11 February 2024 , 22:22
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An Antiques Roadshow expert was wowed in Sunday night’s episode by the “oldest printed thing we’ll ever see”.
Host Fiona Bruce told viewers that rare, early books are always an exciting find on the BBC programme, particularly from the dawn of the printing press in the 15th Century. So books and manuscript expert Matthew Haley couldn’t contain his excitement when a guest in Glasgow brought in a collection of printed material that dated back as far as 1470.
The owner explained he used to work in the print industry, so had always had a keen interest in print and typefaces. This led his wife to buy him old printed pages as a “special treat”. Among the collection are documents dating as far back as the Guttenberg Bible, the first major book printed in Europe and marking the start of a seminal new age of printed books in the West.
Matthew Haley said the documents dated back to 1470 and were among the oldest he had seen (BBC)Haley told him: “It really is special. I mean, talk about old prints. These are pretty much the oldest printed thing that we’ll ever see on the Antiques Roadshow. There’s a sheet of paper here that was printed in 1470 – 550 years ago. And this is just a small part of the amazing collection you’ve formed. It’s a huge and spectacular collection.”
Explaining why it was so important, Haley continued: “Guttenberg printing the Guttenberg Bible in 1455. That was an absolutely seminal change in basically the history of the human race. Without printing, we wouldn’t have had the Reformation. It’s like the explosion that happened when the internet came onto the scene. This was happening in the 1450s, 1460s and 1470s.”
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The collection included documents from the first printing press in Rome, as well as some early German prints and a document from William Caxton, the first person to print in English in the UK in 1482. At the time, there was no way to print in colour, so Haley explained it would have been added by hand afterwards.
The pages from the dawn of the printing press, are as historically important as the invention of the internet (BBC)The owner was told a single sheet of a book by first English printer Caxton could go for somewhere between £600 and £1,000 at auction. While the entire collection of the pages he had brought in – there are even more at home – could go for between £5,000 and £10,000. As onlookers gasped, the owner joked: “Don’t tell the wife.”
Expert Haley told him: “For somebody interested in books, like me, this is absolute gold dust. This really is phenomenal. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful and it’s amazing to have such early historic printing material on the Antiques Roadshow. Thank you so much for bringing this collection in."
*Antiques Roadshow airs on Sundays on BBC One at 7pm