BBC Antiques Roadshow in Derbyshire reveals 'piece of tat' jewellery is worth thousands

An Antiques Roadshow guest was left utterly astonished after a supposed 'piece of tat' dismissed by her husband was revealed to be extremely valuable during the show.

Arriving on the well-known BBC programme, which was filmed at Cromford Mills earlier this year, a couple was eager to find out the worth of several items of jewellery. Despite her husband deprecatingly referring to one item as 'tat', the wife maintained her fondness for this special piece.

Explaining to expert Susan the history behind their belongings, she said: "They were from my husband's side - from his mother - and when she died, my husband said his mum had a lovely opal bracelet that I might like. So we dug it out and that was that."

The wife continued: "Amongst a heap of things in this big box, we reached the bottom and there it was. My husband scoffed, 'you don't want that - it's a load of tat'. It's just a piece of glass. But I insisted, 'well I like it.'".

Her husband added with curiosity: "We'd like to know what it is! It's very big for a precious stone, I would have thought.", reports the Mirror.

Susan then turned their disbelief into awe as she unveiled the truth about the bangle, saying: "Let's start with the bangle first. We know it's opal like you said, but it's really beautiful. As we can see, there are these wonderful opals, all graduating in size, and have diamonds in between, which really help to bring out the beautiful colours."

"The greens, the blues, flashes of oranges we see around the stones. It really is totally magnificent and the added bonus with any piece of jewellery is having the original box which we have here. If we open the box up, we can see the piece was bought at Wartski's in Llandudno. It's now based in London but this is where they were established."

She continued: "They've gone on to be one of the most important jewellers in the world, known for selling Faberge but we can calm things a bit because this isn't Faberge, but it really is a super example of 1880s jewellery."

The conversation then shifted to the necklace as she said: "Then we come on to the piece of tat that you would call it. This comes from the Edwardian period and has diamonds which are set at the top here. They are set in platinum to the front. You need strength to support this jewel here. It's actually aquamarine. The colour's even all the way through the stone as well."

When Susan revealed the potential auction value, she declared: "All in all, it's moved a long way from tat! The aquamarine pendant, if it went up to auction, would be around three to £5,000."

"The opal bangle, of course, is a magnificent piece and if that came up to auction, we would be looking at an estimate of eight to £10,000," which led the owner to respond in surprise: "I wasn't expecting that! I think we better have another look in that jewellery box."