Unlike modern-day industry-produced items of which there are often hundreds of replicas, antiques are unique and no two people will have the exact same. Having been around for a while, antiques provide us with exciting insights into the differing trends and fashions of separate historical periods. Each will have fascinating stories to unravel. Shortly after her divorce, she wrote a novel, Blythe Spirit (1996), about a divorcee facing trials and treachery in trying to set up as a female auctioneer in a male-dominated industry. There are a few things to look out for when trying to work out the age of an antique. By applying these tips and looking at the antique as a whole, you should be able to gather a fair indication of how long it’s been around. As a collector of antique furniture himself, Miller adopted a relaxed approach to the business of interior furnishing and design, rather than following a master plan. “I've just thrown everything together,” he insisted. Miller died at a hospital in North London on 8 April 2023, at the age of 71. [4] [8] Bibliography [ edit ]

If you’re unsure of the accuracy of an item’s price tag, it’s always worth circulating different shops, stalls, and events, to see whether price levels differ and where the best deal to be had is. To many people, antiques might be seen as old, unfashionable objects, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Antiques are unique and exciting, and there are many benefits to buying and collecting them. In 2006 the couple opened Miller's Academy of Arts and Science in London, offering lectures and debates to feed what Miller identified as middle-class intellectual hunger caused by the dearth of intelligent programs on television. Buying and collecting antiques can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Each antique has a unique story to tell and is representative of a specific time in history; and unravelling that story is all part of the fun.Miller's Antiques Handbook & Price Guide remains the essential and trusted guide to the antiques market. It has earned the reputation of being the book no dealer, collector or auctioneer should be without. Compiled by Judith Miller, world-renowned antiques expert and co-founder of the book, the guide features more than 8,000 antiques. Car boot sales are a great place to shop for antiques, especially if you’re just starting out. Car boot sales can sometimes be a little chaotic because people will try and sell all sorts of items, so you might have to look a bit harder than you would elsewhere, but there are often a few hidden gems up for grabs. Equity release may involve a lifetime mortgage or a home reversion plan. To understand the features and risks, ask for a personalised illustration. a b c d e "Judith Miller, co-founder of Miller's Antiques Price Guide and stalwart Antiques Roadshow expert – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 14 April 2023 . Retrieved 14 April 2023. Miller continued sleuthing to find the human stories behind family heirlooms for an Antiques Roadshow spin-off series, Antiques Roadshow Detectives, in 2015.

In 2001, Miller embarked on a joint venture with Dorling Kindersley to publish two full-colour annual price guides to antiques and collectables, a series of specialist collectors guides and price guides beginning with costume jewellery. In 2007 she returned to Miller's, an imprint of Octopus Books (a division of Hachette Livre). [ citation needed] Personal life and death [ edit ] Abe Books is an online database that allows you to search for antique and vintage books. You can compare several copies of the same book in different conditions to most closely match your own book to it. However, these are asking prices, so you need to find the outliers (very high or very low prices) and determine whether your books fit with them, or with the more average values. If you’re looking for a place to start, then it can help to start familiarising yourself with trends from some key periods in history, so you can tell items apart; for example, being able to separate Georgian pieces from Victorian. Once described as “the Richard Branson of the antiques world”, Miller failed his 11-plus exams in childhood but developed a natural flair for business, spotting gaps in the market which took him into such diverse fields as publishing diaries, devising and marketing his own premium brand of gin, and running country hotels. Martin Miller was a charismatic entrepreneur and bon vivant, and after co-founding the bestselling antiques price guides that bear his name (and made his fortune) went on to become a successful hotelier.Some of Miller’s early TV appearances on the BBC were in 1995 and 1996 episodes of the property makeover show Home Front and in The Art and Antiques Hour in 1997. With the gossip columnist Ross Benson, she jointly presented all eight series of The Antiques Trail (1995-2002), screened in ITV’s Meridian and HTV regions. Another plus is that, generally speaking, antique items are very well made. Rather than being mass-produced by machines in large quantities, antique items would have been handcrafted by someone who dedicated a great deal of time and care to their project. The fact that they’re still standing intact decades later is a sign of their quality.