Antiques Roadshow guest's face drops at massive figure for jewellery she didn't think was ‘real'

Edinburgh Live

09-05-2025

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WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow guest couldn't hide her amazement at the true price of her mum's jewellery that she didn't think were the real deal.
Taking a look back at when the BBC daytime series travelled to Norwich in 2006, appraiser Geoffrey Munn met with a guest and her two beautiful inherited brooches.
'Well we're sitting in a garden and in a way, this is a little celestial garden that you brought me here today, isn't it?', he began.
'Tell me about these wonderful jewels, where do they come from?'
Pointing to a bug-shaped brooch, she said: 'Well that was left to me by my mother and through her mother from my mother, so I know where that came from.'
Then moving onto the second of the two items, she continued: 'But when our mother died, we went through various little boxes of things, of nothing in particular, and we each had a choice and this was my choice.
'I don't even know if it's real. We never saw it, my mother never wore it and my father didn't know where it came from. Never seen it before.'
Munn clarified: 'My goodness. Well, it certainly is real. Actually, it's the most fascinating jewel.
'There's a huge revival for everything 18th Century and 19th Century and for all intents and purposes, the use of the enamel, the use of the gem setting, the whole composition, is inspired by 18th Century France.
'But we can say with absolute confidence this isn't an 18th Century jewel, it's an 18th Century revival one and blue enamel, diamonds, a little ruby in the front.
(Image: BBC)
'And turn it over and there's a locket at the back. Very tightly fitting locket but one would be able to remove that and put a photograph or a lock of hair in there.'
When asked if she wore the brooch, the owner said she did and 'loves it', to which Munn said: 'Good, that's marvellous! So you love your jewellery. What do you feel when you wear the jewellery?'
'I feel sort of regal, I think?' she described with the expert stating that was 'fantastic.'
His attention then turned to the second of the two: 'Now tell me about this one. This is the most extraordinary bug, isn't it?'
'It's wonderful, I always thought it was actually bought for my grandmother,' she shared, commenting that she believed it was from around the 1890s.
Munn concurred: 'No, that's absolutely perfect, I think, because one can look at jewellery and it is dated by design and that's what we really look for actually.
'This is a superb gem set bumblebee brooch or at least a bee brooch and a Victorian one.
'But thanks to the box which has been rather carefully preserved, we know perfectly well that it was made by a firm called Lacloche Freres.'
'It's terribly difficult to decipher,' she remarked as the expert agreed: 'Isn't it? But it's absolutely there. They're a very distinguished firm running in competition with Cartier.
'So there's a maker for a superb gem set bumblebee.'
(Image: BBC)
He then spoke of its 'silky looking salon sapphire', against its 'very pleasing colour' and 'little, rather menacing ruby eyes'.
When Munn queried if she could guess what they were worth, she said: 'Well I know that Pa had that one valued at about £4,000 and that, well, we didn't even know it was real.'
He went on to conclude: 'Well £4,000, that's a little while ago because I think that's a very desirable thing.
'It's very concentrated, it's very animated, it's by a superb maker and everybody wants this thing, honestly they do.
'And value is to do with measured want, that's all that value is. And I'm going to tell you in measured want that that's £10,000.'
The guest's jaw dropped upon hearing this figure before scrunching up her face and gasping: 'Good God.'
But he wasn't done as he moved onto the second of the two brooches: 'And measured want again here, not off the hook quite yet. Not quite the same gasp-making figure but quite enough at £4,500.'
She replied: 'That's very gasp if you think that it was loose and Ma never wore it.'
Munn added: 'Well superb. Thank you very much.'
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.