Michael Baggott, expert on antique silver who valued objects on BBC TV's Flog It!
Michael Baggott, who has died after a heart attack aged 51, was an authority on antique silver and one of the most recognisable of the team of experts on the BBC daytime antiques show Flog It!.
The 45 minute-long programme, which was hosted by Paul Martin, ran for 17 years and more than 1,000 episodes from 2002 and saw members of the public have their treasured possessions valued. Unlike its rival Antiques Roadshow (on which it often seems to be de rigueur for owners to insist that they would 'never' sell their family heirlooms), Flog It! had no qualms about appealing to the profit motive.
People were invited to bring along objects that they might be interested in selling, then asked to decide whether they wanted to put them up for auction based on the valuation given by the experts. The owners and experts (who put their reputations on the line with their valuations) were then filmed biting their nails as the items went under the hammer.
Baggott joined the Flog It! team in 2004 and did not confine himself to valuing silver. In 2012, when the show visited Normanby Hall in Lincolnshire, he was called on to examine a collection of what the owner believed was African tribal art, which he valued at £200-£400. When the collection went to auction with a reserve price of £150, it turned out to be Aboriginal, and to contain a rare Broad Shield. It was bought for £30,000 by the Sydney Museum of Primitive Art.
'During the auction it quickly became clear that I'd missed something, but I wasn't sure what it was at that point,' Baggott recalled. 'I just liked the items and thought they were unusual, that's why I selected them for filming at the valuation day. This is what antiques are all about though, you can't be an expert on everything and you never stop learning, from this experience I certainly learnt a lot.'
Flog It! was axed by the BBC in 2018 to make way for a 'new generation' of daytime programming.
Michael Baggott was born in Birmingham on April 18 1973, the son of a butler and sometime wholesale market trader. According to a self-published memoir, As Found: A Lifetime in Antiques, the 'highlights' of his childhood included 'nearly dying on a pedalo in Menorca, nearly dying walking down Spaghetti Junction in the snow, nearly dying walking with Dad along disused sections of the Birmingham canal network', before 'something far more dangerous happened to me, I was accidentally introduced to the world of Antiques.'
He saved up £22 in school dinner money to buy his first antique, a Chester silver Vesta case, and went on to take a degree in fine arts valuation at the University of Reading. During vacations he worked at the auction house Christie's, and after graduation he joined Sotheby's, where he ran the silver department for four years before becoming a freelance consultant and dealer in antique silver.
He had a passion for early silver spoons and carried out research into provincial British silver, publishing An Illustrated Guide to York Hallmarks 1776-1858 and contributing to The Finial, the journal of the Silver Spoon Club of Great Britain.
He recalled the highlight of his time on Flog It! was 'handling a silver trophy made as an award by Fabergé for the best car of 1924'.
Baggott maintained an active presence on social media platforms, sharing news about his professional interests and his struggles with his weight. In January last year, responding to a hoax report of his death, he reposted the offending article with the words: 'The truth is it's the 'Vintage Specialist' bit that really hurts...'
In October, however, he suffered a major stroke which left him bedbound in hospital.
Michael Baggott was unmarried.
Michael Baggott, born April 18 1973, died January 26 2025
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