WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow guest couldn’t stop thanking an expert when the true value of her mysterious brooch was discovered.
BBC expert Joanna Hardy was on hand to help visitors who wanted their pieces of jewellery appraised when they started filming at Cromford Mills in Derbyshire.
Among those guests was a woman who brought in a stunning brooch that Joanna was thrilled to inspect. “When I see this, I just think it’s magical, it’s a beautiful piece of jewellery”, she began. “Please tell me how did you get this brooch?”
The guest amusingly replied: “I found this in my husband’s sock drawer. He keeps all sorts of things in there.”
“Maybe we don’t want to know them all!”, Joanna laughed as the guest agreed: “No no! And I think it’s really beautiful and it does sparkle a lot when it’s out in the sun which it’s not seen for a while.”
When questioned if it was something that had been handed down through his family, the guest elaborated: “I don’t think so, no. Because I did ask him and he just couldn't remember.”
Joanna was then ready to delve further into the details of the beautiful brooch: “Well it has certainly given me a ray of sunshine to have a look at it, because it is quintessentially 1900.
“This is when jewellers started to work with platinum, this was sort of a revelation, because they were able to really refine platinum. You must have seen it’s like lace, isn’t it?”
The owner remarked: “It’s so fine, it’s really delicate, I think that’s why I’m a little scared to wear it perhaps, because I wouldn’t want to break it.”
Joanna was on hand though to reassure her that “platinum is really strong”, before pointing out that it has a “cluster of cushion-shaped diamonds in the centre”.
Answering the expert’s question on if it had been appraised before, the guest said: “It’s been in the sock drawer so no, I couldn’t even hazard a guess, no.”
Joanna then stated: “Well, at auction, I think this would go in the region for about £3,000.”
The owner was clearly taken back by the figure: “Wow! Oh OK, that’s amazing! Thank you so much!”
“Maybe it’s going to come out of the sock drawer a little more”, Joanna teased.
“I think it might be, special occasions definitely. And I’ll try and put it somewhere safe so I don’t keep losing it”, to which the expert agreed before the guest added: “That’s amazing, better ring the husband now!”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.