'Antiques Roadshow' guest refuses to sell her family heirloom even if it was 'worth a million'
It's very rare to get a million-dollar appraisal for an item on "Antiques Roadshow," which is why it's surprising when someone doesn't want to part with such an item. Putting sentimental value over monetary worth, one guest refused to let her family heirloom go even for £1 million (~$1.3 million). The guest shared the incredible story of the 19th-century diamond brooch and how it survived the atrocities of World War 2. In the end, the appraiser John Benjamin did his duty of sharing an estimated value of the brooch, which was about £1,000 to £1,500, but he acknowledged that its true value can't be gauged realistically, given its history.
The episode of the brooch caught the appraiser's eye as it was a remarkable piece of jewelry covered in diamonds. When he looked closely, he found the number 56, which indicated that it had links to Soviet Russia. "The star itself, which is a typical design of the 19th Century, is set with a cluster of white stones, which are diamonds," he explained to the guest. He then asked the guest to share the story of how she acquired the item. He told the guest it was an extraordinary item to have and thanked her for bringing it in, as seen in the video available here.
The owner shared that it was her grandmother's brooch, which had survived Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. She shared that after 10 days of the invasion, the Russians entered the country from the East, and her family was caught in the middle. “They were trying to reach an aunt's house in Warsaw, Poland, but they were arrested en route by the army. They were accused of being spies and, without trial or any evidence, they were sentenced to five years of hard labor in Siberia," she told Benjamin.
This astonished the expert, who couldn't believe that the guest's family was sentenced to five years of hard labor for doing nothing. The guest added that when her family arrived in the prisoner camp, the men and women were separated, and her grandmother never saw her father again. "For the next couple of years, my grandmother and her mother were moved from camp to camp, and all of their possessions were stolen from them," she shared.
She explained that her grandmother kept the brooch hidden in her cardigan, which she treated like a rag to pretend that it didn't have any value. "It's the only thing left of their life in Poland before the war," she added. She further told the expert that she never intended to sell the item and would eventually pass it on to her daughter, who would carry it forward. "You could tell me it was worth £1 million and I still wouldn't sell it," she said.
Despite the guest's assertion, Benjamin went on to share the appraisal to fulfill his duty. Explaining that the brooch was made of gold & silver and was studded with diamonds, he told the guest that it would be worth around £1,000 to £1,500 (~$1,300 to $2,000) in the market. However, he added that the item's value went far beyond his appraisal as the piece connected them with the past.
