Unloved family heirlooms in your attic may be worth more than you think
Manx Newscast
TV auctioneer and antiques expert to offer free valuations
Hello, I'm Simon Richardson from the Manx Radio Newsroom. Have you got any unloved family alums gathering dust in your attic? Well, they may be worth more than you think. Renowned auctioneer and antiques expert Adam Partridge of Floggett and bargain hunt fame is on the island all of next week and would be holding a free valuation session at the Comis Hotel on Monday the 9th of July. I caught up with him ahead of his arrival on Saturday. Well, I'm coming to the island, man. It's not my first trip to the island. In fact, I've been several times over the years. So, over that time, I've built up some kind of friends and clients and things like that. So, I'm coming to visit some of my existing clients and as a result of that word, travels in a small community and, you know, how it is everyone knows someone else. And before you know it, they're saying, "Can you see my friend?" And so, we make into a sort of fun trip to a lovely place, a good excuse for us to have a nice time whilst working. I'm here for the all of next week or the coming week next week. I think we arrive on Saturday afternoon and we leave the following Friday. So, they're all week this time, which is the longest trip we've made. Now, you're, of course, well known as one of the faces of TV shows, such as, I think, Floggett and bargain hunt. How much have these TV shows, do you think, changed the perception of buying and selling? I guess what used to be the old starch, if you may be, many of auction rooms? You're a very good question, actually. I think they have demystified the whole process, really. I think a lot of people thought, as you correctly said, that auction rooms were the domain of the tweed-wearing, sort of certain stereotypical antiques people with bow ties and colourful spectacles. And it sort of felt a bit alien, perhaps, to the general public. And I think a lot of people didn't even realise that they were even able to go to what we call a public auction. So, yes, it's rather demystified, the pros and, of course, brought auctions into the real public domain. And, hopefully, well, we've seen a massive increase in just, you know, regular folk like you and me going along to an auction rather than having to be someone of a certain type. Now, you're interested in it goes back, I think, I believe, to age 10 when you placed your first bid, is that right? Yeah, at least probably that's an exaggeration, always. I think, possibly even younger, but certainly, I think, 10 would be a good time to date that from. When I grew up in West London and there was an antiques shop at the bottom of the road amongst the shopping paraders, there were in many high streets which have all sadly disappeared now. And I used to go and visit this antiques shop. I remember as a French lady. And she used to talk to me and tell me about things, and I used to, you know, buy things with money I'd saved up from washing cars and doing odd jobs and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I got, actually, at a very, very early age, and used to go to auctions as well with my grandfather, who was a bit of a wheeler dealer in the violins and things like that. So, yes, it seems as though I don't really remember time before antiques and auctions. And you opened your first auction room, I think, in your early 20s. Do you still these days get the same excitement from that auction process as you did then? Yeah, I suppose, I think I still do. Although, you know, 30, 40 years in, well, I'm 51 now, so I suppose I've been doing it a good 30 years. The excitement comes and goes, but it's always there. There's never far away from another exciting discovery. We're sort of like modern day treasure hunters in a way. And, yeah, there's still a buzz about the auction day, even though things are very different now from when I started 30 years ago. You know, nowadays, very few people turn up at an auction. It's all online. We still hold a live auction, and I still stand up there and do the whole auctioneering business. But it's always live online on a couple of platforms. So there are far more people bidding from absent locations than in the front of you in the room these days. So it's rather a different environment, which is a shame. I enjoy the thrill, the cut and thrust of the live auction. You know, when, 30 years ago, you'd have people turning up with flasks of tea, and they'd be so crowded that people would be feinting and all sorts of things. And nowadays, it's very much like a county cricket match, where there are three people and a dog attending. Slightly more people watching on the telly. Yeah. And how did your TV careers start? Well, I got a job in the Northwest in 1999, just as the programs were beginning to come out. And there was one called Cash in the Attic, and I got in touch with them and volunteered my services as a valuer and as an auction house to sell the goods. And as a result, we were the very first Cash in the Attic filming location, and that sort of broke me into that world. And then I got offered to go for auditions for Floggett and Bargain Hunt, and then, you know, 17 years on Floggett. We got discontinued in 2018, Floggett was axed, but you wouldn't know it to watch the telly, it's still on every day. So they then they make other sort of rehashes of it and compilations and things like that. But it was a lovely 17 years on Floggett. It was my favourite show, really, because it was very, very much like the Antique Roadshow, but with more sort of regular folk, I suppose, that would have normal things that they'd be happy to sell. So you'd have to sort of be doing your job, really, but actually on telly. So you were there, warts and all. You could get something wrong and put two to three hundred pound estimate, and it'd make a thousand quid. And