Antiques Roadshow guest left speechless as £2 charity shop vase gets impressive valuation

An Antiques Roadshowguest was left in shock when a vase she picked up for just £2 in a charity shop was valued at nearly £1,000.

The surprising moment on the BBC One show took place during an episode filmed at Ebrington Square in Derry, where antiques expert John Sandon examined a pair of decorative Belleek vases.

The guest admitted she had almost thrown them away, unaware of their true worth.

An unexpected find

John was immediately intrigued by the vases, noting their unique coloured detail.

"What is so nice is to see so much colour on a piece of Belleek," he said. "Most Belleek pieces are white or have a little of the mother-of-pearl iridescence. But here, you've got colour – the tulips, a little red, and coloured lustre, which is really rare to see."

Curious about how she came across them, John asked the guest where she had found them.

She explained: "I actually picked them up in a charity shop in Coleraine about five years ago. They were just on a shelf, and they were damaged, so I wasn’t going to take them."

She initially walked away, dismissing the items, but her husband encouraged her to reconsider.

"My husband said, 'Oh, there's something about them, they're nice.' But I told him, 'They're damaged.'"

A bargain price

The charity shop had originally priced the vases at £4, but when the guest hesitated, she was offered them for £2.

"So I said, 'Well, for £2...'" she recalled, prompting John to echo in surprise, "£2!"

John quickly identified them as rare early Belleek tulip vases from around 1870.

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"The tulip vases, they didn't make very many of them, and they certainly didn’t make so many with the added colours and gold trim," he explained. "That always makes it a little bit more special."

Despite one vase being heavily damaged, John focused on the better-preserved piece.

"That one actually looks rather a mess, doesn’t it?" he remarked. "So let's forget that one and concentrate on this."

A jaw-dropping valuation

Then came the moment of truth. "For that reason, we can forgive a bit of damage. This vase alone is worth probably £700, pushing even £1,000," John announced.

The guest was visibly stunned: "Wow! I actually was going to dump them when I first brought them home. I didn't like them."

John responded in disbelief: "Dump them?"

After confirming her initial doubts, she laughed as John advised her to discard the badly damaged vase but keep the valuable one.

"Ditch that one and enjoy a beautiful Belleek tulip vase," he said.

Still reeling from the surprise, the guest expressed her gratitude: "Oh lovely. Thank you very much. That’s brilliant – oh wow!"

Antiques Roadshow airs on BBC One and is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.