Highest Value Item Takes Owner Completely By Surprise | Antiques Roadshow

*All valuations were correct at the time of broadcast.* This lady brought in a box of gold jewellery for the Antiques Roadshow expert to look at, but it was actually the necklace she was wearing that intrigued the expert most. Dating from about 1840, it has a surprising valuation that shocks the owner. Hugh Scully and the experts from Antiques Roadshow take a look at some fantastic antiques and the history and stories surrounding them. This clip was filmed in Lyme Park in 1999.

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Surprised? – Yes. – Good. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Look at the gleaming and the gleam of gold there. – This is actually a brooch but it broke, so I use it as a necklace. But I will have it repaired one day. It’s worth it, I think. They’re rather fascinating, aren’t they?

Were they your great-grandmother’s? They were my great-grandmother’s, yes… – Yes. ..and came down to me. – From Germany? – From Germany, yes. – Mm-hmm. But I think what’s significant about this jewellery is that it’s made of filigree and granulations. – Ja. – Which is typical of all types of folk jewellery,

From the Mediterranean up to the north countries and Denmark and Scandinavia. The bracelet itself is a later addition because the colour of the gold is different and the phrasing of the metal. That is, ja. I wondered why. – So…

And yet, there are holes here, for stitching or at least some kind of textile. And it’s my idea that this was once a hair bracelet, that there was a tightly woven lock of hair supporting this bracelet. Around it? Around it. And this is what we very often find,

That of course this is perishable and wears out. And yet, a gold clasp remains. – Yes. And so, they string it on to – perfectly sensibly – a later gold bracelet. But hair I’m pretty certain that it was, actually. – Oh, that’s interesting.

– It’s an idea we’re totally at odds with in the 20th century but… It must have been strong hair. Well, I think it was, I think it really was. Well, good Teutonic hair, you see, that’s what we want. – (Laughs) But anyway. They’re a marvellous survival.

But oddly enough, having opened your little Pandora’s box of jewellery here, it’s not the jewellery that you have in the case that’s interested me, but it’s the necklace you’ve got round your neck. Can you take that off? – Yes. Let’s have a really good look. I thought it belongs to one.

You thought it belonged… it became part of it? – Yes. Yes, I think it’s not actually part. Because it’s similar. The clasp, if you look at it, it’s similar to… Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s decorated, again, with these tiny granules of gold, which… Gold is the most mysterious commodity because you can solder granules

Of the tiniest, tiniest, dust-like proportions to the surface of gold and give it this very interesting texture. And that’s been going on since very ancient times. And these have erroneously been called muff chains. – Muff chains? They’re not muff chains. Because they were long, it was assumed that a muff

Would hang on it and you put your hands through it… – Oh, I see. ..and it’s quite nice to be able to sort of demolish that terminology, once and for all. Because they simply are not muff chains. They’re simply there for decoration. It dates from about 1840.

And it’s this one that’s really disproportionately valuable. – Oh! Because complicated gold jewellery, not easy to wear in the 20th century. And these two, fascinating as they are, they’re worth low hundreds of pounds. Say £350, £450 for the clasp alone and with the bracelet, £500.

But this one, put it down on your little inventory for £2,000. Surprised? – Yes. – Good.