Antiques Roadshow guest gasps as late husband's children's book gets top price tag

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow. 

An Antiques Roadshow guest was in disbelief when she was told just how much her late husband's book was worth.

On a recent visit to the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, book appraiser Justin Croft had the chance to examine an extremely rare and special first edition of a cherished children's book that belongs to the guest's husband.

Croft started off by stating: "I'm usually looking at old books, this is definitely not an old book.

"This is a very recent book indeed. This is Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and illustrated by Anita Jeram, which was published in 1994. So why have you brought it? " he inquired.

The guest explained: "My husband wrote this book. He had his first book published in 1976, and when he was having the book published in the 1990s, he said to the editor, 'This book will be forgotten in another couple of years. Why am I not rich and famous?'

"And she said because you don't do picture books. And he said, 'Oh well, that's a pity because I can't draw anything.'

"And she said, 'We have illustrators that can draw anything you can think of in your head. What we don't have is somebody that can write a good book in a couple of hundred words.'

"So he scribbled an idea on the back of an envelope or a receipt or whatever and dropped it back in, and by the time he got home to Northern Ireland, she had sent him a letter saying 'We'd love to develop this idea. Go ahead, and we'll find an illustrator."

"And the rest is history," Croft remarked, as she concurred: "I know. In months, the first million was sold. Amazing."

The expert then shared his personal connection to the book: "And this is obviously a first edition by your husband and also by the illustrator.

"This is a book that's so familiar to me because it is a book we read to our children. It was a nightly treat to read Guess How Much I Love You."

As the guest grimaced, the expert revealed: "We still have our copy, the cover's off, the spine's off, it's almost shredded to pieces but we loved it. The little hare and the big hare."

He started to recite: "Guess how much I love you. I love you -" and the guest chimed in to complete his line: "To the moon and back."

She explained: "And I mean now that's almost a cliche. You see it everywhere, but actually, it occurs first in this book. I love you to the moon and back, that was my husband."

There was a somber moment during the appraisal when Croft touched upon the sad fact that her husband, renowned author Sam McBratney, had passed away.

With a touch of sorrow, she acknowledged: "No, he died just three years ago."

However, redirecting the conversation to their current review, Croft noted that she had "all of the early stages of the book recorded" within a meticulously kept scrapbook.

"While he was busy engaging the crowd, autographing his works, I was over there asking 'Oh, can I have a copy of that, can I take one of that? and I collected them for the scrapbook," she divulged.

"The really fascinating thing for me now is that we have it in so many different languages, but this is the point that really moved Sam.

"He said that he couldn't believe that somewhere in the world, every night, somebody was reading their little one his book and the number of people that told him, 'Oh my daughter on a good day loves me to the moon and back and there are some nights she hardly loves me to the door and back.'".

Wrapping up the discussion, Croft expressed: "It's amazing to see it and it's amazing to see it with you and the scrapbook which you have faithfully kept all that time.

"Now, it's very difficult to value this book. It's a recent book, there are millions of copies of it all over the world, even the first edition was a very large edition, there would be many, many thousands of copies of that still in existence.

"So my valuation has to be completely speculative, but I think, the two together, £3,000 to £4,000."

The reaction of the book's custodian was dramatic, as she was visibly staggered by the valuation, gasping at the figure.

As the crowd around them applauded, she reacted: "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. That is amazing."

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