'Antiques Roadshow' guest left wide-eyed after his $20 lamp gets a staggering valuation

Thrift stores have opened up new opportunities for people to buy vintage or limited edition items for a lower price, so that they can be sold for a profit later. One guest on “Antiques Roadshow” found two mushroom-shaped lamps at such a store for $9 each, and was left with his eyes wide open as the expert revealed that they were worth thousands of dollars.

The lamps were designed by Finnish artist Lisa Johansson-Pape in the 1950s, as per expert Arlie Sulka. She revealed that Johansson-Pape started designing lamps during World War II, and then in the 1950s, she collaborated with a company from her home country called Iittala. The company was founded in the late 1800s and is still in existence even today. When the time came for the lamps to be appraised, Sulka valued them at $2000 to $3000.

“As best as I can figure, she probably designed these in about 1954. And then I think they were produced as late as 1969. I’d say a circa date of 1960. They came in two sizes, and yours is the larger size,” she explained. Sulka also praised the lamps because they were in great shape and said that they were made of opaque glass. She also said that the artist liked to make stylized, streamlined designs resembling fruits and vegetables, hence the mushroom-like shape.

According to the expert, this kind of design was considered modern in the ‘80s, and a lot of other companies tried replicating it as a result. So, one may say that Johansson-Pape sort of revolutionized the art of lamp designing in that period of time. The guest had no idea about the history and seemed intrigued by the story he was being told on the show that day.

Lamps are usually not what comes to mind when one thinks of items that can be valuable. Yet the valuation of a couple of lamps in a different episode of the show left a guest teary-eyed. They were gifted to the guest by a late friend of his, which is probably the reason why it invoked such a reaction. What made these lamps special was the fact that they were made by Tiffany Studios.

"They are Tiffany Studios lamps, both of these are lamps, or what I would call geometric lamps, but they have a little bit of decoration, they're a combination. You have a geometric background on the larger lamp, and then you have the decoration through here. These are what we call the woodbine pattern. And then on the floor lamp, for that pattern, we have a number of names. It's called swirling leaf, swirling lemon leaf, or lemon leaf," the expert said to the guest.

When the time came for them to be appraised, the expert valued them at a whopping $130,000 for the pair. This was a lot of money for a couple of lamps. This brought a big smile to the face of the guest as he fought through all the emotions ass he remembered his late friend.