'Antiques Roadshow' guest gets a staggering valuation for jewelry that her mom never even wore

Objects can be lying around the house for years, and people still may not know how much they are worth. Sometimes, the item is not even used, left to collect dust, only to be appraised at a significant valuation. That is exactly what happened on an earlier episode of the BBC edition of “Antiques Roadshow,” when a guest brought two pieces of jewelry that belonged to her mother. One of those was never even worn by its former owner.

One of the items was a bejeweled bug that could be worn as a brooch and a locket with several gems attached to it. The bug was left to the guest by her mother, but the locket was one that she picked for herself, and she and her sister were going through their late mother’s belongings. “I don’t even know if it’s real. We never saw it, my mother never wore it, and my father didn’t know where it came from,” she said.

The expert was dazzled by both the items and claimed that the locket was an 18th-century revival jewellery. It had blue enamel, several diamonds, and a big ruby right in the middle. Despite never seeing her mother wearing the locket, the guest claimed that she wore it quite often and loved it. “I do wear it and I love it,” she said, which the expert thought was “marvellous.”

Before appraising both items, the expert first asked if the guest had ever gotten the items valued in the past. She had the bejeweled bug appraised before, but not the locket, since she did not believe it was real. The expert then revealed that the locket was worth $6,100 to $6,800. This came as a big surprise to the guest. It wasn’t as valuable as the brooch, but it was certainly worth a ton of money. "That's very gasp if you think it was sort of loose and Maa never wore it," she said.

The star of the show, however, was the bejeweled bug. “This is the most extraordinary bug,” the expert said before asking the guest about it. The guest believed that it was bought for her grandmother in the 1890s, and the expert said that the date seemed about right. He called it a bumblebee brooch and a Victorian one at that. One of the reasons why this item was more interesting than the locket was that its box was intact.

The brooch was made by a company called Lacloche Freres. “They’re a very distinguished firm running in competition with Cartier. So, there’s a maker for a superb gem set,” the expert said. This one had a large sapphire, several diamonds, and rubies for eyes, making it a truly striking figure. The guest had gotten it appraised in the past for $5,400. However, she never could have expected the appraisal value at the time of taping.

“I think that’s a very desirable thing. It’s very concentrated. It’s very animated. It’s by a superb maker and everybody wants this thing. Honestly, they do. And value is to do with measured want,” the expert added. He then said that the brooch was worth $13,000. The guest let out a gasp after hearing this and just said, “God.”