Top 30 Incredible Finds on Antiques Roadshow

Top 30 Incredible Finds on Antiques Roadshow

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and in this list, we’re looking at intriguing antiques and historical relics from across the British Isles on “Antiques Roadshow”.

#30: Columns from HMS Victory

You’d be forgiven for seeing these big pieces of wood and thinking they were worthless, because it turned out that they were columns from HMS “Victory”. But you might be wondering why the columns are in this man’s possession, rather than with “Victory”, which is preserved in Portsmouth to this day. As explained, “Victory” has had to be refurbished many times to keep it in good nick, which is why these original columns were removed. To think, much of “Victory” today never saw legendary sea battles like Trafalgar, while these old pillars were actually there on the day, bearing witness to one of the greatest successes in the history of the Royal Navy, and Nelson’s death that same day.

#29: An SOE Spy Radio

This mysterious box was intended by its owners to be used as a toolbox, totally oblivious to what it was hiding. The owners didn’t know how old it was or exactly what this radio was used for, but fascinatingly, it was used to help coordinate resistance movements throughout Europe during the Second World War by the Special Operations Executive. It was extremely versatile and hidden away in a toolbox exterior. There’s no way to know exactly which operations it was used for or who it was communicating with, but it was certainly used in the war and then bought by a radio enthusiast, as expert Mark Smith explains.

#28: Lawrence of Arabia’s Watch

This bloke picked up an old fashioned watch for a relatively small sum, complete with an old repair bill for it. He hung on to both and eventually brought them onto the “Roadshow”, where he was astonished to be told that the watch had once belonged to T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. He also says that he didn’t know that Lawrence of Arabia was a real person, only really knowing him from the renowned 1960s film. It had been cleaned and repaired only a few years before Lawrence’s death in 1935, and ended up being worth a substantial amount. We wonder whether or not he sold it, or if it’s still in his or his family’s possession.

#27: Beatrix Potter Sketches

The renowned creator of Peter Rabbit wrote this letter just before her career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books fully took off. The letters, written to the current owner’s mother, detailed many of Potter’s older and current pets at the time she wrote it, including sketches of squirrels, mice, rats, and even a rabbit. It was an extraordinary thing to find, not just the letter written in Potter’s own hand, but crucially, the illustrations. Potter famously illustrated all of her own books, having drawn her entire life, and left a clear bootprint on both children’s literature and science through her sketches of plants and fungi. It’s no wonder the letter was worth so much.

#26: An Automaton

Jon Baddeley was presented with this relic, which turns out to be an important part of history. It was also, bizarrely, a complete nude underneath the clothes, which has an interesting explanation. Of course, though, the moment of truth was whether or not, after 130 years, it still worked – and it did! She was full of life, blinking and breathing while she charmed her snake, entertaining the audience just like she’d been built to do – albeit fully clothed, since this was the BBC on a Sunday afternoon. Thank god this man’s family ended up with it, because his late father took very good care of her, meaning she commanded a price tag of tens of thousands of pounds.

#25: Winston Churchill’s Personal Effects

How astonishing that anybody ever threw these away! Miraculously, these items once belonged to Winston Churchill, and had been recovered from the dump by the current owner, who worked there and saw the value, rescuing these treasures from being lost forever. The veracity was proven by the letters and other relics that accompanied the hat and cigar, making this a fascinating find. There was even an autograph! If he hadn’t had those letters, it would have been impossible to tell whether the artefacts were genuine, but luckily, he did. He got an immense valuation for his trouble. We wonder if the person who threw the box away was watching and regretting it.

#24: JFK’s Leather Jacket

From one world leader to another, it was even more surprising when an item of clothing from American president John F. Kennedy turned up at the “Roadshow” one afternoon. The jacket came from a former girlfriend of JFK in his youth who never gave it back after they met in France. She kept it for her entire life, and eventually the items were handed down to the rest of the family, until ending up here. Not only is it still a stylish jacket to this day, it’s also worth an incredible sum. The owner also pokes fun at the classic “Roadshow” trend of people insisting they won’t sell their valuables, before turning around and doing just that off camera.

