Antiques Road Trip presenter gutted to discover Humpty Dumpty pot is broken – but she gets the last laugh

AN ANTIQUES Road Trip presenter was gutted to discover a Humpty Dumpty pot was broken – but she got the last laugh. A recent episode of the BBC show saw experts Izzie Balmer and David Harper in Fife, Perthshire, travelling around to find hidden gems. In one shop, Izzie found a blue tobacco pot in […]

AN ANTIQUES Road Trip presenter was gutted to discover a Humpty Dumpty pot was broken – but she got the last laugh.

A recent episode of the BBC show saw experts Izzie Balmer and David Harper in Fife, Perthshire, travelling around to find hidden gems.

In one shop, Izzie found a blue tobacco pot in a glass cabinet and got incredibly excited.

However, she soon noticed something was amiss, telling viewers: “I was really excited when I saw this, and now, I’m really disappointed.

“So this is probably a tobacco jar, although you could use it as a tea caddy or a biscuit barrel.

“We’ve got this Humpty Dumpty type figure on the top, smoking a pipe and holding a mug there, and then it’s got this lovely silver rim.

“So it’s London, 1920, and we have here the Royal Doulton stamp. Now, the reason I was excited is firstly (because I) absolutely flipping love that colour, isn’t it stunning?

“But mostly because, actually, I haven’t ever seen a Doulton tobacco jar quite like this, now the disappointment comes because immediately I can see Humpty Dumpty has been off the top of this.”

She continued: “It’s obviously been dropped and smashed, and it’s just such a shame because it was probably in pristine condition, quite a good rare item.

“It’s priced at £145, now everything is telling me that that is too much money for this being a broken item.

“But there’s just something about it, and I’m hoping that someone else thinks the same too.”

The expert managed to get the owner down to £90, and later in the episode, the pot went to auction.

The auctioneer started things off at £45 and there was an immediate flurry of bids, taking it up to £90 and beyond.

Izzie was thrilled while David was astounded as the price kept going up until the bidding ended at a whopping £240.

David clapped Izzie’s success while she told him: “I’m really pleased, thank you, I quite like being in your position, these profits are quite a nice feeling.”

Izzie needed the cash boost, as at the start of the day, David had £438.98 and made a small profit ending him on £446.14.

However, Izzie had started with £283.26, but thanks to the success of the tobacco pot, she closed in on David with £433.82.

Antiques Road Trip is available on BBC iPlayer.