Ronnie Archer-Morgan: I learnt how to sell antiques when I was a hairdresser

Ronnie Archer-Morgan, 74, grew up in and out of foster care and children’s homes and worked as a DJ photographic technician and hairdresser before his hobby buying and selling antiques became a profession. He collects books and records and has appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow since 2011. Last year he was on the Channel 4 series Millionaire Hoarders where he unearthed a John Constable painting worth up to £2 million at Craufurdland Castle near Kilmarnock. His Antiques Roadshow catchphrase — Would It Surprise You to Know …? — is the title of his autobiography, which came out in 2022. He lives in north London.
I’d feel insecure with less than £50. Sometimes card machines malfunction or there’s no mobile reception, and you always want a coffee, sandwich or bus fare. Aged seven I went to the Imperial War Museum and only had money for the bus one way, so I walked there and got a bus back from Lambeth to Shepherds Bush.
I don’t have a credit card but use a debit card regularly. I’m not comfortable with cards because I lose track of what I’ve spent. Cash was such a big part of my life and business. And I won’t do online banking; I’ve been scammed twice. I did an audiobook and the publisher gave me a free subscription to access my recording. The audiobook company sent me a link to it and ten months later I noticed they’d been taking £9 a month from my account. I didn’t even give them my bank details. Instead of £90 they offered me a ten-month subscription. But I got it all back.
At 12 I did a paper round, cleaned the church and environs, and washed up at Joe Lyons Corner House on Saturdays. My first proper job was as a photographic technician at Imperial College, which I loved. I was under a megalomaniac who didn’t like me because I had qualifications he didn’t have — technical drawing, woodwork, metalwork and a few others. I made and photographed mathematical diagrams and models for the professors’ publications.
Spender. I was a spendthrift at four. When my foster family took me to Harrogate and gave me two weeks’ pocket money, I spent it all on the first day on a rocket you pumped up that went up 100 feet. I used to go to Paris with a car full of vintage luggage and leather goods by Hermès, Cartier and Louis Vuitton and a lady in the Champs Élysées would buy the lot. Once in the Eighties I bought crocodile leather loafers (paying in the high hundreds) from JM Weston, which today cost about £4,500, and didn’t dare tell people how much they’d cost. In the Nineties I bought a rare Chinese seal for £300, which I sold at auction for £40,000 soon after, relinquishing a third of it in tax and fees.
Yes. My mother, sister and I lived in one room, three in a bed, with a kitchen off it. I didn’t know my father. My mother was always angry and upset about having to make ends meet. Once, aged seven, I lost the weekly family allowance cheque in a blizzard on the way to the Post Office where I’d been sent to cash it. I was terrified to go home.
In the late Sixties I hitchhiked to Greece and landed a job managing a boutique in Mykonos. With the job I had my own house there and to collect stock I commuted to Athens, where the company had two properties where I’d stay. It was security and autonomy, really, but I earned enough to buy nice clothes. I helped design then sell clothes to clients — being a crocheted bikini fitter was part of my job description.
Absolutely. At times I’ve had no money, no job. I’ve slept on the floor of friends’ bedsits, climbing through their windows after midnight so the landladies didn’t know I was there. As a junior hairdresser in Knightsbridge in the Seventies, to subsidise my £7 a week salary, I had to DJ — the salon 7am to 7pm, DJing 8pm to 3am. My rent was double my junior’s wage and I ended up in hospital with nervous exhaustion.
DJing at a ski resort in Switzerland in the late Seventies provided the float to come back and start as a freelance hairdresser, working on commercials, films and TV. From the mid-Seventies to the early Eighties I earned £300 a day before 6pm and double time of £600 after 6pm. After 8pm it went into triple time. Sometimes I’d earn £1,000 a day.
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Sort of. A leasehold property with a lease that’s slightly too short. You never truly own a leasehold. I need to extend the lease so I have to earn quite a lot to do that.
I’ve never invested in shares because I like to see where my money is.
Books and records, thousands of them, and scores of shoes. In the Seventies I worked for the music magazine Blues & Soul who’d give me stacks of albums to review. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on them over the years and nearly everything I’ve bought is worth more now. I’m sure a few albums in my collection are each worth thousands of pounds. But I don’t look at things I love as money — it’s like looking at your children and thinking how much they’re worth.
My books, because I’ve learnt so much from them. It’s a library of reference books, which has provided my life’s work. But you learn more from fakes and making mistakes than from getting it right. In the Eighties I paid £400 for an ancient sculpture that turned out to be a museum shop copy. So although it was worth no more than £40 I learnt about that culture’s kind of art and sculpture.
Money corrupts. I’ve lost a few good friendships because of unfairness with money. Friends have asked if I could help them sell something and we would halve the profits. Once they expected £1,000 and I sold it for £14,000. Instead of giving me £7,000 they gave me £3,000.
I’m cautious now, but I was once naive and put 83 paintings from my lock-up into auction. I’d paid £45 each, and over nine months they sold them. But I didn’t pay attention, assumed they’d put on a reserve and got back £17.50 each — then I saw them appear in the trade all over England for £80 to £150.
I’m never going to because I’ve never done it.
When I was a student in the Sixties (when £6 was a young person’s weekly wage) I spent my weekly allowance playing poker in the hostel with mature students from Friday night till Monday morning with no sleep. I’d be down £100 and stay to win it all back. I never lost. I’d win £150 some weekends. When I left I vowed I’d never gamble again and I haven’t.
A very small one that helps to pay a few bills.
A painting I bought in the Nineties with two friends for £19,000, split three ways. It still hangs in one of their country homes. Another was a North American tribal mask I saw at a London auction with an estimate of £80-£120. I started bidding and was so eager to have it. It got to £90 and he said, “Gentleman at the back [me] 90, any more anywhere, 90, 90 …” I thought I’ve got it, great. Then he looked at a girl on the telephone saying, “Any more?” She started bidding. He was basically saying that chap really wants it; we can get more out of him. I could tell there was no one on the other end of the telephone. But suddenly I was going to lose it and I just kept going up and up. It cost me £800.
I have no idea but not enough, because I’m struggling to comfortably meet the soaring costs of everything.
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To go freelance as a TV and film hairdresser and DJ, which provided the income to become an antiques dealer. I started ploughing it into buying and learning about antiques. You learn about antiques through buying them. In the Seventies I was wearing a watch I’d bought for £20 and a client whose hair I was cutting said, “I love your watch. Do you want to sell it?” I said no. They said, “Can you get me a similar one?” I asked what he’d be happy to pay. He said, “At least £200.” So I bought a similar one and sold it to him for £200, and that’s when the penny dropped. It’s not easy with all the groundwork: walking, looking, studying, making mistakes. But I thought: I’ve got something here. Loads of people were doing the same but didn’t have the eye.
To agree — in my twenties — to sell Irish smoked salmon door-to-door to cafés and restaurants around London. My car was full of Irish smoked salmon; my fridge was full of Irish smoked salmon; it was piled up in my flat. I stank of smoked salmon. And it was so hard to sell door-to-door. I’d drive round and stop at likely places and say, “I’ve got Irish smoked salmon. Would you be interested in buying some?” People would say, “Irish smoked salmon? If you’ve got Scottish smoked salmon, we’ll have it.”
Millionaire Hoarders is available to stream on Channel 4. Archer-Morgan appears in Find It Fix It Flog It, available to stream on U