Flogged it! TV star Michael Baggott’s final silver collection sells for £112,891
The collection included a shallow silver bowl that sold for £3,810 and a silver James I dish that exceeded estimates, fetching £5,334.
The final instalment of Flog It! star Michael Baggott’s private silver collection has sold for a total of £112,891.
The former BBC antiques expert, Baggott, who died aged 51 in January 2025, was a recognised authority on antique silver, specialising in early spoons, boxes and provincial and continental silver.
The final lots from his private collection went under the hammer on Tuesday and sold in Woolley And Wallis’s silver and objects of vertu sale for above its estimated value of £71,100 to £97,700.
It comes after two previous auctions, held for Baggott’s collection, exceeded sales of more than £200,000.
Among the pieces that went up for sale was a 1672 Charles II provincial two handled porringer by silversmith Thomas Mangy.
The lot sold for £3,810.
The shallow bowl was commonly used for eating, drinking or serving soft foods such as porridge or soup and signalled status and wealth with some used to present sweets or given as christening gifts.
Meanwhile an engraved James I West-Country silver dish, dating back to 1620, by silversmith Edward Harsell sold for £5,334, more than its top estimated value of £4,000.
The auction also included a silver ingot, which is a solid block of refined silver made by pouring melted silver into a mould, which sold for well above its top estimated value of £300 at a total of £762.
Unlike coins, ingots were not decorative, but practical objects, used for storage, trade or further manufacturing with the lot dating back to June 1840.
The ingot was produced at Mr Treffry’s Smelting House in Par during the peak years of Cornish metal production.
The piece was sold alongside a handwritten note that says it was the first successful silver produced at the smelting house and created by separating silver from copper mined at Fowey Consol.
The note said: “The first produce from Mr Treffry’s Smelting House at Par, by which the silver is separated from the copper raised at Fowey Consol mine. Mr Treffry June 1840.”
Baggott’s entire York silver collection was made up of more than 550 pieces and spanned from the late 17th century to 1858.
Silver specialist Rupert Slingsby described Baggott’s collection as “the most comprehensive collection of silver assayed in York ever to come onto the open market”.
Baggott’s interest in antiques began in his early years, when he saved up £22 in school dinner money to purchase a Chester silver vesta case, and he progressed to work in Christie’s auction house and was head of silver at Sotheby’s Billingshurst for a number of years.
The Birmingham-born star was also a published author and penned An Illustrated Guide To York Hallmarks 1776-1858 and As Found: A Lifetime In Antiques.
He joined BBC daytime show Flog It! in the 2000s, where he valued various silver objects.
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