in those days
the camera couldn't lie
the camera was a scientific instrument
and so if you produced a photograph of a
fairy
it had to be right welcome to watch mojo
uk and today we're counting down our
picks for the top 10 antiques roadshow
items that left us speechless well i'm
supposed to say no it's not for sale
it's certainly no sale well that's just
a custodian i know
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for this list we're going to be looking
at the most surprising weird and
wonderful items brought on to antiques
roadshow let us know in the comments
what treasure you've got knocking around
in your loft
number 10 worthless sapphire the show
went to halifax in 2019 and one of the
guests was a woman who'd brought on a
sapphire brooch she'd been told numerous
times was a worthless piece of costume
jewelry this is a real
first time for me she said she was
actually refused proper valuations from
people who couldn't verify whether it
was genuine thankfully she'd come to the
real experts and john benjamin not only
verified its authenticity but praised
the huge sapphire that was right there
and apparently went ignored for years it
was over a century old and not only was
the sapphire real so were the diamonds
giving it a valuation of up to fifty
thousand pounds i don't wanna sweat
you're right i swear
[Laughter]
blew my neck
blooming their king teeth we can't
believe nobody else realized it was the
genuine article number nine cottingly
fairies
these photos have been famous for years
they were taken after the first world
war by two sisters living in cottingley
west yorkshire and earned a particularly
famous fan sir arthur conan doyle
creator of sherlock holmes they came
back with the camera and said we can
prove the referees
and
these were accepted at the time weren't
they despite doyle's standing as a
doctor and a man of reason he did have a
long belief in the occult and
supernatural in the 1980s the sisters
finally came clean about how they did
the hoax but the photos remain an
interesting artifact which is why we
couldn't believe it when they showed up
on antiques roadshow in 2009. and then
show arthur conan doyle gave one camera
to lc and one camera to francis and sent
them off to do it again in effect yes
with lots of plates even the two women
who brought the pictures on said they
believed in the photos themselves for a
good time
number eight great train monopoly it's a
very important board because it forms
part of history in 1963 a gang of more
than a dozen men infiltrated a royal
mail train and made off with 2.6 million
pounds in banknotes the biggest robbery
in history at the time they made off
with the cash and holed up at a nearby
farm biding their time at playing a
friendly game of monopoly using their
ill-gotten gains the money which we have
on display was also treated for
fingerprints
and
on this particular one here we've got
fingerprints from one of the train
robbers leaving the monopoly set behind
the fingerprints it held became major
evidence in convicting these robbers
then in 2013 it showed up in an episode
of antiques roadshow after being
displayed in the thames valley police
museum for a while it was only valued at
200 pounds conveniently the same amount
of cash you get for passing go perhaps
it's one to two hundred pounds of
someone's money
but would it be right for people to
profit from crying
i don't think so number seven richard
dad painting troubled painter richard
dad lived in the 19th century and was
committed to infamous institutions
bedlam hospital and broadmoor i would
hope
that some indications i mean it would be
too much to hope really that this was a
lost painting by richard dyer though the
conditions in both of these hospitals
were appalling in the victorian era dad
was able to complete many famous
paintings during his time in them one of
these paintings called the artist's halt
in the desert was brought onto antiques
roadshow in 1986 by a couple who thought
it was completely worthless and just
wanted to know what it was it is
an international treasure a lost picture
and i feel that it could possibly
make somewhat over a hundred thousand
pounds
imagine their shark when its origins
were revealed it really was a lost dad
watercolor that was eventually sold to
the british museum for a hundred
thousand pounds
number six hair of the dog i've not seen
it before
i'm gonna see it with you for the first
time look away if you squeamish this
grisly item was unveiled by fiona bruce
at the end of a 2018 episode after it
had been given to her in a suitcase but
no this wasn't some kind of twisted
ransom note it was a valuable item
supposedly the dog was a vital member of
the constabulary and caught the last man
to be hanged in leicester
it's not nice that's still a gruesome
origin for an equally gruesome item and
