Antiques Roadshow star Chris Yeo left one collection of old-fashioned photographs unvalued as he reminded the guest "they don't belong to you," over some mysterious photos.
In the classic 2021 episode, which is due to be repeated on Sunday evening, the curator and 20th-century design and craft specialist was keen to find out more about the people behind the pictures.
"I'm looking at a fascinating collection of photographs," Yeo commented of the collection before he explained: "Laura, you've brought them with you today, but they don't belong to you."
"No, they belong to Glamorgan Archives, where I worked," the guest detailed. "And these are a collection of photographs that we don't really know very much about."
Laura went on: "So, we're looking for people to give us a bit more information if they can."
"These are the local people from Cardiff," Yeo pointed out before Laura responded: "Yes, we think so. The photographer that took the photographs was based on Bute Street in Cardiff, part of Bute Town."
The collection of photographs intrigued Antiques Roadshow star Chris Yeo
BBC
Detailing more about the location, Yeo elaborated: "So this is around the Cardiff Docks area. People might know the name Tiger Bay - Shirley Bassey, the girl from Tiger Bay. But these are obviously much earlier. What time are we talking about?"
"Around 1900 to about 1920, 1925 - something like that," Laura answered, explaining further: "We know the photographer died in 1925 so it has to be sometime before that.
"For the majority of the photographs, they're studio posed portraits. So they would have gone to the studio where he was on Bute Street and they would have posed for the photographs in their Sunday best, or something like that."
"And we can see here, talking of Sunday bests, this very dapper young chap, smiling away at the camera," Yeo pointed out, alluding to a snap of a young child dressed in a distinguished outfit.
Antiques Roadshow expert Chris Yeo didn't value the unique items
BBC
Laura commented: "Yes, you can't imagine that those kind of clothes were a thing he'd have normally worn on a daily basis, but it'd be nice to know who he was, really."
"Absolutely, what do you know about the man who took the photos?" Yeo probed.
The guest explained: "A gentleman called Fred Peterson who was originally from Copenhagen in Denmark, had what was said to be two artist parlours on Bute Street and then became a photographer."
"And of course, you gave those dates 1900, 1920 - that's just at the point where Cardiff is really a world city because of coal and the export of coal and it has this extraordinarily diverse population," added Yeo, highlighting the area's unique history.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
The Antiques Roadshow guest brought along a collection of photographs
BBC
"Absolutely," Laura replied, adding: "So we know from the census Cardiff had the second most diverse population after London - around 50 different nationalities were living in Cardiff at that time, particularly around the docks area."
"And these aren't the great and the good and the famous, they are ordinary working people - people who really helped to make Cardiff a great city," Yeo continued.
"Wouldn't it be fantastic if someone watching Antiques Roadshow and seeing this recognised someone from the family and we could actually put a name to one of these faces, that would be a Roadshow success story, I think."
Wrapping up the analysis, he failed to give a valuation as he told Laura the collection was "absolutely fascinating" and thanked her for bringing it along.
