'Antiques Roadshow' guest says 'I'm staggered' after expert revealed the real value of her tea set
"Antiques Roadshow" guests are aware that the things in their household could be valuable, but are still unprepared to handle massive valuations. One guest walked in with a tea set, but was caught off guard by the expert's appraisal. The items in the set were from the 1800s. Items made in that style were called a cult collector’s item by the expert who valued them at a much higher amount than the set was purchased for. After learning of the set's real value, the guest literally staggered.
The guest was an elderly woman who said that her parents had purchased the set for £50 ($68). At the time, that was a lot of money. When asked if she liked the set, the guest said that she loved it and that she had lived with it for 65 years. The expert called it an archetypal Minton majolica ware. Minton was the name of the company that made it, and majolica was the style in which it was created.
“Majolica, as I’ve said so many times before, is an earthenware with these bright-colored glazes, which were so popular in the second half of the 19th century. Minton was perhaps the best of all manufacturers, and they made this tea set. I think I’ve only ever seen one other complete one. And the last one, I think, was about 1973. So to see another one turn up here is, I think is so exciting,” the expert added.
All of the elements in the tea set were modelled after fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which the expert loved and spoke about. “The teapot is made from a whole lot of nuts. The sucrier is a squash or gourd. The milk jug, I think, is an…is that…not asparagus, what’s it…artichoke that’s called, isn’t it? Then we’ve got two teapots, again, as gourds, with leaves coming off, and the saucers are lily pads.”
The expert then turned over one of the earthenware pieces to reveal the potter’s mark, a date code, and a mold number, which in this case was 1349. He also noted that there was a whole range of dates among the items in the tea set that ranged from 1872 to 1874. This meant that the collection was well over a century old, and it still seemed to be in incredible condition. The shine on those cups and jugs was as if they had just been bought from a store.
When the guest said that her parents paid a decent amount of money for the set at the time, the expert believed that they were right to do so. The market for majolica products, he believed, was going to be on an upward trajectory, and the set could be worth a lot of money. He conservatively valued the whole set at £2,500 ($3,341) to £3,500 ($4,677). “I’m staggered,” the guest said after learning this.
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