BBC Antiques Roadshow guest lost for words as 'piece of tat' receives huge value

Antiques Roadshow expert Susan Rumfitt left a guest stunned when she unveiled the true value of a piece of jewellery that her husband had dismissed as 'a piece of tat'

An Antiques Roadshow guest was stunned when an object her husband had written off as 'a piece of tat' was valued at a significant sum during the BBC show. The couple brought in several pieces of jewellery to be evaluated, with the wife particularly fond of a specific item – dubbed 'tat' by her husband.

She recounted to expert Susan how they found the item: "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."

"In 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 sceptical husband remarked: "We'd like to know what it is! It's very big for a precious stone, I would have thought."

Susan went on to surprise them with her appraisal of the jewellery, beginning with the bangle. She explained: "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.", reports the Mirror.

The expert was awestruck by the antique pieces, detailing: "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."

She continued: "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."

Speaking of the necklace, she remarked: "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."

When Susan revealed the potential auction values, the excitement was palpable: "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."

She added: "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," prompting the owner to animatedly respond: "I wasn't expecting that! I think we better have another look in that jewellery box."