Highest Value Item Takes Owner Completely By Surprise | Antiques Roadshow

Surprised? Yes. Good. It's beautiful isn't it? Look at it gleaming in the gleam of gold. This is actually a brooch but it broke so I use it as a necklace but I will have it repaired one day. It's worth it I think. They're rather fascinating aren't they? Were they your great grandmothers? They were my great grandmothers yes and came down to me. From Germany? From Germany yes. I think what's significant about this jewellery is that it's made of filigree and granulation which is typical of all types of folk jewellery from the Mediterranean up to the north countries in Denmark and Scandinavia. The bracelet itself is a later edition because the colour of the gold is different and the phrasing of the metal. And yet there are holes here for stitching or at least some kind of textile and it's my idea that this was once a hair bracelet that there was tightly woven lock of hair supporting this bracelet. Around it? Around it and this is what we very often find that of course this is perishable and wears out and yet a gold clasp remains and so they string it onto perfectly sensibly a later gold bracelet. But hair I'm pretty certain that it was actually. That's interesting. It's an idea we're totally at odds with in the 20th century. There must have been strong hair. Well I think it was. I think it really was. Well good Teutonic hair you see. That's what we want. But anyway they're marvellous survival but oddly enough having opened your little Pandora's box of of jewellery here it's not the jewellery that you have in the case that's interesting me but it's the necklace you've got around your neck. Can we can you take that off? Yes. Let's have a really good look. I thought it belongs to what? You thought it belonged it became part of it? Yes. Yes I think it's not well it's decorated again with with with these tiny granules of gold which gold is the most mysterious commodity because you can solder granules of the tiniest dust like proportions to the surface of gold and give it this this very interesting texture and that's been going on since very ancient times and these have erroneously been called muff chains they're not they're not muff chains they because they were long it was assumed that a muff would hang on it and put your hands through it and it's quite nice to be able to sort of demolish that terminology once and for all because they simply are not muff chains they're simply there for decoration it dates from about 1840 and it's this one that's really disproportionately valuable because complicated gold jewellery not easy to wear in the 20th century and these two um fascinating as they are they're worth low hundreds of pounds say 350 450 for the clasp alone and with the bracelet 500 pounds but this one put it down on your little inventory for two thousand pounds surprised yes good