It's the kind of thing everyone has dreamed about: you're digging around in grandma's
attic when you stumble across an old knick knack that's actually worth a pantload of
greenbacks.
Sometimes, though, the fantasy becomes reality.
Here are some Antiques Roadshow finds that mad owners crazy rich.
Collected by the owner's father in the 1930s and '40s on two visits to China, this collection
included four pieces from the 18th-century.
The owner was hoping for a nice valuation, but even she was stunned when appraiser Jim
Callahan delivered the verdict.
“For a total amount of between seven hundred and ten thousand to one million seventy thousand."
"...DAMN!"
Many people keep artwork on their walls behind their doors; it's a pretty normal thing.
It might be a Reservoir Dogs poster if you're a single man, or a framed picture that says
"Life is just a chair of bowlies" if you are a grandma.
What most people don't hang behind their doors are million-dollar lost paintings by the great
Latin-American artists of the 20th century.
But this owner from a 2012 visit to Corpus Christi isn't most people.
His great-grandparents bought a painting in Mexico in 1930 and subsequently hung it in
their house behind a door.
What they didn't know was that this was actually an early painting by a teenaged Diego Rivera
from 1904, who would go on to be one of the most prominent painters in Mexican history,
famous both for his murals and also for being married to Frida Kahlo.
Needless to say, he was pretty surprised to learn just what he had.
“I would be putting a retail estimate on the piece of between eight hundred thousand
dollars and a million dollars."
"SERIOUSLY?!"
Every baseball card collector dreams of finding the ultimate score, but nobody will ever be
able to beat the lucky owner who brought her family's collection to the show in 2014.
In 1871, her great-great-grandmother had hosted Boston's first professional baseball team,
the Red Stockings.
As a gift, they gave her a complete set of team baseball cards, along with a signed letter
from the team.
Appraiser Leila Dunbar was so blown away by the collection, which was unlike any previously
known to exist, that she got choked up delivering the verdict.
"I would insure it for at least one million dollars!”
“It is the greatest archive I have ever had at the Roadshow."
Perhaps needless to say, military artifacts and memorabilia are a very popular category
of antique on both the U.S. and U.K. versions of Antiques Roadshow.
As a result, it should come as no surprise that the highest ticket item in the history
of the U.K. show — ringing in at £1 million, or just over $1.3 million — is a military
item.
Well, sort of.
Actually, it's a delicate flower, crafted by legendary jeweler Peter Carl Faberge.
The flower was gifted to an army regiment in the early 1900s by Georgina, Countess of
Dudley, in honor of their service in South Africa.
"I'm going to tell you in my opinion, that this is worth a million pounds."
"Whoa!"
"Goodness gracious!"
Let's be super clear about one thing just right up top: absolutely do not under any
circumstances buy anything made from rhino horns ever for any reason.
Rhinos are endangered, and the chief reason is people hunting them for their horns.
Rhino horns: just say no.
That said, one man in Tulsa discovered his collection of rhino horn cups was worth a
fortune back in 2011.
He began collecting them in the '70s, spending a total of about $5,000 for several Chinese
libation cups from the 17th and 18th centuries.
So he was pretty shocked to hear just how much they had increased in value.
“A conservative number would be between a million and a million five hundred thousand
dollars for this group."
"Serious?"
PBS later gave an update indicating that after the appraisal, Chinese officials began cracking
down on the trade of anything made with rhino horns.
As a result, the market tanked, even for ancient art objects like these.
When sent to auction, three of the five cups failed to sell at all, while the other two
fetched the low end of their estimate range — which was still good for $300,000.
China has since reversed their position, though, so who knows what value fluctuations are yet
to come.
Though most people these days just use their phone to tell time, there's still a big demand
for well made watched.
In 2004, a man visited the roadshow with a Patek Philippe watch handed down to him from
his great-grandfather that had cool features like a calendar that accounted for leap years
and a moon-phase indicator.
Appraiser Paul Hartquist basically lost his mind, but in the way you'd expect a person
to lose his mind on PBS: very calmly intoning that it was the finest watch he had ever seen.
“This watch, at auction, I suspect would bring close to a quarter million dollars."
"No…"
However, it was later discovered that this watch was literally one of a kind, as the
special features were made just for this singular example.
That drove the price up dramatically, and in 2016, it brought $1.5 million at auction.
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