#23: Steiff Teddy Bear

A couple brought on this unique, black teddy bear, expecting it not to be worth an awful lot. But, as Marc explained, it was extremely rare. Edward the bear was a Steiff teddy bear, which would make him special already, but he’d been made to commemorate the sinking of the Titanic. His provenance was never in doubt, being completely original save for the addition of his knitted scarf and the loss of the button on his ear. With only a few hundred of them ever made, it was no wonder that Edward had accumulated value over the last century. Everybody was amazed to hear how much he was worth, with the Titanic story being part of the high valuation.

#22: Ronnie Biggs’ Monopoly Board

In 1963, £2.6 million pounds – over £70 million today, when adjusted for inflation – was stolen in the Great Train Robbery, when a Royal Mail train was intercepted and violently robbed. The thieves intended to wait out the police investigation at a nearby farm, but were ultimately discovered. They fled but left this exact Monopoly board behind, where police recovered it. It was the fingerprints on the board that led to their convictions, and it was brought onto the “Roadshow” by the Thames Valley Police Museum curator. It wasn’t up for sale, but it was apparently only worth a few hundred pounds. No wonder they left it behind when they tried to escape the fuzz.

#21: Shakespearean Notebook

This tiny notebook ended up being hundreds of years old, and the owner presumed it was handwritten by one of his ancestors. The handwriting was clearly recognisable as being 17th century, notes on Shakespeare plays and performances that the author had seen. Since different runs and performances of Shakespeare plays can vary so much, even when the Bard was still alive and writing, having notes on specific performances is an invaluable piece of literary history. Easily, this was one of the most interesting things ever brought on, and it was in excellent condition, being very readable despite its age. It turns out to be worth at least thirty thousand pounds.

#20: Oddjob’s Hat

When “Antiques Roadshow” came to Wales, one guest brought in an impressive collection of James Bond memorabilia. What absolutely shocked the appraiser was the inclusion of a prop hat from “Goldfinger.” It was previously thought that there was only one copy of “Oddjob’s deadly hat.” As it turned out, the guest’s brother-in-law was a driver for Aston Martin on the set of “Goldfinger.” He had asked the studio for the prop hat as a souvenir, and they agreed! His brother-in-law didn’t treat it very well, unfortunately, using it as a childhood plaything with his friends. They caused significant damage to the hat, reducing its value by thousands of pounds. Still, a potential payday of twenty to thirty thousand pounds is nothing to sneeze at.

#19: Souvenirs Made From Shakespeare’s Tree

Hand-carved wooden bric-a-brac are staples of “Antiques Roadshow,” but they don’t often have connections to major historical figures. On the shores of Lake Windermere, one guest brought in a collection that did just that. Two hundred years after the death of William Shakespeare, the reverend who owned his house was sick of bard-loving pilgrims. In particular, they would come to admire Shakespeare’s mulberry tree. The reverend chopped the tree down and sold the wood to local artisans. One, a man named George Cooper, carved the guest’s pair of cups, wooden box, and an intricately designed miniature wooden shoe. Appraiser Ronnie was utterly gobsmacked by their condition and quality, valuing the collection at around nine thousand pounds.

#18: The Imperial Chinese Robe

It takes a great deal to shock “Antiques Roadshow” appraiser Lee Young. He grew up in the antiques business and has over thirty five years of experience. In series forty four, one guest left Young in shock. An elderly couple brought in a robe dating back to 1750’s era Imperial China. Her grandfather brought it home to Britain after spending years as a Bank manager in India. Despite some wear and tear, and some slight oxidation of the copper threading, the robe was in otherwise immaculate condition. Young likened it to a museum-quality piece, and claimed it to be the most expensive Chinese item he has ever seen on the show. He estimated its worth at a whopping two hundred thousand pounds.

#17: Medals for the Easter Rising in 1916

The Easter Rising of 1916 was an armed uprising where Irish Republicans rebelled against British rule in Dublin. It was a bloody battle that ultimately inspired the Irish War of Independence a few years later. One guest honored that history and his family’s participation when The Roadshow came to Ulster. Passed down in his family for decades, his grandmother’s aunt and uncle earned the medals in combat. Mark Smith was in awe of the collection. It is highly unusual to find medals of this kind, let alone those earned by women. The guest was only hoping to highlight his ancestors’ history. He left “Antiques Roadshow” with the knowledge that his medals are worth around twenty thousand pounds.