then people see you in the Tesco's and say, "Ah, you didn't get that one very, very, very accurate, did you?" So it was great fun, and I think it has brought antiques into the public domain a lot more. Now, you referenced Crickett a few minutes ago, and I believe you're a big Crickett fan. I suppose less said about the recent T20 World Championships, but you like your Crickett. I do, actually. Yeah, I've always loved Crickett. A little fact, I played Crickett for Poland once. These are my mother's half Polish. So, and I play regularly for the Lord's Taverners. In fact, I've just had a game for them last Friday, but we won't talk too much about that because I was bowled out first ball by an England disability cricketer. But it's a great sport. I used to coach as well locally, and yeah, I'm a big fan of Crickett. And another thing maybe a lot of people don't know about you is that away from all the TV and the auction rooms, you're a skilled musician and playing, is it violin and piano? That's right. Yeah, well, I think for a kind of you to say skill, because you haven't heard me, but my parents are both professional violinists. So, I grew up playing the violin as though it was riding a bike. I suppose it sort of came fairly naturally, if that sounds silly. And as a result, it was a very musical household. I played the piano as well. I still play a little bit, I'll also play the organ in a church, if someone asks me to, and funerals and weddings accepted, you know, I'm not just here to promote the antiques. Yeah, I enjoy music very much, and still do quite a bit of it at home, but the career-wise, it was always going to be auctions for me. Now, returning to your visit to the Isle of Man, you've been here several times before. Can you remember what was the most exciting find you came across while you were over here? Oh, gosh, well, I've seen some very, very fine things and some interesting collections, but, you know, slightly I need to be a little bit careful, because obviously people on the island, it's a small place, and a lot of people know each other. And so sometimes people, I think that's part of the reason that we get people contact us, is that because we're off the island a bit, but yet we still have a good, honest reputation. So I think people are quite cautious and confidential, but I did see last time actually on the violin theme. I saw a very, very interesting violin now. The violin world's fraught with difficulty because there are fake labels and all sorts of mischiefs gone on over the years, but I did see a violin on my last trip that potentially could be worth tens and tens and tens of thousands of pounds. So that's a sort of vague, vague view. We do see lots of people with fine paintings and ceramics, but again, yeah, a little bit careful about that when I'm afraid. It's a bit of a politician's answer on that one. And looking at your life in private, you live on a small holding near Congleton in Cheshire. Now, one of your other passions, I understand, is animals. It is indeed. In fact, we've moved from that small holding that you've probably seen on onto it to a larger, small farmstead in the hills above Macclesfield. And we have, well, we're like a sort of unofficial rescue center. We've become quite well known for our locally on patron of an animal charity. We have four German shepherd dogs, actually. We rescued two just last weekend. We seem to get a call about it. We got some geese. They're the most terrifying animals I've ever met. Even the German shepherd dogs are terrified of the geese. We had to go to Derbyshire to rescue those. And it was alarm bells when the chaps in, "I'll just go and get a weapon," as we were collecting the geese. We've got about 60 or 70 X battery hens. We've got a donkey that we also was an abused donkey from somewhere in Staffordshire. He's a great character. We've got three or four horses now, including one with an one-eye, an ex-army horse with one eye. We've got some goats. The list goes on with rabbits. I feel like one and two pigs that were abandoned in a stable somewhere in South Cheshire. So I think the animal counts quite. We've got our own our own zoo, domestic zoo, really. But it's great, actually. It's very rewarding. We've also got to amongst other animals, as Gerald Darryl was saying, we've got seven children as well. So it's between us. We're what they call a blended family, which is a modern term, isn't it? There's plenty going on in the partridge household. I can imagine you still find time for auctions. Yes, right. Yeah, four auction rooms were in London, Devon, Macclesfield and Liverpool. And we also have some valuation offices all around. So it's a family business started in 2008, and it's still very much a family business. My oldest son runs our serum in London, and my oldest daughter works as a photographer at our Cheshire auction house. So it's really nice to be Britain's largest provincial auction house and also be a very family-owned business. And of course, the visit to the Isle of Man, how do people go about seeing you and bringing things to you? Well, they can get in touch with us via our website. There's a tab on the home page where they can feel in a form or there's a number there and they can get an inquiry. We've still got a couple of slots left, I think, for free home visits. There's no obligation to anyone. We're happy to go and advise for free whether they want to sell it with us or not. So they can get in touch by telephone or by website. And as I say, we've got a valuation day as well at the Comas Hotel. So if they can come along to that, that's great. We look forward to meeting lots of charming Manks residents. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manks Radio Newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manks Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider? So our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]