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Judith Miller, author of the popular antiques price guide and member of the judging team that determines what is junk and what is treasure on “Antiques Roadshow,” the long-running BBC program that inspired the American series of the same name, died on April 8 in North London. He is 71 years old.
Her husband, John Wainwright, confirmed the death, at the hospital. They did not specify the cause, saying only that he died after a short illness.
Mrs. Miller, who is known in the British news media as the queen of collections, is often buttoned up on the street by Englishmen eager to share the stories of Aunt So-and-So’s bibelots, and at antiques fairs, where many participants hold them. A new copy of “Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide” or “Miller’s Collectibles Handbook,” the twin books of the antique and collecting world. Once, Mr. Wainwright recalled, at his mother’s funeral reception, a woman approached Ms. Miller and pulled a plate out of her coat, wondering what it was worth. (He didn’t know the woman, he hastened to add.)
The books of Ms. Miller, which is updated regularly, is encyclopedic in its variety and eclectic in its categories. He describes thousands of objects – the current antique edition lists more than 8,000 – each illustrated with lavish color photographs. There are the usual suspects, such as Royal Doulton Art Deco teacups and plates, Meissen pottery, Murano glass and Scandinavian ceramic glass. But Ms Miller also covers the world of material and popular culture, including Whoopi Goldberg’s entrance photo; letter from Lyndon B. Johnson on White House stationery; first edition of William S. Burroughs’ novel “Naked Lunch”; Barbies of the 60s; and British utility clothing from the ’40s. There’s also Inuit art, Swinging Sixties fashion, Ferragamo shoes from the 50s, James Bond books, baseball cards, football shirts and what is described as the world’s smallest pen, 1.5 inches long, made by Waterman in 1914 .
Riffling through Miller’s collection guide is a delicious, entertaining social history spanning decades. The reader can learn, for example, that the plastic box bag from the 1940s in bright, jaunty colors took a form from the telephone cable used because of shortages of other materials in the years after World War II.
A polite woman who spoke in a soft Scottish burr, Ms. Miller is the “miscellaneous and ceramic” expert on “Antiques Roadshow,” which began in 1979 and he joined in 2007. (The American version first aired in 1997.) One of his proudest treasures is his collection of English Art Deco transportation posters. by French artist Jean Dupas, who was brought to the show by someone who had paid 50 pence for him at a yard sale. he was a boy in the 1970s. Mrs. Miller estimates it is worth more than 30,000 pounds (almost $40,000).
“It’s about 50p,” he told the man, who responded with British understatement: “Wow. My goodness.”
Other favorite finds, reports The Guardian, include 2,000 18th-century shoe buckles and a toilet seat used by Winston Churchill.
Ms Miller was a history student at Edinburgh University when she started buying cheap antique plates from a local junk shop to brighten up the walls of her student digs. Fascinated by its history, he began researching and collecting in earnest.
With her first husband, Martin Miller, she wrote the first “Miller’s Antiques Price Guide.” Published in 1979, it was an instant success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. After the couple divorced in the early 1990s, Ms Miller continued to produce books on collectibles and antiques; he had completed more than 100 at the time of his death.
Her collection ranges from 15th century porcelain to mid-century modern furniture. He was addicted to auctions, he told The Telegraph: “I was sweating, my heart started beating faster, and I started beating anyone who bid on me.”
She loves costume jewelry, as well as pieces from the Danish silversmith Georg Jensen and chairs, which she buys in large quantities. He is period agnostic and prefers to buy a single chair rather than a set. Her favorites include an 18th-century staircase chair, an Arne Jacobsen piece from 1955 and a Queen Anne chair from 1710. While Ms. Miller went out on antiquarian expeditions, Mr. Wainwright always sent him out with these words:
“Repeat after me: We don’t need one more seat.”
Judith Henderson Cairns was born on September 16, 1951, in Galashiels, Scotland. His father, Andrew Cairns, was a wool buyer, and his mother, Bertha (Henderson) Cairns, was a housewife.
Judith grew up in an antique-free household; he always said that his parents were part of the “Formica generation” and had paid to carry his parents’ belongings after their deaths. He had planned to become a history teacher, but in 1974 he took a job as an assistant editor at Mr. Miller’s publishing company.
After they married in 1978, the Millers began a career in publishing and house flipping; they moved 12 times in 16 years. In 1985, he bought Chilston Park, a large estate in Kent, England, without water or electricity, where he lived for a while with his two daughters before converting it into a luxury hotel.
In addition to Mr. Wainwright, her partner since the early 1990s, Ms. Miller is survived by her daughters, Cara and Kristy Miller; his son, Tom Wainwright; and four grandchildren.
Cara Miller is already working on “The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder,” the first in a series of mystery novels to be published next year for which Judith Miller is a consultant and inspiration. At one point Cara asked her mother an important question: “What antique would you kill for?” The answer, as Cara reminded us via email, was “Of course for antiques that people kill for, they must be worth a lot – Ming vases, Fabergé eggs – but not as interesting things. We love it and why we love it. So often the price is in the the story behind it and what that story means to us.
In 2020, Ms. Miller tells Fiona Bruce, host of “Antiques Roadshow,” his own story about the objects he loves so much.
It is a late 19th century cranberry glass claret jug. It already belongs, Ms. Miller said, for her great-grandmother Lizzie, who had been a maid in the grand house in Scotland and had married a footman. The jar is a wedding gift from the woman of the house. The footman died in the trenches during World War I, and Lizzie never remarried.
“For him, this is the most precious object,” said Ms. Miller. “We used to see him twice a week, and if I was a very good girl I was allowed to take him.”
When Great-Lizzie died, she left a piece to Ms. Miller.
“I think on a good day it costs about 40 quid” ($50), he told Ms. Bruce. “But you can’t put a value on memories.”
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