Andy McConnell is the glass expert on BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow and, to his bewilderment, is still working with the BBC after 20 years. Over the years, he’s worked in a chicken factory, as a pop music video producer and for 20 years as a builder. His property renovation projects have made him close to £1million although he describes himself as frugal but will always gets a round of drinks in.
Was your childhood comfortable?
It was. I was the eldest of four, growing up in a huge house just outside Epping. As kids, we’d regularly raid Dad’s gun cabinet and head out to the forest (though the guns weren’t loaded). It was like growing up on the set of The Guns of Navarone. We were feral and saw ourselves as resistance fighters, resisting the village kids. Armed with guns and fireworks, we usually came out on top.
Dad, a wartime Spitfire pilot, was the managing director of the family tobacco-blending business based in Barking. My Mum, an avid Daily Mail reader, was a professional trampolinist. We were looked after by Scandinavian au pairs while our mother practised her bouncing.
My parents were also part-time antique dealers, and I started dealing in antiques from a young age. Aged 14, I was buying things like silver picture frames for £2, selling them to my parents for £5 and they sold them for £50.
Being a posh boy, I was dispatched to a repressive boarding school, Framlingham College, where I became the only pupil paying his own fees. I was a bit naughty, so the teachers used me for caning practice, and I consequently spent most of my school years with a corrugated bum.
What jobs have you had over the years?
As a teenager, I worked in a chicken factory for ten bob, or about 50p, a week. This was by far the worst job I ever had. After leaving school, I became a trainee journalist on the Suffolk Free Press. The wages were rubbish, £22 a week, but the perks were great. Working morning, noon and night, I basically wrote the entire paper, claiming expenses for meals and flogging the free albums I got for writing record reviews. These perks at least doubled my wages.
In 1973, I moved to Hollywood to become a freelance rock-&-roll journalist. Again, the pay was dismal. I’d interview someone like Ronnie Wood, write a story, make seven copies and send them to magazines around the world. They’d all use the story but only about two would pay up.
How did you get into glass?
Returning to England in 1976, I got back into trading antiques but was always a nitwit desperate for cash. Then, in 1978, I got a call from the manager of Jefferson Airplane, an old friend, inviting me to join them on their first European tour in 20 years.
The Germans had caught the antiques bug big-time, so I took along a swag bag of attempted antiques with me. Arriving in Hamburg, I found a general antiques shop owned by Günter Kramm and showed him my offerings. He wanted to specialise in glass and invited me to buy English and French glasses and decanters for him.
I knew nothing about glass but got hooked and worked with Günter for 25 years. It was good money and I invariably returned from Hamburg laden with bundles of 500 Deutsche Mark notes. The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were brilliant for antiques, with every deal done in cash!
I did other work at the same time. In 1980, a friend asked me to work on a feature film in Jamaica for Island Records on $350 a week. $350 a week, despite having zero experience! I went on to produce videos for Island, including Mad World for Tears for Fears and Grace Jones – A One Man Show.
I left the “rock life” behind in 1983 after meeting my future wife and then worked on-and-off as a builder for 20 years whilst still selling glass to Günter.
How much money have you made from property?
I’ve made more money from property than from anything else, that’s for sure! I bought my first house for £2,750 in 1979, by a river just outside Rye, using money my landlady lent me! It had no running water and the toilet had to be flushed with buckets of river water. I sold it a decade later for £140,000.
We then purchased three houses in and around Rye for £80,000, renovated them and later turned them over for £400,000-plus each.
We also purchased a manor house in Dordogne, France, in 1988, for £17,000 and sold it for £200,000. The next-door house in France cost £18,000 and we sold it for £220,000.
I bought my current house near Rye four years ago for £230,000 and it’s gone up in value. I’ve made well over £1m buying and selling property. I can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse and reckon a good doorknob can add 10 per cent to a home’s value.
What’s happened to your shop?
My wife and I opened a shop in Rye called Glass Etc. in 2005. I loved it and our customers. I was regularly tickled at the lengths some folks went to in order to get our 10 per cent cash discount, even when just spending a tenner. They’d walk the equivalent of crossing the Gobi desert to save a quid!
Heaps of famous people visited the shop, including Alexander McQueen, who had exquisite taste and was a lovely man. We only banned one guy for being rude, though theatre producer Sir Michael Codron, now 93, got close before I recognised him as a kindred spirit so allowed him to stay.
The most expensive item we ever sold in 15 years was £1,000, which I suspect is less than Philip Mould charges for wrapping in his art gallery!
My wife and I divorced and sold the shop in 2020 for £725,000, having purchased it for £500,000.
What are the highest and lowest-value items you’ve dealt with on Antiques Roadshow?
