Derbyshire business to feature on new BBC antique show set in France

Tin Man Scrap will be appearing on Vintage French Farmhouse, a new series which starts on Monday September, 25 at 4.30pm on BBC1

The series will follow three antiques dealers who head across the Channel to a farmhouse on a buying trip in the region’s best antiques markets and compete to sell their French finds online in a day.

Melissa Drabble from Tin Man Scrap in Dove Holes said: “It was great to be part of the new series and a real eye opener to see how French antiques differ from English ones.

“English items are very practical but the French are very grand and so decorative in comparison.”

For many years Tin Man Scrap has been collecting treasurers other people have been wanting to throw away.

Melissa said: “We see value where others don’t so we buy something, do it up and sell it on.

“We sell to collectors or people who want to have a piece of their childhood or nostalgia in their homes and the Vintage French Farmhouse was no different.”

Melissa and husband Mark drove down to the south of France in their van and stopped off at markets and car boots on the way down.

She said: “There are so many big old empty houses in France full of treasurers waiting to be uncovered so it was a real adventure for us and nice to go on a trip while we did it.”Melissa purchased a railway lamp and an umbrella stand while on the show.

She said: “I bought the umbrella stand for €160 and it was worth £3,000.”Melissa and Mark love antique dealing and say they were very impressed with the show’s ethos of making antique hunting accessible to all.

Melissa added: “We were asked to use technology and our phones to show people at home anyone can go to France and buy antiques.

“So we used things like Google translate to communicate and Google lens to see if we can work out what things are.

"We also used social media to sell things. They wanted it to show how the antiques world has come into the modern day and how easy it is to do.”