In one episode of Antique Roadshow episode, viewers were in for a bit of a surprise when a guest refused to sell his gold watch after the expert gave them a warning.
Yes, when the person came to the Windermere Jetty Museum in the Lake District, they held their beautiful piece tightly.
One guest on the show was previously so surprised by the value of his watch that he ‘fainted’, while in another episode the expert refused to value one item.
But it seems that the value of this golden item depended on one important factor: whether it actually worked or not.
Antique Roadshow Expert Richard Price was presented with a ‘very nice’ example, a so-called ‘hunting watch’.
The watch could be ‘very rare’. (BBC)
“If it also has a very nice dial, look at that beautiful silver dial, I can say quite categorically that it is for the Spanish market,” he explained.
The guest seemed to confirm this, because he had received it from a ‘Spanish lady’, a friend of the family.
“Well, what a happy couple you are. Absolutely typical of the Spanish market, beautiful dials, it’s 18 carat gold, dating from the 1860s,” Price replied.
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After being asked if they remembered anything special about the piece, the guest revealed that the previous owner had “demonstrated that a bell rang,” but was a little confused as to what it meant.
This made sense to Price when he noted the design of the watch before explaining: “A very, very clever horologist by the name of Joseph Barolos, who worked in London, devised a form of quarter-hour repetition, which means that the watch will strike the hours and the quarters, turn it to the left to do the hours, release it and turn it to the right to do the quarters.
Apparently they don’t sell. (BBC)
“That doesn’t work and all that complex repeating work will be under the dial and we can’t see if it’s there. The fact that you remember that you played some kind of repeating in other words suggests to me almost certainly that this watch had that work there and perhaps still does.”
While the guest seemed excited about the watch’s value, the expert warned them that the item’s value depended entirely on whether that “quarter repeat” feature was all a ticket.
“If this is Joseph Barolos’ patent. We are talking about something very rare,” Price explained. ‘If it’s there, I’ll give you an estimate of £7,000 to £10,000. If not, we’re looking at a minimum amount of £2,500 to £3,000. Either way: a wonderful gift.”
But the suddenly bewildered guest replied, “Oh yes. And it’s not for sale.”
“That’s what you all say,” Price joked.
The strangest items that Antique Roadshow
Some of the items in the show are downright bizarre…
Human hair from famous poets
(BBC channel)
Have you ever dreamed of owning the locks of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
Well, that’s going to cost you something because when this item was brought in Antique Roadshow Last year it was estimated to be worth over £40,000.
The clippings were a family heirloom and, according to expert Justin Croft, were made on someone’s deathbed.
Yes.
Nightmare fuel Teletubbies concept art
Turns out Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po looked pretty scary at first.
Jonathan Hills drew the concept art for the future children’s TV icons. He sadly passed away in 2020 and his wife brought some of his original sketches to the show in 2022.
Expert Mark Hill admitted that some of the drawings were ‘creepy’, but estimated the individual pieces at between £500 and £2,000 and the entire collection of 80 drawings at up to £80,000.
A bottle of piss
Who remembers when pundit Andy McConnell accidentally drank urine in 2016?
A guy named John found the bottle in his garden, and McConnell used the taste test to figure out what was inside, he thought it was port.
In 2019, Fiona Bruce told McConnell: “It contained copper pins, all from the late 1840s, and the liquid: urine, a small amount of alcohol and one human hair.”
It turned out to be a ‘witch’s bottle’, buried on the threshold of a house as protection against curses and bad luck.