The Vintage French Farmhouse 

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The Vintage French Farmhouse

Factual: Antiques

Entertainment

Three dealers head to French markets in an antique-buying and online-selling adventure.

Antiques en France. On a buying trip to Provence, dealers are on the hunt for hidden treasures in its fabulous markets. Can they turn a profit from their purchases?

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Nigel Havers

Ian Humphries

Harry Khwaja

Jo Roberts

Rob Butterfield

Rae Gilder Cooke

Dave Martin

Hayley Smith

The Vintage French Farmhouse: Series 1: Episode 4

Episode 4

BBC One - The Vintage French Farmhouse, Series 1, Episode 4

Three dealers head to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in an antique-buying, online-selling adventure.

Three antiques dealers visit a picture-perfect market in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to find hidden treasures and then compete to sell them online.

Antiques dealers Ian Humphries, Harry Khwaja and Jo Roberts are on a buying trip to the south of France. Their base is a historic farmhouse in Provence - perfectly located close to some of the country’s best antiques markets, or ‘brocantes’ as they’re locally known.

The trio are heading to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which boasts a picture-perfect market set against a backdrop of canals and waterwheels due to its historical links to the wool trade. There, they compete to find two hidden treasures each, to buy and sell online for the most profit. The trio’s first challenge is to find something they know will appeal to their loyal customers and social media followers, but time isn’t on their side.

A fixture at antiques fairs around the country, Jo also invests a lot of time in her social media, sharing her work and life online. And the textile lover immediately falls head over heels for a Marseille-weave blanket she thinks her followers will lap up. She pays a premium for it though, meaning more research is required back at the farmhouse if she is to maximise her profits.

Although he runs his online empire from a lock-up in east London, the majority of Harry’s clients come from the US, and he is excited about the opportunity to bring them something a little different. Which is definitely one way to describe the large wooden shoe he stumbles upon in one of the high-end emporiums. It’s a significant investment, so can he really find a buyer for such a specialist item in just a day?

Ian, known as ‘Flip it Freddy’ in the trade, is on the lookout for something more commercial, and he soon spots it in the form of a rustic pestle and mortar. He has to haggle to get it at the right price, but he thinks there’s still a strong online market for functional yet decorative kitchenalia like this. Will he be proved right?

The dealers don’t only have to contend with the language barrier and a short selling period. Each day one gets the chance to throw a spanner in the works and set them all a challenge to shop to a specific brief. Today it’s social butterfly Jo’s turn, and she tasks them with uncovering something for a party.

With six items bought between them, it’s back to the farmhouse to size up the competition. The 17th-century farmhouse, set amongst vineyards and olive groves, provides the ideal backdrop for our dealers to take the photographs and videos they hope will make their Provençal pieces stand out when they come to post their objects to sell online.

With just a day to secure a sale and the battle on to make the most profit, which of our trio will come out on top?

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