An item brought in to an Antiques Roadshow host once proved impossible to value, all thanks to its secret past.
The item in question happened to be a mysterious medal uncovered by a woman and her daughter while sorting through a late relative's possessions.
It was presented to military medals specialist Mark Smith on a 2021 episode of the popular BBC show, while it was visiting Newby Hall in Yorkshire. Watch below:
Asked where she found the medal and why she brought it in for valuation, the woman said she and her family simply couldn't work out the medal's meaning.
She said: “Unfortunately my mum passed away in February this year. And while we were sorting out her things we came across the medal that belonged to my grandad Tommy, which was her father.
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“So it’s all been a bit of a mystery because we couldn’t find out why he actually got the medal.”
Why Mark Smith wouldn't value the item
But Smith revealed the medal actually dates back to 1955, and that it was probably a gift.
He traced it back to a group of Belgian concentration camp survivors, and made clear it was likely given out on the tenth anniversary of the camp's liberation by allied forces.
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The camp - Breendonk - is still standing, just outside of Brussels and, if Smith's description is anything to go by, it was a kind of hell on earth.
“It’s something that he does on a yearly basis, as far as I can work out, where he is taking back old soldiers,” Smith said.
“And the group in Belgium that he has affiliated himself with are a very rare group of people, because they are concentration camp survivors.
“It had two gas chambers, it had firing posts to execute people, it had gallows to hang people and it had torture chambers and it’s still there.”
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That suffering is exactly what made the medal so impossible to value. he gestured to a photo that the woman also brought in with her, and continued: "Now we always give you a valuation on the Antiques Roadshow. But we don’t give valuations to Holocaust things because there is no price you can put on what someone went through to be awarded that medal.
“So I can’t tell you what it’s worth but now you know what it is, I hope you think it was worthwhile coming to the Antiques Roadshow.”
The strangest items that have appeared on Antiques Roadshow
Though Tommy's medal has a heartbreaking history, many items that appear on Antiques Roadshow are just plain bizarre.
Human hair from famous poets
Ever dreamed of owning the locks of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
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Well, it'll cost you, as when this item was brought on Antiques Roadshow, it was valued at upwards of £40,000.
The clippings were a family heirloom, and according to expert Justin Croft, one was taken on a person's deathbed.
Yikes.
Nightmare fuel Teletubbies concept art
Turns out Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po originally looked pretty scary.
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Jonathan Hills drew the concept art for the future children's TV icons. He sadly died in 2020 and his wife brought some of his original sketches on the show in 2022.
Expert Mark Hill admitted some of the drawings were 'creepy', but went on to value the individual pieces between £500 and £2,000, and the entire collection of 80 drawings at up to £80,000.
A bottle of pee
Who could forget the time expert Andy McConnell inadvertently drank urine back in 2016?
A bloke called John found the bottle in his garden, and McConnell used the taste test to figure out what was inside, thinking it was port.
Fast forward to 2019, and Fiona Bruce revealed to McConnell: "Inside were these brass pins, all of these dating from the late 1840s, and the liquid - urine, a tiny bit of alcohol and one human hair."
It turned out it was a 'witches bottle', buried on the threshold of a house as a protection against curses and bad luck.
Additional words by Anish Vij.
Topics: BBC, Antiques Roadshow, TV
Connor Gormley