A guest who appeared on the Antiques Roadshow with a statue bought at an event 10 years ago for just £1.50 was told the artifact that could have been worth £250,000 was actually worth just £1.50.
Expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan was excited when he first saw by the item the guest brought in for the BBC Sunday-night show where undiscovered treasures are explained and valued. He said: "When you unwrapped this, my heart really skipped a beat because it's one of my favourite tribal African figures."
The man told Ronnie he bought the figure at an event in Cambridge 10 years ago, reports The Echo. He said: "It was right among the junk and it cost me the grand total of £1.50.
Ronnie joked: "You really took a risk, didn't you?" The guest said: "Well, I was intrigued by the fact that it looked as if somebody had put a lot of work into making it.
Ronnie said the figure appeared to be from the Kota tribe from Gabon, south of Nigeria. He said: "This is a Kota reliquary guardian figure and they put these on the bones of their ancestors to protect them and they polished this metal.
"And in the 19th century, they were brass and copper, this is just copper, the brass and copper were like gold to them. They're so highly revered in the art world that they have one of these in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
"They're such iconic examples of African tribal art. They hammer the metal over the wood sculpture and then they chase the metal with these designs.
"And it's the geometric form of them that makes them so desirable and they influenced the greatest modern artists of all time because at the beginning of modernism, they are very, very sought-after."
Ronnie explained that a few years ago, one of the figures sold for £250,000. However, he added: "But unfortunately, this one is a very fine copy. It's slightly the wrong size.
"This was probably made in about 1980 and one like this is probably worth about £150. It is 100 times more than you paid for it."
