Antiques Roadshow guest stunned as $1 vase bought at boot sale fetches thousands

Antiques Roadshow's Eric Knowles was left astounded when a glass vase, purchased for a mere £1 ($1.36) at a car boot sale, was appraised at an astonishing value. A woman from Ayrshire, who wished to remain anonymous, brought the vase to the BBC TV show for evaluation, not anticipating the staggering valuation she would receive.

Experts at Dumfries House near Cumnock identified the vase as a 1929 piece by famed French designer René Lalique, valuing it at a minimum of £25,000 ($33,900).

The five-inch-tall glass vase was crafted using an ancient technique known as cire perdue. This complex method involves creating a wax model encased in plaster, which is then melted away and replaced with molten glass.

Once the glass cools, the plaster mold is broken to reveal the final product, reports the Express.

The market value for Lalique pieces has seen a significant increase in recent years. Expressing his excitement to the Irvine Herald, Antiques Roadshow expert Eric Knowles said: "It's wonderful to find treasures like this beautiful vase during the filming of the programme."

He continued: "It certainly gives us all a buzz and we thoroughly enjoy meeting people everywhere we go. I've been waiting over 25 years for such a piece to come in, and this was the stuff of dreams.

"They'd dumped it in the attic after the plant in it died and were about to throw it away. We had a lot of clouds in Dumfries, but this was the cloud with a silver lining. It's worth at least £25,000 ($33,900)."

The vase ultimately fetched a price of £32,450 ($44,000), exceeding its previous valuation by £7,000 ($9,488).

This follows a rerun of the beloved BBC programme, aired on Sunday 8th June, viewers were transported to Brodie Castle in Scotland, where a parade of treasures awaited appraisal.

Among them was a man who wowed Richard with a 1960s Rolex GMT-Master, inherited from his uncle.

Richard, peering intently at the watch, informed the owner: "All Rolex collectors refer to these things by their reference number," and "You know as well as I do, because it says so on the dial, that it's a GMT-Master.

"It's the reference 1675, which is the classic GMT-Master. When you said 60s, I think we could fairly safely say 1960 to 1961, so that all fits in."

Upon closer inspection, Richard was thrilled to find the watch unaltered, noting that many watches are often modified during servicing, much to collectors' dismay.

He said: "They would've changed the bezel and they would've changed the dial with an upgrade," before adding:"You would've had it back thinking, 'Oh, it looks like new'. Collectors hate that, it's absolutely original, spot-on."

The expert told the owner: "It's a Rolex product of course, but it says 'Made in the USA'. So perhaps he specified that he did not want the oyster bracelet, he wanted a jubilee bracelet and they put this one on for him.

"Which sort of detracts from it a little bit, probably detracts from it by a couple of thousand pounds."

However, Richard had some good news as well, revealing that the watch is worth "£12,000 ($16,271) to £15,000 ($20,388)."

Catch Antiques Roadshow every Sunday at 8pm on BBC1.