Antiques Roadshow: Chess set valued

An Antiques Roadshow guest was left stunned when expert Hilary Kay revealed the staggering valuation of a family heirloom which had not been touched for 70 years.

During a classic episode of the BBC show, and surrounded by toy trains in their boxes, Hilary began: “This is the most extraordinary collection in the most extraordinary condition.

“I would say that you are much too young to have this yourself, so where did it come from?”

The guest explained: “It belonged to the husband of my godmother and it was put together all between the two world wars.

“It was packed away when they got married, in fact, that was in 1928, and there it stayed. So it was in a box for 70 years.”

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Hilary laughed and joked: “A bit like sleeping beauty. Did you awake it with a kiss when you opened the box?”

The guest admitted: “There was some surprise but I didn’t kiss it,” before Hilary went on to explain a little but about the history of the trains.

She explained: “Opening this box was a bit like getting into sleeping beauty’s castle because you felt like nothing had been touched.

“I mean I felt slightly in awe in even undoing the packaging because the tissue paper has never been unwrapped, but what this box tells us is really a history of the British toy train industry.

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“I am going to take it out but I do feel I am the first person to have handled this train for decades and decades. I feel incredibly privileged.

“So here we have a 440 and when I say it is new, mint condition, this is completely mint condition, I have never seen anything like it.

“As a kid can you imagine getting that and lifting the lid in excitement, seeing that! Just fabulous.”

It was soon time for Hilary to give the guest a rough estimate on what she thought the sets could be worth.

She revealed: “When it comes to value, obviously, I can see these and I am calculating what these could be.

“I have glimpsed, without unpacking, glimpsed what the other boxes contain and I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it would fetch as a collection £10,000.

“I mean I may be a tad conservative on that,” the guest was left speechless and managed to quietly reply: “Really? That is a lot of money.”

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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