Antiques Roadshow sees guests bring in weird and wonderful items to be valued and last week’s instalment of the beloved BBC series saw one guest thrilled when she learned how much a small brooch could fetch at auction.
Jewellery expert John Benjamin was excited when he set eyes on the piece, which was made up of rubies and diamonds to form a dragonfly.
He began: “It surely is an exquisite piece of jewellery and for me it represents everything I most admire and love about a piece of antiques jewellery, style, design, stones.
“Tell me a little bit about it, what do you know?”
“It was my mother-in-law’s and she got it off her mother and now it belongs to my sister-in-law but she couldn’t be here today,” the guest explained.
“My mother-in-law actually wore it for our wedding.”
John noted: “It does draw the eye doesn’t it?” before asking what the guest thought of the unusual item.
“I think it’s beautiful,” she replied.
Going on to share details of the brooch, John continued: “At the end of the victorian period when this was made, circa 1900, insect jewellery was extremely popular… a dragon fly is something we can all identify and we like it.
“It’s made of gold, the body is a slightly graduated line of diamonds and burmese rubies, no modern diamonds, the old diamonds, they twinkle a little more softly than a modern diamond would do.
“These are not stones you would see in a modern mine.”
He added: “The wings look rather plain white material but they are individual, natural pearls.
“I could see such a piece at an auction and attracting interest from dealers, private people.”
The guest was keen to find out who made the piece but John could not give an answer.
“I wouldn’t necessarily expect to see [a maker’s mark], they weren’t any particular people who were making these sorts of things,” he explained.
“They had a universal appeal so they were sold by first class jewellers in London and in major towns and cities.”
“So now what is it worth?” John asked before revealing the shock valuation.
“I think it’s going to attract a lot of interest and because of that I think I’m going to be quite punchy on my estimate.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do with it but I know if it comes up for auction I think someones going to pay £4,000-£5,000 for it.”
“Wow, fantastic,” the guest exclaimed with delight.
Antiques Roadshow airs Sunday on BBC One at 8pm.
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