. i'm speechless. i'm speechless. you know, i think we, the candidates who did not do well are going to have to take 48 hours to reassess. and i think romney would want everybody to stay in the race. i think that romney looking out, looking forward has the advantage of the breadth of the campaign, the depth of the campaign and the financial resources but he has a problem he's unable to broaden his appeal. one thing that's interesting if you look at the next three contests, new hampshire, south carolina and florida, the rest of the month, all three of them are going to be losing half their delegates because they're holding contests outside of the

window established by the republican national committee. but as i once pointed out to you, itself does not nearly matter as much as a sense of inevitability, momentum and the person who established himself as likely republican null knee. >> i don't sense any momentum for any of these candidates, do you. >> if there was more than one ticket out of iowa. there isn't seem that. >> if the race goes on long enough then the dell gates do matter again as we saw in the contest four years ago. it's an interesting race where i think all the insiders will say romney has everything going for him. and yet other people will see yes but he hasn't gone anywhere yet. >> looter stu we'l all right stk to judy. >> thank you, gwen. i'll bring back in mark shields and david brooks with us from iowa public television. david, we've just been hearing the conversation about who has é2qú um.is there such a thing thoughs coming out of iowa with the opposite of momentum?

>> well, michele bachmann's got that. whatever it is. it's no mean momentum i guess yu would call it. one thing i would like to you a dress the blood feud about whether there was a good night for perry. he has a ceiling problem -- romney. he has the ceiling problem. the question is whether it's good weakness or bad weakness. it's good weakness if his policies are too moderate for the party which will be good for independentents after assuming you get the nomination. it's back weakness in it's not about possibility but the personality. people are not warming to him. that would be for independents or conservatives. we'll find out what kind of ceiling it is. is it the kind that will benefit in the fall or is it not. >> mark, do you have a thought on that, on what's behindor beneath this kind of response that mitt romney was able to get in this state that he campaigned so hard in four years ago and

here tend campaign hard again in 2012. >> well, in fairness to mitt romney, he only spent 18 days in iowa this time. i mean, there was nothing compared to his effort here four years ago. and if a week is a lifetime in politics and four years is a long time. i'm not minimizing the fact the republicans do like candidates who have run before. witnessed the nomination of bob dole in 1996, some 16 years after it first run. but i do think that romney cannot be dismissed in the sense that he's coming out of iowa with two opponents trailing him or competing with him who nobody really regarded as serious national candidates. i mean, the fact that it is not perry expls no and is not gingra real plus for romney at this point. i think the real question is going to be for the republicans, how do they deal with ron paul

if in fact he does do well in new hampshire again and has two back to back and shows he has a constituency to raise money and mit romney i think should be so far by not going after ron paul and others have. rick santorum certainly has and will because you don't want ron paul to run the third party candidate. so i do think that romney is null in as bad shape as some wise and thoughtful people. >> very quickly to you david. 20 seconds. what do we look for coming out of eye was. all eyes on new hampshire, south carolina, both, beyond? >> yes, the only thing i would say i assume a week or so that mall anmall andmall anpauland af wurntdz. they might go on.

>> we'll hear more from you later this week. david brooks and mark shields, thank you both for joining us. and that wraps up our special coverage of the iowa cause kussmentsz i'm jud --caucuses. i'm use judy woodruff. gwen. >> you can check out our interactive map all night for the final results plus we'll post videos of all the candidate speeches. all that and more you'll find on our website newshour dot pbs.org. thank you and good night.

