Antiques Roadshow expert stuns guest with heart-wrenching truth behind doll picked up for £18

AN ANTIQUES Roadshow expert stunned a guest with the heart-wrenching truth behind a doll picked up for £18. In a classic episode of the BBC show, expert Nicholas Mitchell met a lady who had bought a wooden doll at a fair. He started by saying: “This is probably one of the earliest items I have […]

AN ANTIQUES Roadshow expert stunned a guest with the heart-wrenching truth behind a doll picked up for £18.

In a classic episode of the BBC show, expert Nicholas Mitchell met a lady who had bought a wooden doll at a fair.

He started by saying: “This is probably one of the earliest items I have seen here today.

“And interesting as it’s one that brings history and absolutely bang in your face. It is so immediate and interesting.

He then asked the woman what she thought the item was and she said: “I think it was made as a doll in the 17th century possibly.”

He replied: “I think you’re right, and I think what makes it so emotively important as this was almost certainly carved by an older man possibly.”

He then said he thought it was made in the late 16th Century and added: “A member of a simple farming family way out in the country.

“Occasionally he would come into Winchester to see the fashionable walking around the street.

“And he copied their dress, and I think it is wonderful. It has been played with, it’s been handled and it’s been loved.”

The woman then revealed how much she loved the item after buying it at a fair six months before coming on the show, and Nicholas said: “You must have paid quite a lot of money.”

But he got a huge shock when she said she had only paid £18 for it.

He said: “That is not a lot of money, that is mad. How anyone could sell that for £18.”

He then told her she should have been charged at least £500 for it, leaving the woman shocked.

Antiques Roadshow is available on BBC iPlayer.