#16: A Napoleonic Column

The Vendôme Column, found in the famed Place Vendôme in Paris, was erected in 1810 at the request of Emperor Napoleon. He desired a French monument to emulate Trajan’s Column, similarly wishing to commemorate his victories in battle. The bronze bas-reliefs on the statue were cast from captured artillery. Two British sisters brought in a tremendous replica that had been in their family for over a century. The detail on their bronze replica is truly stunning, as is its sheer size. John Foster found it somewhat tricky to value, but he estimated it’s worth clocking in between twenty and thirty thousand pounds.

#15: Florence Nightingale’s Toolkit

In 2021, a woman brought in an amateur medical toolkit inherited by her grandfather decades earlier. The kit contained a series of metal tools and chisels that fit into a custom handle, all wrapped in leather. They belonged to her grandfather’s great aunt, Florence Nightingale. Florence defied the social conventions of the age, convincing her family to allow her to become educated. She used that knowledge to forge a career and legacy in nursing, taking this toolkit to the Crimean War in the mid 19th century. Though the family lore and the dating of the tools fits the history, the guest didn’t bring proof of provenance. Were she to find documentation and proof, the kit could be worth anywhere between five and seven thousand pounds

#14: Dolly the Sheep Collection

“Antiques Roadshow,” tends to lean towards the historic and artistic more than the scientific. But one series forty five guest shook things up with his personal collection of scientific memorabilia. The man was a biologist who worked directly on the experiments that led to the first cloned animal: Dolly the Sheep. He unveiled a shorn fleece from Dolly as well as a number of scientific tools. At the forefront of science, the guest and his colleagues had to cobble together some of their equipment from scratch. Using Darwin’s notebook and Fleming’s petri dish as a guide, he estimated their tentative value at twenty to thirty thousand pounds.

#13: Charlotte Brontë’s Mourning ring

“Antiques Roadshow” is a magnificent window into the kind of treasures that can be uncovered in one’s attic. One woman, after her father-in-law passed, discovered an old locked box. She searched the house, trying key after key, until voila! The box opened to reveal the mourning ring of Charlotte Brontë. The ring has a tiny hinged compartment containing a miniscule braid woven from Charlotte Brontë’s own hair. Appraiser Geoffrey Munn was positively giddy at the find. Normally, a ring of this type would possibly only fetch around twenty five pounds or so. Given its direct and literal connection to the acclaimed novelist, Munn estimated its value at around twenty thousand pounds.

#12: John Lennon’s Guitar

Jazz and rock and roll revolutionized music forever. Innovations in art and technology led to the invention of an instrument that is the cornerstone of modern music, the electric guitar. In series forty one of “Antiques Roadshow” two gentlemen brought a piece of that history back home to Britain. Ray, a musician himself, was handed the prototype stretless guitar by George Harrison himself. The piece drew a huge crowd, who were all left breathless when its valuation was estimated at three to four hundred thousand pounds. A year later, “Roadshow” did a followup episode where the piece was actually sold. A private collector, after all fees were calculated, bought the guitar for a tremendous two hundred and forty pounds.

#11: Document Signed by Queen Elizabeth I

“Antiques Roadshow” shines a light on the odd ways that historical objects come to be owned by regular people when they ought to be in a museum. There are perhaps no better examples than a rare document brought to the Roadshow in 2018. This document had been in the owners’ family for several generations, but it was originally written in 1563. The contract was in pristine condition. A royal license granting permission to an adventurer to go forth and discover sources of gunpowder, it was signed and sealed by Queen Elizabeth I. Book expert Clive Farahar was astounded by its age and quality. He valued the find at £35,000, which left the guest speechless.

#10: Painting by William Orpen

Paintings quite often appear on this popular, long-running antiques programme, but rarely do they create as much of a stir as this one. A painting by Sir William Orpen, a prolific wartime artist, was originally assumed by the guest to be a copy of a version at the Imperial War Museum in London. However, it turned out to be a copy by the painter himself, leading to a very impressed antiques expert and one very, very satisfied guest. Initially priced at £30,000, expert Rupert Maas later revalued it at a whopping quarter-of-a-million pounds!

#9: Richard Dadd Painting

Richard Dadd is a famous Victorian painter known for creating supernatural pictures, many of which he completed from Bethlem and Broadmoor psychiatric hospitals. So it was a huge surprise to see an original of his appear in the show. Causing a ripple of excitement, it turned out to be a lost painting of his called “The Desert”, which had been sitting in the attic of a local couple’s home for years. It was valued at a fantastic £100,000, smashing the show’s records at the time, and was later sold to the British Museum for that very price.