I’m proud to hold the records for both the highest and lowest-value items ever broadcast on the Antiques Roadshow. The lowest was for a Shippams fish paste jar that a 10-year-old girl had found mudlarking on the Thames, which I valued at 30p.
At the other end of the scale were seven chandeliers hanging in Bath’s Assembly Rooms by Jonathan Collet dating from 1771. I valued each of them at £1m.
The most important thing I’ve learnt from the show is that it’s my job to help owners enjoy the moment and look great on camera.
What’s in your wallet?
£230 in cash, a senior bus pass, my driving licence, a rail ticket, a Co-op membership card, credit and debit cards, my car insurance, a local beach club membership card and a receipt for a takeaway Cornish pasty at Newmarket station.
What’s the biggest sum of money you’ve made in one year?
I’ve made hundreds of thousands of pounds from the sale of single properties in a year. The most was for Glass Etc, at £725,000.
How much money did you make last year?
I lost money last year and didn’t need to pay any tax. I’m spending money keeping my glass in storage.
Why aren’t you making so much money now?
Years ago, I did 11 of the 12 locations for Antiques Roadshow. But today, I’m about as fashionable as a verruca – a posh, white, heterosexual and ageing man. I’m yesterday’s news. It’s an unavoidable fact, even though I don’t necessarily agree with it. But it’s astonishing that I’ve got away with having worked for the BBC for 20 years.
Would you do stints on shows like I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!?
Deffo! I’d do every show going, including I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, Dancing on Ice, Strictly Come Dancing and SAS: Who Dares Wins for £2. They’d be a hoot!
Philip Mould put me up for Mastermind. It was terrifying but thrilling and my pet charity got £3,000.
You once unwittingly drank urine on the Antiques Roadshow – how much should the BBC be paying you?
How much should I be paid? At least £78m an episode! Knowing what some BBC presenters earn narks me, but it’s a public service broadcaster and I do it for the craic rather than the money. I’m honoured to be part of the Antiques Roadshow team.
How many pieces of glass do you own?
Impossible to say, but maybe 30,000. I want to flog it all but most of it is damaged and worth tuppence. It’s glass you’d find at a dump rather than in the V&A, but I’ve been paying vast sums to store it. I recently sent 7 tonnes of it to auction and will get dribbles of cash for it over the next few years.
What’s the worst item you purchased?
A vile ruby and gold Venetian standing cup, dating from around 1920, from an auction, which cost me £500. I’ll be lucky to get £100 for it. I’ve kept it for 25 years as a reminder of what a plonker I can be.
What do you enjoy spending money on?
I spend six months a year in Southeast Asia to escape British winters, which I loathe. I rent bungalows in Thailand and Cambodia for about £100 a week.
Otherwise, I’m very frugal. I fly economy and would Sellotape myself to the wing if I could. I hate shopping and my clothes are rags. The last time I bought a new pair of jeans was over two years ago, second-hand on eBay. I cost about £3 a week to run.
I despise conspicuous wealth and strongly object to Range Rovers. Their owners wear their wealth on their sleeves and hog the outside lanes on motorways, both of which I find abhorrent.
Are you a penny-pincher?
It might depend on who you ask, but I don’t think I’m stingy when it comes to things like buying my round of drinks. I dislike people who don’t buy their round. It’s rude and obnoxious.
How much state pension do you receive?
£105 a week. I didn’t have many qualifying NICs and have no other pension.
How much has your cigarette habit cost you?
I smoked 600,000 cigarettes over 50 years, at a cost of over £100,000. I support Sunak’s proposals – tobacco shouldn’t be legal.
How motivated are you by money?
I’m not motivated by money and couldn’t care less about it. I have enough, but earning money has been a necessary evil for me over the years. I find it distasteful but recognise this is a wealthy person’s view. I am incredibly sympathetic to people struggling during the cost-of-living crisis, particularly while some extremely wealthy people work hard to avoid paying tax.
You receive £1m – what will you do with it? Charity donations are banned.
I’d buy myself a new pair of lungs. Wealth can’t save you though. Look at Steve Jobs and David Bowie, who both died young. Seize the day and enjoy life.
You can be a mega-rich rich person for one day. Who will you be?
Jeff Bezos. I loathe Amazon. I’d break it up and donate all the money from it to poverty and health-related charities.
To book Andy for a free talk to raise money for a charity, please email andy@decanterman.com
Get in touch
We want to hear from you about any thoughts, worries or trends related to money that you might have noticed.
Is there a story you want to tell or a company you think has wronged you? Do you want to perhaps highlight something you think isn’t receiving enough coverage?
Let us know: money@inews.co.uk
