Guest of the Antiques Roadshow amazed at the true value of a rare heirloom of the royal family

By Madison Burgess

15:00 July 12, 2024, updated 15:05 July 12, 2024

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A guest at Antiques Roadshow was speechless when he discovered the true value of a rare family heirloom that once belonged to royalty.

The lucky owner appeared in an episode of the popular British daytime TV show, which aired in March, in which the search for valuable personal items found its way to Dorset.

Expert Geoffrey Munn met with the guest, who showed him a “ravishing” and rare brooch, made sometime between the 1820s and 1840s, which was inherited by him after being given to his family by Empress Eugenie.

The antiques expert began with a joke: “The first thing to recognize a great piece of jewelry is whether you want to grab it. And I do – I’m going to grab it right now and show it to you in the sunlight. Look how it shines.”

When asked where the beautiful piece of jewelry came from, the owner admitted: “I don’t know much about it, except that it was passed down through my paternal grandfather’s line.”

“I can’t even remember if she was my great-grandmother or my great-great-grandmother and it was given to her by Empress Eugenie.”

For those at home who don’t know, Geoffrey added: “Empress Eugenie was the beautiful Spanish wife of the French Emperor Napoleon III and is in some ways a parallel to our own Queen Victoria.”

“This is a gorgeous diamond brooch in silver with a gold back. The stones were probably cut before the 1840s, which is what I would put as the date for this: 1820-1840.”

He continued: “And they probably came from something else – and this is a pattern in jewelry where pieces are dismantled and reshaped. What kind of bird is this?”

The owner seemed shocked and assumed that the rare object must be an eagle – but the expert was not so sure.

“It may be an eagle, but there’s a tiny, hesitant detail that makes me suspect it’s something much more exciting than just an eagle,” he revealed.

He added: “It could be a Ho-Ho bird, which comes from an oriental tradition in which these birds symbolized change and were popular as wedding gifts. Each individual gemstone has a very specific meaning.”

“The diamond is the hardest material known to man and therefore represents constant love. The ruby ​​is sacred to Venus and here we have a tiny one for the eye.”

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“But nevertheless it is associated with Venus, which supports my suspicion that this is a wedding brooch.

“Even though diamond jewelry is not as fashionable as it once was, I still consider it a very valuable item and would like to snatch it from you once again.”

When it came to calculating, the guest was speechless at the antiques expert’s offer.

Geoffrey said, “To take it from you honourably, I’ll probably have to give you about £20,000 for it today.”

The owner replied in astonishment, “Twenty? Wow, I knew it was worth a lot, but I didn’t think it was worth that much.”

This came shortly after a guest on the American version of the show was stunned to learn that his $4.99 vase from Goodwill was actually worth up to $100,000.

Overbeck’s 1920 yellow vase was featured on an episode of Antiques Roadshow earlier this week when an unidentified guest brought it to an event in Indiana.

The owner of the piece told appraiser David Rago that he and his wife were shopping at Goodwill when he spotted the “gorgeous” product on a shelf.

When told that the piece could fetch between $50,000 and $100,000 at auction, the man replied, “My heart is pounding!”

The buyer added: “I knew the quality was good, but I didn’t know anything about it, so I picked it up and looked at it,” said the vase’s owner.

Antiques Roadshow airs on Sunday evenings at 7pm on BBC One.