One Antiques Roadshow guest was sent home with a rather urgent task during Sunday’s episode of the BBC show after expert Will Farmer promised they could “double the value” of the items she’d brought in.
The items in question were a set of Lalique glassware – but they were made all the more intriguing by the backstory behind them.
“They are just style personified,” Farmer said as he set eyes on the glasses. “Fill me in. Tell me about this little group of crystal we’ve got here before me.”
The owner explained: “Well, my father-in-law was an engineer at Royal Daulton Minton and apparently these were made for the set of James Bond: Diamonds Are Forever in 1971.
“Royal Daulton made all the china and these were glass for the tables in the dining room.
“So we’ve always wondered whether they are set pieces or whether they were of the time of 1971, whether that could be true or not.”
BBC Antiques Roadshow: Will Farmer looked over glassware with supposed ties to the James Bond films
BBC
Farmer quickly provided the guest with a history lesson about the glasses: “These are by Rene Lalique. And the design was created in 1939.
“But let’s just unpick the path and the story a little bit. So, a 1939 design, the pattern is called Argos, and it’s defined by this lovely simple bowl and this fabulous Art Deco band of zigzags around the bottom. So much of the era. Absolutely. They couldn’t be more Deco if they tried.
“But, as a design, it’s one that has been in continuous production,” he pointed out. “So (they’re) not designed for the film, but were they made to be used in the film?
“Highly possible,” he pondered. “Because if we just turn this one over and look at the mark we have under here, hand-engraved ‘Lalique France’.
BBC Antiques Roadshow: The Lalique glasses were supposedly made to be used in a Bond film
BBC
“Now, there’s a definitive thing when we’re looking at an ageing Lalique. When Rene Lalique was alive, every single piece of his work is marked ‘R Lalique’. On his death in 1945, they dropped the R and it becomes generically ‘Lalique’.
“His son takes over the running of the firm and I would argue that that hand-engraved mark is contemporary for that time.”
However, with so much uncertainty surrounding the glassware’s authenticity in regards to its 007 ties, and with no accompanying evidence, Farmer had a hard time slapping a sky-high value on the items.
“As they are now, we’ve just got potentially a single place setting of Lalique stemware in the Argos pattern, circa 1939, in design, absolutely, probably made circa 1970, that are worth £50 to £60 per glass,” he revealed as the guest nodded.
“So there’s a couple of hundred pounds here,” Farmer continued before he reeled off his urgent request for the owner: “But, if you can make all the ends meet, find the facts of the story from somebody who is so deeply ingrained in the world of James Bond and prove they were part of the room and stage setting, the only thing it’s gonna do is double the value, easily.
“But in the meantime, they say diamonds are forever, I think style is forever. They are excellent.”
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BBC Antiques Roadshow: Will Farmer urged the guest to prove her story
BBC
Farmer and the owner went their separate ways but the Antiques Roadshow expert soon delivered a monologue to the camera where he revealed he too would be doing his research to try and prove the Lalique’s ties to the Bond franchise.
“Well, two of my favourite things – Bond and Lalique,” he enthused. “Now, I can stand here all day and tell you all about Lalique, but the one thing I couldn’t do today was join the caps and make that connection with the pieces to the film.
“But that’s the fun part of this job because I can do away and do that now.”
During the instalment at Beaumaris Castle in north Wales, Farmer wasn’t the only expert who required their guest to put in the extra mile as Joanna Hardy also encouraged one owner to go above and beyond to prove their item of jewellery could be worth “tens of thousands of pounds”.