#8: Hoax Fairy Photographs

Cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths created a nationwide hoax in 1917 by releasing a series of photographs of fairies they claimed to live at the bottom of their garden. This even caused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of Sherlock Holmes, to send them a new camera to capture even more images of them. And it came back to the public eye in this 2008 episode when the daughter and granddaughter of the historical pranksters brought the photos and camera in question to the Antiques Roadshow. An amazed expert valued them at around £25,000.

#7: Captain Scott’s Polar Autographs

In Cardiff, a member of the public brought in what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill autograph book containing illustrations and a series of autographs. However, these weren’t just any old scribbles- they were taken from Captain Scott and his crew from their ill-fated Polar voyage that ran from 1910 to 1913. Featuring the names of all those involved on the Terra Nova Expedition, it was given a valuation of up to £3000, and given its context and the fact that it was on the show exactly 100 years from the day they were taken, it's certainly one of its most incredible finds.

#6: Van Dyck Painting

Anthony Van Dyck, the historically renowned Flemish Baroque artist, was well known in the early 17th century and beyond for being one of the best court painters of his era. Fast forward centuries later and one of his works is making an appearance on British tea-time television. Purchased for £400 from a Cheshire antiques shop by Father Jamie MacLeod, it was unbeknown to the buyer at the time that it was a bonafide masterpiece. However, expert Philip Mould valued it at a staggering £400,000. The guest planned to use the cash to install some new church bells.

#5: Banksy’s “Mobile Lovers”

Now for some street art turned police property turned youth club saviour. The ever-illusive Bristol street artist created “Mobile Lovers” on a door opposite a Bristol boy’s club, prompting the owner of the said establishment to remove it, take it inside and allow the public to come and see it. After eventually being taken away by the police and given to Bristol Council, Banksy wrote to the club to say it was their artwork, which was then brought onto the Roadshow and given an eye-watering price tag of £400,000. The owner eventually sold it and used the money to help his and other local youth centres.

#4: Crawley Silver

Back in the early 90s, this heartwarming episode gave us one of the show’s most incredible finds. Young Richard Hobbs, a man whose family had very little money and who certainly differs from its usual guests, brought in a bag of what he assumed to be worthless pieces of silver. Stashed in shoeboxes under his dad’s bed, he took in his father’s secret bounty only to discover that it was highly valuable Crawley silver, including stirrup cups and an early wine taster. Later sold for £350,000 after a phenomenal valuation, Richard is forever etched into Antiques Roadshow history.

#3: The FA Cup Trophy

Arguably English football’s biggest tournament, the FA cup is known for some of the beautiful game’s most exciting matches, and the unpredictability of some of the country’s biggest teams playing against some of its smallest. Back in 2015, the actual trophy itself made a cameo in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, when it was bought in by BBC Sport’s Gabby Logan and former Leeds United manager Eddie Gray. Leaving Alastair Dickenson flabbergasted, it scored a price of over 1-million pounds, breaking the show’s records at the time of filming. Back of the net!

#2: Fabergé Flower

This well-known Russian company, famed for their ornate imperial Easter eggs, have been creating stunning jewellery since the mid-19th century. So, when this very-rare piece was brought onto the Roadshow by an Army Reserve cavalry squadron, it caused waves of excitement! Featuring gold, diamond and jade petals, it was gifted to the squadron in 1904 by the Countess of Dudley and had since been sitting with them. The show’s expert, Geoffrey Munn, slapped an absolutely humongous price tag of £1million on it - not bad for something treated as ‘part of the furniture’ by its owners.

#1: “Angel of the North” Model

One of the UK’s most iconic landmarks, the Angel of the North was designed by Antony Gormley and unveiled on the outskirts of Gateshead in 1998. And it was a scaled-down maquette of the 66-foot high sculpture that made it on air, much to the joy of art expert Philip Mould. The model in question was the basis on which the final structure was approved, meaning it is a genuine true likeness. It was given a truly staggering million-pound valuation, going down in history as one of the show’s most incredible finds.

Let us know in the comments which item you think has the most extraordinary story in the comments.