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Privacy NoticeA guest on Antiques Roadshow was left utterly speechless when an item her husband had written off as ‘just a piece of tat’ turned out to be incredibly valuable. The couple appeared on the BBC show with a few pieces of jewellery for valuation. Despite her husband’s dismissive view, calling one item ‘tat’, the wife remained fond of it. She shared with expert Susan the backstory. “They were from my husband’s side – from his mother – and when she died, my husband said his mum had a lovely opal bracelet that I might like. So we dug it out and that was that,” she explained.
Expert Susan was presented with an opal bracelet that belonged to one person’s mother
(Image: BBC)
“Amongst a heap of things in this big box, we reached the bottom and there it was. My husband scoffed, ‘you don’t want that – it’s a load of tat’. It’s just a piece of glass. But I insisted, ‘well I like it.'” Her husband added, “We’d like to know what it is! It’s very big for a precious stone, I would have thought.” Expert Susan then delivered the astonishing news about the bangle, saying: “Let’s start with the bangle first. We know it’s opal like you said, but it’s really beautiful. As we can see, there are these wonderful opals, all graduating in size, and have diamonds in between, which really help to bring out the beautiful colours.” She examined the jewels, saying: “The greens, the blues, flashes of oranges we see around the stones. It really is totally magnificent and the added bonus with any piece of jewellery is having the original box which we have here. If we open the box up, we can see the piece was bought at Wartski’s in Llandudno. It’s now based in London but this is where they were established,” reports the Mirror. Sign up to OK’s TV newsletter to get updates sent to your inbox for free
The collection was once dubbed a “load of tat” by the guests
(Image: BBC)
She added: “They’ve gone on to be one of the most important jewellers in the world, known for selling Faberge but we can calm things a bit because this isn’t Faberge, but it really is a super example of 1880s jewellery.” Susan continued: “Then we come on to the piece of tat that you would call it. This comes from the Edwardian period and has diamonds which are set at the top here. They are set in platinum to the front. You need strength to support this jewel here. It’s actually aquamarine. The colour’s even all the way through the stone as well.” Finally, Susan revealed the estimated value of the pieces: “All in all, it’s moved a long way from tat! The aquamarine pendant, if it went up to auction, would be around three to £5000.” “The opal bangle, of course, is a magnificent piece and if that came up to auction, we would be looking at an estimate of eight to £10,000,” she said, prompting the owner to exclaim: “I wasn’t expecting that! I think we better have another look in that jewellery box.”Story SavedYou can find this story in  My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterCommentMore OnAntiques Roadshow