many viewers took issue with the dog or
rather its head being featured with
absolutely no warning it's not the sort
of thing you expect to see on a sunday
evening why couldn't they taxidermy the
entire dog instead of just its head and
make it you know a little less horrible
number five faberge flower it's a solid
block of what is apparently glass but
it's certainly not it's stone
it's rock crystal possibly the most
valuable item ever seen on antiques
roadshow it was brought on by a squadron
of the british army in 2018. the flowers
are made of enamel silver
and tiny silver stamens but in the
center there's a dewdrop of diamond
glinting in in the sunshine here this
ornament was made by the world-renowned
house of faberge a russian jeweler most
famous for creating the opulent faberge
eggs for the russian imperial dynasty
but eggs weren't the only thing faberge
made as it also created this artificial
flower which was gifted to the squadron
in the year 1900 when queen victoria was
still on the throne i've found faberge
things on the antiques roadshow but
nothing of the scale expert jeffrey munn
was stunned to see such an impressive
item on the show and handed it a
landmark valuation of a million pounds
in my opinion that this is worth
a million pounds really wow
of course the squadron isn't looking to
sell the flower anytime soon
number four queen victoria's cakes she
lived for decades and was famously an
enormous fan of all things sweets
especially cakes and she had plenty of
them made during her long lifetime i am
absolutely staggered because we've got
bits of fruitcake here that are 120 30
40 50 years old so imagine the surprise
to see a 100 year old chest containing
pieces of various victorian cakes the
woman who brought them on said his
mother had a friend who had connections
in windsor castle and was able to take
the slices all of which were hand
labeled with the date occasion and in
the same handwriting meaning they were
deemed authentic you know
it's possibly one of the most difficult
things i've ever tried to value on an
antiques roadshow they were generally
fruitcakes and chief among them was
queen vic's 80th birthday cake number
three angel of the north statue
love it or hate it the angel of the
north is one of the country's most
famous statues and this scale model of
it is miraculously worth as much as a
century-old faberge flower indeed it was
angel
an angel or a group of angels who
heralded the birth of christ
using something that has a deep
resonance in our culture the reason the
statue is so valuable is that it was
created out of bronze as a proof of
concept to show what the finished angel
of the north would look like something
called a maquette shockingly this wasn't
the most valuable angel of the north
maquette out there in 2008 and 2011 two
other sculptures were sold for 2.3
million pounds and 3.4 million pounds
respectively on the basis that this is
half the size
i would comfortably
value it at a million pounds
not bad considering the actual statue
only cost eight hundred thousand pounds
to build in the first place
number two painting by william orphan
this is not that this is something
better
wow
so i'm all excited now well the thing is
learning that your prized 20th century
painting is a fake certainly wouldn't be
good news for everyone unless of course
that fake is actually a copy of the
painting done by the original painter
himself
since the roadshow i've been able to
show it to open experts
and there's absolutely no doubt in their
mind that they thought instinctively
intuitively that this was by open
it's amazing that was the case with this
open painting the spy also known as the
refugee which rupert mars pointed out
was already on display in the imperial
war museum it took some investigation
but mars did say that he believed in the
painting's authenticity ultimately the
show was correct it was a genuine work
by open and it got a massive valuation
of 250 000 pounds i've got to revise
your valuation
it's worth at least a quarter of a
million pounds
oh my goodness
number one seychelles sea coconuts upon
seeing this bizarre item get unveiled in
2020 viewers were quick to point out
that it looked like something else an
enormous bum it's actually a seed
commonly known as a coco de mer which
does literally mean sea coconuts and it
only comes from two sachelian islands
and yes even ones that aren't as
rigorously polished as this one do look
distinctly like a person's backside it
was valued at between one thousand
pounds and one thousand five hundred
pounds which isn't bad for something
that literally grows on a tree though
seychelles is currently trying to save
the endangered palm trees that produce
the sea coconuts funny looking as they
are
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