Category: London
Date: 07.09.2005
Printable version
Inside Out, BBC ONE London, Monday 19 September, 7.30pm
Welcome to the slightly surreal world of Maurice Collins and his eccentric contraptions.
He is the world authority on strange devices - antique gadgets - that were designed to make your life a tad easier if you happened to live a hundred or more years ago.
For more than 30 years, Maurice has been collecting these ever so strange items - from skirt lifters, to cigar cutters, to leg contraptions to hold atlases while driving.
He started when his son was very little, wandering around Victorian rubbish dumps looking for the ultimate antique lemonade bottle.
Maurice now has hundreds of contraptions in his Muswell Hill home. It's become an antique parlour and many of his best items have now been lent out to museums.
But even the collector who has it all still wants something extra, something very strange and rare, a 'deserter tattooing machine' from 1810.
It is a contraption which stamped the letter 'D' in retractable needles into the deserter's skin.
The search for this horrific sounding machine takes Maurice to Portobello market where he has been given a tip off. A specialist who deals in antique scientific instruments has one with a price tag of £2,800.
It may take Maurice a while to save up for his dream antique, but it goes without saying that if you happen to have a curious antique contraption, especially an antique tattooing machine, lurking around at home - you know who to contact.
