The Complete Guide to Antiques

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She had such energy and spirit and always combined her impressively broad-ranging, in-depth knowledge of antiques with a lifelong passion to make the world of collecting accessible and unintimidating to all. A one-man brand, Martin Miller shamelessly applied his surname to his every enterprise — hotels, antiques and gin — in the manner of a Victorian merchant.

Twice in his career Miller opted out of the rat race in favour of the quiet life, each respite lasting four years before he returned to the business of making a living. “I got caught up in a lazy lifestyle, held lots of parties, had very long lunches, played masses of games of chess and led a very unstressful life,” he recalled. “But it can be very expensive.” Miller cofounded the Miller’s Antiques Price Guide with her first husband, Martin Miller, in 1979, and it is still published annually. 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 ] Antiques Roadshow star Judith Miller has died after a short illness at the age of 71, her publisher has confirmed. The author and antiques expert passed away over the Easter weekend.And when our filming day had finished, she was never short of great stories accompanied by a glass of her favourite tipple, pinot grigio. After her marriage to Martin Miller ended in divorce in 1992, Miller began a relationship with John Wainwright, and they had one son. The family lived in North London as of 2004 [update]. [7] Miller and Wainwright married in 2015. [4] 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. Like the son of a vicar who embraces atheism, Miller rejected all the encouragement he got from his insurance salesman father to save for the long term. 'I have absolutely no interest in looking to the future,' he says from Miller's Hotel in West London, which he owns and now lives in. 'I have always had this belief that I would never run out of money. But if you get yourself insurance policies, the last thing you can do is get your hands on the money.' Now 53, he has no pension and no plans to get one. In reality, his business assets will be his pension. Judith had used pictures of them regularly in her books, this was the first time she had seen any up close.

Judith previously revealed that her most memorable find on the show was a set of Art Deco posters designed by Jean Dupas unearthed at Stanway House in 2009. Miller worked as a consultant to and co-presenter of eight series of The Antiques Trail ( Meridian, HTV and Discovery), run on ITV. [4] She had also presented It's Your Bid for the Discovery Channel. She was a regular expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, and also appeared on Priceless Antiques Roadshow. [4] Her own preferences for antiques included single chairs (“It’s a lot easier to buy a good-quality chair when you buy them singly,” she said. “I like to stroke them.”), 1920s and 1940s Monart glass, an 18th-century Worcester “guglet” shape bottle and costume jewellery. In 1974, after returning to Galashiels, she became an editorial assistant at Lyle Publications – her future husband’s first publishing company. She worked as an occupational guidance officer at the Department of Employment (1975-79) while he ran a bed and breakfast in Petworth, West Sussex. In 1979, they founded Miller Publications, which eventually operated from Chilston Park, a Grade I-listed house in Kent that they turned into a hotel. Miller co-founded Miller's Antiques Price Guide with her first husband Martin Miller in 1979 and at the time of her death she was in the process of writing an updated edition of the guide, the Mirror reports. Tributes have poured in from the antiques world, with co-stars hailing her as “delightful” and “magnanimous”.Her publisher revealed the author and antiques expert died over the Easter weekend after a short illness.

Martin John Miller was born in Worthing, Sussex, in 1946. His father, Mark, was an old-fashioned insurance agent, who maintained his own “book" of customers and sold it on to another agent as a substitute for a pension. Martin said his mother, Phyllis, had told him “she conceived me on gin, then tried to get rid of me on gin" — though this was presumably a joke to promote his own label. Judith Miller went on to write more than 100 books, on interiors (Colour, Sixties Style, Art Deco), specialist categories (Metal Toys, Handbags) and collecting (How to Make Money Out of Antiques). But she was always gracious and generous with her knowledge, helpful to me and our whole team. And when our filming day had finished, she was never short of great stories accompanied by a glass of her favourite tipple, Pinot Grigio. She was the doyenne of the antiques world and of our show. Irreplaceable. And hugely missed.” A typical example of his whimsical creativity was Miller’s Gin, launched in 1999: “After drinking a rubbish gin and tonic in a pub in the mid-1990s, I got the germ of an idea to launch a super-premium smooth gin made with extra-pure Icelandic water — crazy, perhaps, as it was the era of vodka."Paying tribute to the expert, Antiques Roadshow presenter Fiona Bruce said: "When I started on the Antiques Roadshow, I was in awe of the experts - and none more so than Judith. She was Miller of Miller’s Guides no less, the bible of the antiques world when it came to valuations. Plus, she had authored many other books, too many to list, some of which were already on my bookshelf. Antiques are green,” she maintained, railing against Ikea-isation. “No one is going to convince me MDF will prove a good investment.” When asked by people what to buy, she advised: “Something that when you come downstairs in the morning it makes you smile – you want to stroke it.” Her own passions were costume jewellery and “single chairs” (cheaper than a set).

Wider popularity came with Antiques Roadshow. “I was approached by Simon Shaw, the producer, as I’d worked with him on Home Front. Initially, I said I was too busy, but agreed to do one. After that, I was totally hooked and wanted to do as many as I could.” Her last episode was screened in October 2022. The Antiques Roadshow editor Robert Murphy described Miller as a “really popular member of the Roadshow team and an inspiration to a generation of aspiring antiques experts”.Miller previously told of her her most memorable find on Antiques Roadshow, which she said was a set of Art Deco posters designed by Jean Dupas, discovered in 2009 at Stanway House, in Gloucestershire. She regularly used pictures of them in her books but it was the first time she had seen any up close. Miller wrote more than 100 books on antiques and interiors but was best known to the public for her appearances on the long-running BBC series, which she joined in 2007. The author also contributed to a number or national broadsheet newspapers and magazines and regularly appeared on television in the UK and USA. His only job working for another person was as a teenage paperboy. Instead, Miller found his entrepreneurial bent at the age of 14 when he bred hamsters and wrote a dating guide for blokes called Success With the Fairer Sex, which he printed on a Roneo duplication machine and sold between 50 and 100 per week. Miller continued sleuthing to find the human stories behind family heirlooms for an Antiques Roadshow spin-off series, Antiques Roadshow Detectives, in 2015.