Also in my garage: Japanese artefacts

By Simon Hucknall

| 8 May 2026

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: Japanese artefacts

Regular viewers of BBC’s Antiques Roadshow will be familiar with Marc Allum, one of the TV programme’s long-standing experts.

Marc is also a lifelong classic car enthusiast, and he currently owns a 1974 Jensen-Healey, a 1970 Marcos GT and two Mercedes-Benz roadsters – a 1986 300SL and a 2003 SL500.

A 1960 Cadillac de Ville, 1956 Citroën Traction Avant and even a Bedford Army truck have also been on his classic CV.

His parents had a succession of Fiats while Marc was growing up, and he enjoyed working on them. “Cars have always been an outlet for me repairing things,” he says.

Marc Allum with his 1986 Mercedes-Benz 300SL

The love of collecting started when he was just 10, after a visit to Snowshill Manor near Broadway and seeing a coat of armour.

It inspired him enough to start buying and selling at auctions during his teens, with some notable early successes.

He paid £40 for a Henry Stacy Marks watercolour, and sold it for £1200.

Then a car mascot by Alfredo Biagini was bought for just 50p and sold at Sotheby’s for £1500.

After moving to London, looking to become a sound engineer, Marc had a change of heart and started working for an auction house.

Marc Allum’s eclectic curios are spread throughout his 15th-century home

An appearance on Pebble Mill Studio’s Going for a Song prompted an approach by the producer of Antiques Roadshow, and for the past 28 years Marc has been a fixture on the show.

As you’d expect, Marc’s personal collections extend well beyond the automotive.

The 15th-century vicarage in Chippenham he shares with his wife, Lisa Lloyd (another Antiques Roadshow expert), houses an eclectic mixture of items, ranging from 27 vintage guitars to Georgian glassware, various Colombian antiquities, and bronzes from Pompeii and Herculaneum.

This macabre skull is allegedly Lavina Throttlebottom, who was executed for murder in 1761

The large collection of Japanese artefacts, though, is clearly a source of pride.

“I love Japan and the Japanese people, their politeness and neatness,” Marc says. “I find the country mesmerising. I also like collecting spiritual things.”

Just before joining Antiques Roadshow, Marc fulfilled a dream of owning a samurai coat of armour, which still dominates the collection today.

“I paid £3000 for it then,” he says. “It contains the original manikin’s head, a commander’s baton and a kabuto helmet.”

Marc Allum’s prized samurai suit of armour

Other Japanese curios include a stone-carved, 18th-century religious waymarker – or stele – in the form of Nyoirin Kannon, a prominent deity from the Edo period.

Marc picks up a beautiful wooden Kobe toy, made in the eponymous Japanese city from 1868; it was produced mainly for the tourist market, but is hand-carved and has an intricate mechanical operation.

“The Japanese recreated most things in miniature,” explains Marc, “even my samurai coat of armour.”

This stele religious waymarker (middle) is part of Marc Allum’s fascinating collection

Ceramics also form a key part of Marc’s East Asian collection, but not all are in their original state.

“Perfection was most important, but the Japanese had a laissez-faire attitude to repairs,” Marc laments.

“Yet they had a special way of repairing ceramics, known as kintsugi, where broken pieces were put back together and the cracks were dusted with a golden lacquer.”

The re-formed pottery takes on a new life then exists in its own right as a unique design.

A perfectly preserved suit of Japanese armour

Before we leave Marc’s house, he reveals a recent revelation that is bound to yield yet more artefacts for his collection of collections: he has discovered that the property in which he and his wife now live was built on the site of a 2000-year-old Roman villa that was the original palisade for King Alfred the Great.

Images: Jack Harrison

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