[ ♪ opening music ] this week we've brought the antiques roadshow to buckinghamshire and to the outskirts of bletchley park. this deceptively tranquil setting was the wartime home of a secret operation that winston churchill claimed was vital to the allied victory. bletchley was the headquarters of top secret intelligence work that enabled us to read enemy signals.

throughout the war, these primitive brick huts, these now empty corridors, were a hive of constant activity. 12,000 people worked at bletchley. the average age, only 23. and the intelligence services scoured the universities and the top schools to select the brightest young people they could find. bletchley was fed with information from 20 receiving stations like this all around britain. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thousands of people sat in front of radio sets just like this, listening to german, italian, and japanese military radio traffic. accuracy was essential: make just a single mistake with one letter and you could destroy the ability to decode a whole message. the signals would arrive from a listening station by despatch rider. they would then be taken for decoding. the greatest breakthrough came with a capture of german cipher machines, such as enigma, and this one, lorenz. lorenz was particularly important

because this was the system that hitler used to communicate with his generals, and the germans believed that the codes were impossible to crack. but the brilliant people who worked here at bletchley park, worked for months and, eventually, they did it. this may all look very heath robinson, but in fact, this is one of the machines that in churchill's famous phrase, "shortened the war by two years." this is colossus, the first computer of its kind in the world that enabled the cryptanalysts of bletchley to break the lorenz code, so vital in the buildup to d-day. to put it all in perspective, it takes a modern pentium computer twice as long to break a message as colossus was doing more than 50 years ago. of much more recent history is the nearby bletchley leisure centre, and that's where we've set up our cameras today. let's join our experts with the people of this part of buckinghamshire. i know it's been in the family, and we believe it goes back as far as 1700. i know it's been handed down from generation to generation

and the family originated from shropshire. immediately, the first thing with any piece of oak is... is it old or isn't it old? it certainly looks the part. the top is fixed; isn't it? yes. the reason for that is, in most cases anyway, these old tables, in the 17th and early 18th century, were used one side for dining, with this polished surface, and the other side for chopping up food. so you just flipped the top over. let's see what it looks like underneath. let's have a look. you can see a completely different colour and just a trace of dirt all the way 'round the edge where it's been handled -- food. i imagine it's been used to eat on, greasy fingers wiping under the top and things. this is clearly an old top and clearly the original top. so it's quite unusual for a table that the top has never been nailed down, but it's actually survived for, now -- 1700, nearly 300 years.

it is about 300 years old. let me put it down. mind your fingers. i'll put it down. that's a good sign and at first glance it's perfectly original. what do you call this at home? we've called it a refectory table. i thought you were going to say that. can i wipe that word out of your vocabulary? forget refectory table. it's a long table or even a board table, made up of boards here like this or a dining table. refectory table is this sort of wonderful victorian idea. everything had to be clerical in victorian imagery. pugin, the great gothic reformist, he was redesigning churches from the gothic style. everything had to be clerical and so the victorians started to use clerical names, this was not used in a monastery, in a refectory. it was made for domestic use, in your case, your great-great-great-grandfather. now, what is fascinating is -- have you ever wondered about the decoration around the sides? oh, it's beautiful.

it's strange that it's just decorated on the one side; it's not all the way around. and the decoration itself is very pretty. this lovely norman arch, going back even earlier in time. and this very nice carving here and rather nondescript, almost like a sort of vine or flower -- i think it's a vine, something like that, going across there. it's nicely carved. all of a period and, amazingly, not one of these later victorian carve-ups. this lovely, lovely leg, that slender columnar leg, of about 1650 to 1700, 1720, difficult to pin down, but let's say around 1700. what is fascinating is the fact that, as you say, nothing at the back. have you wondered why there's no carving at the back? i wondered if it was because it's to be pushed against a wall. absolutely, it would be a side table you bring out when you wanted it to be a dining table. in fact, it goes further than that, because originally, from the medieval times, 200 years or 300 years before this table was made,

traditionally, you would have a bench against the wall, sometimes screwed to the wall. i can actually demonstrate... it wouldn't be as low as this, but you'd sit like this. the table would be brought out to sit like this. the people watching you eat, the head of the house with his wife, would actually see the decorated sides. i didn't realise that at all. the tradition of making these tables was carried on in to the 17th century. it's extraordinary to think that they didn't bother to carve that side because it was never going to be seen. so it is, amazingly, a very genuine table, nice condition; bit of worm i noticed. it has been a problem but it's been a working table. great and that's what it should be, and it can stay for another 300 years without being bothered too much. just get the woodworm treated possibly. so you've got to insure it; it's a valuable table. have you got a figure on it at the moment? i really don't know. will you go home and insure it for a minimum of £10,000.

