London West, UK
Anthony Reeve and Ian Parmiter appeared alongside Eric Knowles and John Cameron in Wednesday's BBC2 TV antiques gameshow 'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is' but only on condition that their business identities were anonymised for television.
The show consists of two competing antiques celebs - in this instance Eric Knowles (Antiques Roadshow and many others) and self-professed Knowles acolyte, John Cameron - going to an antiques fair - in this instance Porte de Vanves Flea Market in Paris - where they buy items which they can resell to dealers for more money.
BBC iPlayer website: 'Two well-known experts from the world of antiques go head-to-head over a week of challenges to see who can make the most profit from buying and selling antiques - all of which will be donated to a charity of their choice. The dealers are in a different buying location each day: an auction house, a car boot sale, a foreign antiques market and a UK antiques fair. They must then sell their purchases for as much money as possible. On Friday, the duelling dealers compete in the ultimate challenge - The Showdown - where at least half of their items must be sold at the Showdown auction. Once the deals are done, one expert is crowned the Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is champion. Eric 'Knocker' Knowles and John 'The Hammer' Cameron head to the Porte de Vanves Flea Market in Paris to do battle in this no-holds-barred dealing competition. Which dealer can translate those French bargains into more brass back in Blighty?'
Some of the dealers involved were described using their full names. These seemed to be genuine colleagues of Knowles or Cameron. Reeve and Parmiter were only described as 'Ian' and 'Ant'. Describing Ian as Ian Parmiter would have been a giveaway resulting in an immediate hit on Google for Parmiter Antiques. Similarly 'Anthony Reeve' or 'Ant Reeve' and antiques would find Lassco Three Pigeons on Google. Ant's 'Lassco' logo on his work fleece was airbrushed for the programme. Basically it would be hard if not impossible to track either Ian or Ant down unless you already knew who they were.
So how did the celebs get on with the dealers? Cameron bought an enamelled Coca-Cola thermometer backing plate for €50 in Paris, asked Parmiter for £130-£140 who offered £100 which was accepted. Knowles bought a late 19thC French fender for €60, asked Ant for £130 who offered £75 and settled for £85.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is in its sixth season. Produced by Reef Television at 5.15pm on BBC2, the first episode raised an audience of 1.4m (12%), and is rated as 'Popular Factual'. It was produced and directed by Oli Sloane (Grave Trade and others), executive producer for Reef was Alex Dundas (Big Brother and others), executive producer for BBC was Lindsay Bradbury (Commissioning Executive Editor, Daytime responsible for: Daytime Factual on BBC1 and 2).
BBC: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Story Type: News