Royal treasures of the collecting king

From medals to magazines and ornaments to photographs. Reporter LAURA BLYTH reports on Paul Smith's right royal treasure trove

Every nook and cranny of Paul Smith's home contains its very own hidden treasure.

The 62-year-old has spent the past two decades scouring jumble sales and visiting antiques shops up and down the country in search of Royal Family memorabilia.

Click on the image on the right to see more pictures of Paul's collection.

And his years of dedication have not been in vain. He now owns more than 1,000 items, which he keeps at his home in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton, including dozens of figurines, books, old newspapers, pictures, photographs and medals.

Among the fascinating collectables Mr Smith has amassed at the home he shares with wife Christine are an original print of Queen Victoria from 1897 which he came across several years ago after it was dumped. Mr Smith says: "Someone gave it to me as a present a few years ago.

"They had bought it from Recyk in Wolverhampton after someone dumped it in a skip. I still to this day can't believe they just left it there. It is worth around £400 and painted by Alf Cooke."

The first piece of memorabilia former Royal Marine Mr Smith splashed out on was a copy of the Illustrated London News. It covered the coronation of King George V in June 22, 1911.

Another copy of the same newspaper he has from 1902 reports on the coronation of King Edward VII, which had to be postponed for six weeks from June 26 to August 9 after Edward underwent surgery to remove his appendix.

Mr Smith says: "If you look carefully at the copy of the paper, the original date of Edward's coronation has been crossed out and replaced with the new date.

"The newspaper bosses clearly couldn't reprint the whole paper so they just changed the date."

The oldest item in Mr Smith's collection is an original black and white print of William the Conqueror dating back to 1790. He also has more than 80 pieces of pressed glass dating back to Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.

The grandfather of three struck up a love of all things Royal Family completely by chance after tackling a crossword more than 25 years ago.

"It was one of those number crosswords and one of the questions was about the date of birth of Henry VIII," he says.

"I searched in a book for the date and ever since then I have been interested in the Royal Family. That was about 25 years ago.

"I never pay a lot for my pieces. I pick them up at antiques sales and junk shops. People selling them have no idea of their value or age."

Also among his collection is a folder of 30 black and white film stills taken from a special documentary entitled Royal Family broadcast on television in 1969.

Mr Smith, who is originally from South Wales, says one his best finds was a bronze medal dating back to The Great Exhibition of 1851.

The medal would have been awarded to exhibitors at the event that took place in Joseph Paxtons's Crystal Palace. "I paid just 50p for it and now its worth more than £1,000," he said. "It was handed to a firm called J Gray & Son which would have attended the event."

Mr Smith is now preparing to boost his collection further with memorabilia to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II this year – but not for some time.

"I only buy memorabilia if it's historic, so I won't be buying any Diamond Jubilee stuff for a little while yet," he says.

"I'll certainly be keeping my eyes open."