MADAM – It was interesting to read Bruce Parker’s Antiques Roadshow memories (‘All areas of the trade have done well’ out of Roadshow, says first presenter’, Letters, ATG No 2310). I had appeared for several years on Going for a Song with Arthur Negus, so I was a shoo-in for the new programme, on which I appeared for 32 years. Naturally, the BBC, not knowing the antiques trade, recruited most of its ‘experts’ from the salerooms, and I soon got tired of hearing ‘at auction this would fetch….’, so I successfully recruited a few dealers in the hope of hearing ‘a good dealer might give you…’. However, this caused confusion, because some gave an insurance valuation figure, and some gave what approximated to an auction price, so that the BBC eventually had to explain the wildly differing values.
“The emphasis became the story, rather than the object
Nevertheless, the overall impression still given by the auction-house experts on the programme is that auction is the way, although there is a BBC booklet that explains the alternatives.