Antiques Roadshow guest reacts to valuation of earrings
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was on the brink of tears after discovering her musical bird box was worth a fortune.
The BBC daytime series travelled to Plas Newydd National Trust in Wales to meet guests and value their unique belongings, in the hope of finding some hidden treasures.
Expert Geoffrey Munn was one of those to be in luck during their visit as he was presented with a beautiful blue and gold musical box.
He explained it had been made by JM Badollet And Sons of Geneva from 1820 and was decorated with blue enamel on gold with “lilies of the valley each set with rose diamonds”.
Munn stated that such an item was for “exotic clientele”, like “Maharaja’s, Sultans and Chinese Emperors”.
“They made a speciality of making export ware of toys and this is a toy for a grown-up and have you enjoyed playing with it?”, he asked.
To which the owner replied: “I’ve only actually seen it work four times now, because I’m too scared to wind it up.”
“And I wound it up earlier and I think and pray and hope that it’s going to work for all of us. Shall we give it a go?”
Geoffrey then proceeded to wind up the box, when an adorable colourful bird popped up and began to whistle a lovely tune.
He continued: “Perfect! And he’s made of hummingbirds’ feathers and his beak is of ivory and he’s got ruby eyes.
“It’s a miracle of craftsmanship and clock making skills really.
“Inside, there are little bellows and pipes and the leather has to be so subtle and so pliable that they’re made of chicken skin, not of leather itself but chicken skin bellows.
“It’s a massively complicated piece of machinery and it’s an evolution of mechanism that’s awe-inspiring, isn’t it?”
Geoffrey then began to summarise: “It’s a child-like joy for everybody, takes us back to something in our dim and distant past that is highly evocative and magical in every sense of the word and who wouldn’t want it.
“Well I can tell you that the whole world wants it and they want it really, really badly.
“And consequently, it’s an extraordinarily valuable object, dizzily valuable, and I can tell you with every confidence that it’s worth £35,000.”
Unanimously, the audience gasped with someone reaching out their arm to pat the guest on the back.
She said: “Wow. That’s amazing. Beautiful. I’m not going to say I’m not going to sell it, because we probably will but -”
“It’ll break your heart won’t it?”, Geoffrey interrupted.
“Wow. I’m too scared to own it really.”
“You owned it for a long time, haven’t you? How long?”, he questioned with the guest explaining: “Well my aunt died nine years ago and she had it since 1966.
“She left it to my mother and so it goes down to me, it’s mine now.
“And it is beautiful and I don’t know what to do with it now. Wow.”
When Geoffrey wound up the musical box again, she said: “It’s magical to see, it really is. See, I’m going to cry now. Oh goodness me”, with the expert agreeing: “I think I am!”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
