A guest on Antiques Roadshow was left in tears after she found out how much her £32 item was really worth. It comes after the popular BBC show travelled to Scotland.
The eye-watering valuation took place when the show's team of experts, including Joanna Hardy, were filming at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. Locals flocked to see what their items were worth.
Derbyshire Live reports one guest took along a glass box. She ended up getting a gobsmacking valuation, much more than she had originally paid.
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"The skill of a goldsmith and the skill of an enameler is the same whether they are making jewellery," Joanne began when chatting to the guest. "This beautiful box, it is just wonderful - now tell me why did it catch your attention and how did it catch your attention?"
The woman replied: "Well it was actually on an online auction down in England and I just thought there was something really unusual about it being rock crystal because I don't really see so many of these sorts of items like this." She went on to explain how she is fond of an online auction and often snaps bargains up via the internet, before musing how the box didn't glisten the same compared to when she first purchased it.
"I think they described it as being glass, a glass box, and I knew it had something unusual about it, with the designs on it and things like that," the guest revealed to Joanna. "I couldn't really see much of the silver, I had a sneaky feeling it might be that so we actually polished it all to reveal the beautiful enamel on the surface and the lovely colours." The guest continued to recall how she only paid £32 for the box – a revelation that left Joanna taken aback.
"Well, this is rock crystal which is of the quartz family," the antiques expert told her shocked guest. "And you can see the inclusions inside the stone which is their natural inclusions - there are no bubbles, if you saw bubbles then you would know it would be glass."
The BBC star continued: "Now, in about 1850 in Vienna in Austria, there were a group of goldsmiths who also did a lot of enamelling work sort of in the renaissance style and this is in the neo-renaissance style. So this is dating this from about 1860 to 1870, but there was one person that was really the head of this, he was the leading enamelist in Vienna at the time and he did the neo-renaissance work."
It was then time for Joanne to reveal how much she estimated the piece to be worth. "If that was in the right auction I think you are going to be looking at between £4,000 and £6,000," the star declared, much to the disbelief of the box's owner.
The stunned guest replied "no! Really?" before breaking down in tears, clearly overwhelmed at learning her £32 purchase was worth so much. Congratulating the woman, Joanna told her: "Enjoy it and well done."
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