BBC Online - Antiques

The BBC's own Antiques website approaches the subject in an attractive, entertaining and user-friendly way, and is a good starting point for anyone venturing into the antiques world on the web for the first time.

At the top of the left-hand menu, there's a link called 'Antiques'; note that this is the page that you're actually on.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Roadshow Finds features some of the items that have been brought to recent Antiques Roadshow events, divided under ten headings including Furniture, Jewellery, and Pictures and Prints. In most instances the valuations given by the experts are listed, along with some comments, and the majority of items are well illustrated. Pictures can be enlarged by a single click.

Antique of the Week is typically a single page of information about a particular collecting topic. The Quiz feature is only periodically open to contestants. What's On leads to a page that duplicates some of the links in the homepage menu under Features, Buyers' Guides and Specialist Guides. Under Experts, you will find a list of the various advisers to the programme, all with thumbnail portraits and brief details. Note that the first page covers only those with surnames beginning A to E; there are three further pages to look at. The Feature Articles are clear and informative.

Know How is divided into Clubs and Societies, Valuation Advice, Bibliography and Links. There is also a link to a Hallmarks Guide, for those wishing to identify silver marks. If working your way through the homepage index for the first time, you will probably now find it more logical to click on Tricks, which is the last item listed. This is a useful list of tips on how to repair broken or damaged articles.

Message Board offers four interactive facilities, Antiques Bargains (questions to the experts), The Virtual Sofa (home decoration advice-swapping), Nuts and Bolts (DIY advice) and Inspirational Ideas. You won't learn all that much more about antiques here, though some of the items people describe are intriguing. To contribute to (rather than just read) this area of the website you need to register and then log in. The process is very simple, merely a matter of giving a name, an email address and a password.

Finally, if you click on My BBC you will be transported away from the Antiques area altogether, to recent national news items; whereas oddly enough, clicking on Feedback does keep you, loosely speaking, in the world of antiques, because it gives you the opportunity to respond to an invitation that reads 'Got something to say? This is the place to say it' and then offers you the chance to contribute a question to the Antiques quiz.