what do you put in it? we have used it for peanuts. i know it was used in my grandmother's days for lump sugar. lump sugar, i'm not so worried about. i suggest you don't put peanuts in it anymore. the salt that you get on peanuts would be dreadful for it. have you thought at all when it might have been made? no, it wasn't a piece that i was sort of told to keep an eye on in any way, shape, or form from parents. right, that's interesting. the actual period of it is charles ii. got the hallmarks there for london. you can see from the date letter that we've got there that it's 1673. so when you think that was made within 10 years of the great fire of london and the plague and so on, it puts it really in context. it is, actually, a very rare form of dish that you find at that period.

there are great arguments about what they were used for. general consensus is that they were actually for drinking normally they're circular. there are a number of circular ones, but to get this oval shape is jolly unusual and really quite rare. the handles, i think, are delightful. that lovely sort of spiral twist going 'round, and again, the fluting over the body. i think it's terrible discreet when you get somebody's crest or coat of arms or, in this case, initials. just underneath, you've got "r.m." engraved at that point, which is lovely. i suppose it's supposed to be a bunch of grapes. it's typical of the post-civil war period. a lot of charles ii silver, if you want to be brutal about it, was cheap and cheerful. it was very quickly made. the way that decoration was done, they filled that with pitch.

then having filled it with pitch, they would get a punch, not unlike this pen here, and just donk, donk, donk over the surface to achieve that. so done at great speed. it has a great deal of charm. it's not the world's greatest decoration, but it gives a great charm. i think it's more akin to folk art than anything else. i think you could draw the parallels with the slipwares that you get in ceramics, getting done at tremendous speed. and you get this lovely vitality to the decoration. value today... i would suggest that you're going to have to insure that for... £3,000, 3,500. fantastic. definitely no peanuts. black is a bad colour. the market doesn't like black; it doesn't like white; and it doesn't like gray. it likes lots of colour. so normally, black objects in ceramic are not very saleable.

this one's particularly nice because it's such a good subject. it's a youth and... his very sexy, young girl having a very erotic kiss. that's always a good subject and the market likes that. the sculptor has, i think, been looking at probably canova and maybe rodin's "kiss." do you know rodin's "kiss"? yes, i've heard of it. i think he's been looking at that, and he's been influenced by it, but he's not copied it exactly. do you know what this material is? it looks like bronze, of course. in fact, it's a material called black basalt, which was developed by josiah wedgwood in the 18th century, and he used it for making wares: vases and so on, but it's continued in wedgwood production. and it's a wonderful material when it works well.

when it's sculptural like this, i think it's actually quite exciting. the sculptor here, stephan sinding 1889. he was scandinavian, and he died in 1922, born in 1846. he's quite well known. he won a gold medal at the paris exhibition. he was a painter as well, and he was quite an important man. my guess is -- i've never seen this model before -- i think it would have been made in pretty limited numbers. what the title is, i don't know. "two people in love." you've had it translated! i come from denmark. oh, really?! it was given to us while we was home on holiday in denmark. there was two old ladies who had it, and my family, my parents was really fond of that family, and we used to go there. every time we was in denmark, we also had to go and visit them.

one day when we were sitting 'round the coffee table, this old lady came up and she said to my husband, "there you are, that's yours." one wonders what two old ladies were doing with an erotic sculpture. you wonder where they got it from, two old spinsters. absolutely. very good. it's not a one-off, and one can tell that because this has been cast in pieces. it would have been made probably in half a dozen pieces, do you know about slip casting? you make your model in clay; you take a plaster mould of it; you then make another one of clay in the middle of that; and then you take moulds from that. you've now got a plaster mould where this is a hole in the middle, and you turn your mould upside down and you pour liquid clay into it. the plaster of paris absorbs the moisture and builds up a thickness of clay on the inside. when you've got it thick enough, you pour the liquid clay out

and you let it dry and you have a shell of pottery, which you let dry again. then you can fire it and glaze it and do whatever you want to. you can see it's absolutely hollow on the inside, which is typical, and smooth and boring. whereas on the outside, of course, you get all the fine detail. this is meticulously hand-worked on the fingers and the toes. you can just about see the line of the mould coming down here. when it was all stuck together, when it came out of the mould, all these were very proud. on a crude piece, you can still see those showing very clearly. here they've trimmed it all off. there's a lot of handwork been done on putting this together. they were proud of it; it was an important piece. as a purely decorative piece of this quality, of this date, dated in 1889, it's certainly going to be worth £1,500 to 2,500, and it could be worth quite a bit more than that.

