In my never ending quest to find media relating to our favorite pottery I called upon one of my stalwart standby channels BBC America and their antiques based show Bargain Hunt.
Bargain Hunt is a game show set in Great Britain that has aired on the BBC since 2000. Two pairs of contestants, the RED team and the BLUE team compete against each other to see who can make the biggest profit at auction on purchases made during the show. The grand prize is that they get to keep their winnings and bragging rights for being the week’s champions.
Each team has £300 to spend and an hour to find three items. They are assigned a professional antiques appraiser to guide them in making their purchases. The show is set at different retail venues and outdoor fairs around Great Britain. The bulk of the show follows the couples around as they consider different buys.
After the two teams have completed their purchases their items are first appraised by an auctioneer then go under the hammer. After they have been sold the contestants have the option of one more purchase using money they haven't spent, a Bonus Buy, made by the professional who assisted them in making their choices. The idea is to help them increase their final cash total.
On one of the episodes I saw, the Bonus Buy chosen by antiques dealer Danny Sebastian to assist RED contestants Angus and Geoff was a piece of majolica—or purported to be a piece of majolica—picked by him to help his team win.
What he actually bought was an imitation majolica corn pitcher made in Asia. It was a copy of the Ellis & Son designed pitcher made in large quantities by Adams & Bromley and Shorter & Son.
When Sebastian presented his selection to his team I noticed he avoided using any term that would imply that it was majolica, or even antique. He just offered it as an “agricultural” themed piece that might appeal to the local rural auction buyers. He spent £30 on the pitcher. At the auction house the auctioneer also avoided any reference to the authenticity or age of the piece. The team decided to go along with the faux majolica Bonus Buy. Bids on the pitcher came in at the auction house and on the internet.
The Bonus Buy proved successful by selling for £35 and adding £5 to the pair's total giving the RED team the week's win with a smaller total loss of £4 to the BLUE team's total loss of £89. The majority of contestants lose money, leaving them on the show with nothing more than slight humiliation for making such poor choices or limited joy at losing less money than their competition. A very few do walk away with some cash.
It's a light hearted way of spending an hour if you have an interest in antiques, though if you’re like me, you’ll spend much of the show yelling at the TV screen over the amateur’s poor purchase choices.
The show’s opening theme can be seen here. Additional videos showing the flavor of the show can be seen here, here and here.
For more on corn themed majolica go here. For more on the corn reproduction pitcher go here.
