While many people try their luck on shows like Cash in the Attic and Antiques Roadshow, often walking away disappointed, one bloke once found his watch was worth A LOT more than he’d imagined.
In this classic TV moment from a few years back, a guy appeared on Antiques Roadshow with a story about a 1960 Rolex GMT- Master replica watch for sale . He’d picked it up for $120.35 (£97 – around $894/£635, in today’s money) back in the 1960s when he was stationed in Germany.
He explained that his sergeant told him they were the best quality fake watches ever made and, being a military man, he was clearly used to doing what his sergeant told him.
The fella rocked up to the Antique Roadshow to get his luxury copy watch valued and reckoned it would probably be worth around $1,500 (£1,219) now.
He told the story of how he came to buy the watch, explaining that it hadn’t been cheap at the time, as it had actually cost him over a month’s salary.
However, the antique expert blew the man’s mind when he told him the watch was now worth between $65,000 to $75,000 (£52,800-£60,900).
This is the face of a man who is trying to work out how quickly he can get to an auction:
The owner had kept all the original paperwork – even his receipt – as well as the original box and bracelet.
Without all that, the rare Swiss made copy watches would have still been worth a fair whack, but thankfully it all added to the value even more.
More recently, another Antiques Roadshow guest in the UK showed off an extremely valuable 18th-century statue – which he’d managed to buy for just £30 ($42).
The man explained how he’d managed to pick up the Chinese bronze statue for just £30 a few months before.
He said: “I’ve collected things for many years now and it was a recent buy about six months ago.
“It was a nice little find at a local car boot sale, I was just walking along the field and there it was on a stall – £30.
“I picked it up and carried on my journey.”
Axpert Lee Young if he’d known what he’d bought when he found the statue, to which the man replied: “I first thought it was from the late Ming dynasty.
“But a friend corrected me and he believed it was 18th-century.”
Young explained the statue is a figure of Amitayus, seated on a ‘wonderful throne’.
“It’s gilt bronze and it’s Chinese, and it dates from the 18th Century,” he said.
“In fact, it dates to the sort of Qianlong period between 1736 and 1795.
“The thought is that actually Qianlong had about 10,000 of this figure made to celebrate his 60th birthday, and in fact, the dowager empress, his mother’s birthday as well.”
Young warned that there are a number of ‘fakes coming onto the market’, but said the guest’s statue had ‘enough honest wear and patination’.
He said: “The quality is good enough to satisfy me that this is one that was made in the 18th Century.
“I have no hesitation in saying that if that came up at auction today it would carry a presale estimate of between £4,000 to £6,000.”