'Antiques Roadshow' guest gasps and says 'my Lord' after hearing the value of his cartridge box
"Antiques Roadshow" guests are usually people who hold on to items for decades without having any idea how much they're actually worth. This is why their reactions to the appraisals stand out as a unique feature on the show. One such guest received a shock of his lifetime when he discovered that an old cartridge box, which had been lying around his house for decades, was an important relic of the American Revolutionary War. The lack of awareness of the man, who lugged the cartridge pouch over his shoulder, was itself surprising to expert Rafael Eledge. Not only did Eledge educate the guest on the item's significance, but he also appraised the item at $20,000 to $25,000.
"I look at it and I thought, 'Well, that's just a reproduction.' And he takes it off very roughly, and he throws it, literally throws it on the table. I'm like, 'That can't be.' And I got to looking and I'm like, 'oh my goodness, it is!'" Eledge recalled.
Cutting back to the original episode, the appraiser asked the guest what he knew about the item and how he got it. "It's what I believe is a Civil War cartridge pouch. Has a regimental number on it and I don't know if that's a New York regiment or a Massachusetts regiment," the guest shared. "It was in the house that my parents bought down on the Cape at the very end of World War II, and there were a bunch of things in the attic, and, uh, that's where it came from," the guest added.
Eledge then revealed that the pouch belonged to a time much earlier than the Civil War. "Well, in the century before then, we had some guys come over from England, and they wore red coats. And if you notice in the center of the plate, it's got some red. That's because this is an original Revolutionary War soldier's cartridge box," Eledge shared. "No kidding!" the guest said in response.
He went on to explain that it once belonged to the 43rd Light Infantry of the British soldiers from the Revolutionary War. He pointed out that the box had potentially the only non-excavated example of the plate with the number 43 on it. "They were not only in Boston, they were at the Battle of Bunker Hill," Eledge added.
"There aren't enough superlatives for this box," Eledge said before sharing more details. He noted that it had the original buff leather sling, the box was rock solid with the original closure tab, and the original wooden block inside. "And finding all of those things together is like lining up all of those numbers on a lottery ticket," Eledge told the guest. He then went on to say that while a Civil War box would have been worth $1,000, the item in front of them would retail for between $20,000 and $25,000. "My lord. That's amazing!" the shocked guest said response.
In the end, Eledge shared that despite telling the guest about the importance of the item, after filming, the guest once again threw the sling over his shoulder and walked away. "And in 2019, I think without a doubt it would bring at least $50,000, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it didn't bring twice that," Eledge noted in the end.
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