thank you for bringing it. very nice, thank you for telling us about it. at first glance, it looks like a champagne glass, but, albeit, without its rim there, but i suspect that's too simple an explanation. when my mother was a little girl, she was taken 'round a glass factory, and it must have been before the first world war. the glass blower saw this little girl coming along and made this for her. in the family, we call it the wang wang, and i'll just show you why. if i blow very carefully into here, [ glass popping ] that's why it's called the "wang wang" there's a very fine film of glass across there which is concave. and when i blow it, it makes this funny noise. it's an extraordinary sound and unique, your wang wang. i don't know there's another. i don't think we'll ever see another. this is a fantastic group of blow torches. you're a blow torch collector, are you? yes, i am. how many have you got in your collection?

around about 350. never! of which you've brought us just a selection of four. most people think about blow torches when they're stripping paint, but they're not all for stripping paint. that's the general opinion of things but, of course, blow torches were invented in 1880. they were used as a means of portable heat for just about everything you can think of. and invented in sweden? in sweden, yes. this little one in the middle was patented before 1900. that's nice, it's called "the rapid" made in sweden. it's a sort of spherical thing. yes, they weren't all that successful. i think they packed them up fairly early on because they tended to blow apart in the middle. if you got pressure inside, it came apart. so what would you pay for a favourite? couple of hundred pounds? something like that. it could be valued at that. most people who collect them would like dearly to have one.

what's the function of this fellow? this one was for a motoring kit in the 1920s, carried in the car in a tool kit. you've got folding feet and it would go into the kit. right, and it would fit into the baize. good old thing that. fantastic, the first collection of blow torches i've ever seen. that's a poppet. isn't that a lovely shape. that really is great. did you buy this? yes. how much did you pay for it? 50p, i think. where? jumble sale. take me to your jumble sale, quick. that's a pretty piece. it's what's known as chintz ware. this all-over printed pattern of different coloured flowers. they are now being collected. they are starting to have auctions in london devoted to this kind of ware. nowadays it's such a pretty shape that i thought you'd be looking at about £250.

so 50p, that was a good investment, wasn't it? my father owned it. he gave it to me and he said it was his grandfather's. his grandfather died in 1930, and that's all i know. that's all you know about it. it's either edwardian or georgian. we have to make a decision about what it is, whether it's 1790-1800 or 1890-1900. it's not always that easy, and this is such a pretty piece. have you had it restored? i have, yes, about 12 months ago. it's been very nicely done. it's nicely and sympathetically done. did that cost you a lot of money? no, it was a local man, and i think he charged £300. let's have a look at it, we've got -- i like to see these underneath, these little bosses there, which are typical of furniture made in the early 19th century, -- they're on breakfast tables -- to cover up the screw holes, which is quite interesting. when you look at the detail -- i love this chequered banding,

which you see it's sort of got a slight dutch influence here with that lovely banding all the way 'round. what gives me the feeling that it's an early piece is this lovely piece of mahogany here, that lovely colour there, lots of nice graining. look at the detail; have you ever studied this border? you've got this satin wood here with these lovely bands where it's been cut against the grain and you can see the soft and dark -- or the light and dark tones of the satin wood. but inlaid on top of that you've got this fairly normal ribbon meandering through the whole thing. on the turns, the underside of the ribbon's been stained green with iron filings. it's called hare wood. lovely sort of colours; a lot of detail there; then the meandering flowers. what i've never seen before, is this extraordinary squiggle, which i can only assume was intended to be a branch. it's a very pretty table. it's something that is always going to be useful. it's always something people want because it's so small and so pretty

