Neville Griffiths of Rococo has been gradually whittling down his stock using a combination of his website, eBay, SalvoWEB - and last week he was on Secret Dealers on UK ITV, a programme where three competing antiques dealers spend an hour looking for bargains while the owners are out. When they return, the owner can either accept or reject bids made by the dealers, forcing a choice between sentimental attachment or making some money.
 
On Twitter @secretdealers wrote: 2 hrs to go and in our first house @karendalmeny @antiquegent and Christopher discover Nevil can be a tricky customer #secretdealers @ITV
 
The dealers Karen Dalmeny and 'antique gent' David Ford both from Dickinsons Real Deal, and new boy Christopher Selkirk, headed straight for the antique furniture, avoiding the architectural and commenting, "There could be something (e.g. a mainstream antique) of value amongst all the (worthless) architectural salvage."
 
"It is always painful selling anything, always has been" he said after leafing through a copy of Loudon's 1836 Encyclopedia of Cottages, Farm and Village Architecture. "It's almost like a love affair. When you see something you really want it, and then you ignore it after a while, and then somebody comes after it again and you're hot on it." Neville helpfully said that he never wanted to sell anything, and if he liked the buyer he would sell but otherwise not. He did not come across as a typical TV gameshow trade patsy.
 
The first antique on offer was a joint, or coffin, stool for which the dealers offered £48, £100 and £110, and which they thought was anything from 1800s to 1920s. Neville looked gloomy and the dealers looked wooden while they tried to enliven the proceedings by bidding to £190 which Neville accepted - although David Lord remarked that it would never make a profit at that price.
 
Next came a fine patinated oak gateleg table. "I like stools and tables and doors," Mr Griffiths announced. Who could forget that episode on BBC's Home Front in the 1990s, when Neville dragged an old ledge and brace door off a skip and enthused memorably, "This door's better than sex." Ah, those were the days.
 
The dealers bid £190, £370 and £420 for the table, and the final offer of £450 was made by Christopher Selkirk. "The more I look at that table, I'm still in love with it," Neville said before accepting the offer, and then after he shook on the deal, "I'll go the pub, spend some of the money, grieve for a little while and then … then it's gone."
 
A seven-day clock by Robert Molyneux which Neville bought from a policeman was bid at £200, £210 and £310 and sold at £400. Showing he was still the media savvy master of the one-liner, Neville expounded, "Once the game starts the money means nothing." The clock was a 19th century fusee 12ins dial clock in a mahogany case.
 
During the show Neville let on, which many in the trade probably already know, that he would like to sell up and move to Wales, but while he appeared to be enjoying the cut and thrust of both dealing, and the world of TV, the announcement of his retiring may prove premature.