Antiques Roadshow family breaks down in tears as late dad's ‘obsessive' collection worth six-figures

Edinburgh Live

29-05-2025

Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow expert labelled a late husband and father's valuable shoe buckle collection as an 'obsession'.
The BBC daytime series took to the grounds of Burton Constable Hall and Parkland to film another fascinating episode with Judith Miller among the experts.
She met with an older woman who was accompanied by her three grown-up daughters, granddaughter and a very large collection of shoe buckles.
'So absolutely surrounded by Georgian shoe buckles. How did you get them?' Miller asked.
The guest replied: 'Well my late husband, it was his collection and he collected them for over 50 years.'
Judith commented it was 'marvellous' before elaborating: 'They had buckles in the Medieval period but then they went out of fashion and then they came back in the mid 17th Century.
'People like Samuel Pepys wrote about putting buckles on his shoes but of course a lot of these are from the golden period of shoe buckles from 1750 to 1780.'
When asked about where her husband's fascination came from, the owner shared that his own dad had given him a couple which kicked-off the collection.
'From then on, he just liked them. When we went to antiques fairs, we were always looking for shoe buckles," she commented.
'We could go into quite an upmarket antiques shop and we were probably paying £2 10 shillings, something like that, for Georgian shoe buckles.'
(Image: BBC)
Miller queried: 'And did it become a little bit of an obsession?' As the guest laughed: 'Yes. Just a bit.'
The expert then turned her attention to the three daughters standing behind her, asking what they thought of the buckles.
One stated: 'I think it's amazing he collected it over so many years, he was so proud of it.
'He researched them, he cleaned them, he catalogued them, he loved showing people, he loved talking about them.'
Another then jokingly added: 'And yes, there are even more.'
This prompted Miller to ask exactly how many were in the full collection with the guest sniggering 'an awful lot'.
The expert probed further: 'Come on, you can tell me." With the guest sharing that they had about 1,500 buckles.
'So I think we're going back to a little bit of an obsession" Miller remarked, much to the guest's amusement.
After the specialist described them as 'fabulous', the owner said: 'It's hard to think it was men who wore these, not the women.
'They had the silver ones which they kept for best and then they had the more paste type ones which was more or less an everyday type of buckle.'
The expert then turned her attention to a pair of cream ware buckles which were 'absolutely beautiful and so impractical'.
Their owner replied: 'Well this is partially why there aren't that many around. Because obviously they got broken.
'We did go to Northampton Museum once and saw the curator and at that time, she only knew of about five pairs of those particular shoe buckles.'
(Image: BBC)
Miller remarked: 'Obviously as soon as you put them on, they would break. You can't imagine they survived one single wearing.
'But of course the others are much more practical and beautiful.'
It was then time to put a price on the extensive collection, with Miller putting a figure of about £100 on the 'lesser' pairs, and around £600 for the 'more beautiful ones' in cases.
She then said that the cream pair could very easily fetch an impressive £1,000 but the biggest shock was still to come.
Miller concluded: 'So if you look at the collection as a whole, and it's pretty staggering to me, I think we're looking here with your collection, at £200,000.'
The owner remained speechless as there were loud gasps coming from the onlookers and her family.
One of the daughters exclaimed 'Oh God', before the camera showed the women and the granddaughter in floods of tears.
As the family wiped away their tears, the guest said: 'We don't really sort of think of that. I mean, they are a collection and we are keeping the collection.
'They will get passed down to my three daughters and possibly even further down the line than that.
'He just loved them. Absolutely loved them.'
Miller added: 'Well isn't it lovely you've got this lovely inheritance, you've got your daughters and granddaughter, it's a lovely family story.'
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.