and does such a lovely job in a house. where do you keep it, by a sofa or something? no, it's in the hall, actually. it doesn't go with the rest of my furniture, unfortunately. would it have just been used for ornament or -- remember tea and chocolate and things like that and then later coffee were quite a ceremony. a table of this quality would be used against the wall, brought into the room by the sofas and things like that, in a very formal setting, possibly would have a kettle or a tea urn put on it, or simply for very delicate bone china cups and saucers. just to be used as a tea table. the french have a good name for this, table ambulant, which means a walking table. that's exactly what this would be. have you ever had it valued or insured? no. not at all? no, i was offered £200 for it. 200 at an antique shop. that was before it was restored though. glad you didn't take it.

that would have been robbery, would it? yes, 200 is not enough. i want you to insure this for quite a lot more than that. insure it for £8,000. god! my father will want it back now. really?! i can't believe that. how long have you been collecting animal pincushions? i started in 1974, so i suppose that's 24 years ago. i was in the lanes in brighton. my wife and i were talking about what to collect. i wanted to collect spoons, and she said no, she didn't think you could display those very well. so we ended up with seeing a pincushion, buying it, and it was this one here. so i bought them, bought it for £19.50. that was a very good buy by today's standards. pincushions like this, the animal silver ones, have a fairly short life span. they were made predominantly between about 1880 and 1930,

and they are now much sought after by collectors. do you have a particular favourite? i've got two favourites: this one here that i bought in skegness. which is your other favourite? the goat over the far side, because i found that an aunt had already got this in a cabinet, and she let me have it. so that was rather nice. if we look at a few of the individual ones, this one, a pheasant, as you can see. it's interesting because it's by the maker samson mordan, who is a well-known maker, and there are collectors who just concentrate on collecting silver by him. that would be of interest to mordan collectors and pincushion collectors. this one i like because it's a kangaroo and there are australian collectors of pincushions. they would be very keen to have one like that.

you've got some great rarities here: an ostrich, i've never seen a camel before, and a carp as well. i think it's a carp... all very rare pincushions. this is my own particular favourite. it's a porcupine and the cushion is inside the animal rather than external. so if you take a pin and you put it in one of the holes and press it into the cushion, then it becomes one of the porcupine's quills. are you still collecting or not? yes, i mean it's taken me 24 years to get this number. i must admit when i first started, it was easy to buy things like elephants and pigs, but gradually, as the years have gone on, i suppose i only buy one every two years probably. i look in every antique shop i come to, but these days i see very few. i think that's because in the last 10 years, specifically, there's been an explosion of interest in pincushions

and they're now highly sought after. so you do see them less and less i think. as to values... the more common ones like the elephants and pigs, they're currently fetching about £150 at auction. then you go on to the slightly more rare ones, a mordan pheasant, perhaps, £300 at today's standard, and some of the great rarities, like the ostrich or the camel, at auction, you're probably looking at £500, 600. so all in all, a comprehensive collection. i would think the total value must be in the region of £10,000. you surprise me. isn't that a smashing face? is it one that's been passed on? yes, it is. it's a family piece. in fact, it was a present from my mother-in-law, i suppose about 45 years ago. a present to me. what a super present. lovely present.

what do you use it for? i don't. it just sits on the little shelf. right, well, it is a snuff box. this one, in fact, we've got marked both in the lid and on the side. we can see from that, it was actually made in 1830 in birmingham... and tye and kilner as the maker. condition is jolly good. value wise, gosh, with a box like this. it's a little while since i can remember one coming on the market, but all the serious snuff box collectors are going to want it. there aren't enough of these for all the collectors that there are. there would be quite serious competition for this one, which is a genuine one. you've got to be careful, of course, that you don't get a forgery. i would not be in the least bit surprised to see that selling today for... £5,000.

really? i'm amazed. it is such a rarity. well, it's been a day of high values here at bletchley today and quite a few surprised people too, which is what we like to see. our thanks to everyone in buckinghamshire. i hope you'll join us next week when we're off to lancashire. until then, good-bye. captions by: midwest captioning des moines, iowa