'Antiques Roadshow' guest says she 'won't wear' her jewelry anymore after finding out its value
"Antiques Roadshow" guests are usually curious about the actual value of things in their homes that seem to be precious and vintage. But despite that, they're almost always caught by surprise, and some even refuse to believe the expert after a massive appraisal. This happened once again when a guest brought a necklace made of several glass pieces strung together. The expert for the segment, after speaking to other experts on the show, came to the conclusion that this was made towards the end of the 18th century. The glass pieces, however, were from the Roman Empire.
The guest already seemed shocked when she learned that her necklace was crafted in the 18th century, so one could only imagine how she felt when she was told that its components were from the 1st century AD, which was a whopping 2,000 years ago. Items from that era are usually excavated by archaeological teams. That is the story for the small pieces of glass as well.
When asked if the guest knew anything about the history of the item, she said that she only knew a little bit about how it was passed down to her. “All I know is the fact that it was left to me by my mother, and prior to that, I believe it was given to my mother by an old aunt of hers,” she said. The expert said that the glass pieces were part of Roman objects of the time, like bowls, jugs, and vessels.
“When they were found, they certainly didn’t look like this. When we turned the back over, it shows the unpolished surface. Here is how the glass would have looked. These are the little fragments in their raw state. By being in the ground, glass decomposes and develops a silvery iridescence. As a result, the collectors polished them again, and by repolishing, as the Romans had done originally, the colors inside the glass come out,” the expert added.
This was a technique that was lost to the world as the Roman Empire fell and was forgotten until the 19th century. The expert called them wonderful methods of making glass before noting the various patterns in each of the pieces of glass in the necklace. The guest definitely wasn’t expecting something that she had worn multiple times to have belonged to one of the very first empires in human history.
“These would have been marvellous, extremely valuable treasures in their day. The complete bowls were really quite wonderful. Very few survive in intact condition. A few have come from excavations, complete. They were normally repolished and put on display in the museums,” the expert added. He also added that smaller fragments, like the glass on the necklace, were a hit with collectors.
This ensured that the necklace was worth a pretty penny, but the guest could never have expected the value. The expert said it was worth around £6,000 ($7,955) to £10,000 ($13,260). The guest was shocked upon hearing this. “I definitely won’t wear it now,” she said.
More on Market Realist:
'Antiques Roadshow' guest stunned by the value of her vintage jewelry: 'I wear it quite a lot'
'Antiques Roadshow' guest breaks down after hearing the value of her heirloom with 'dramatic story'
