Old kitchen utensil brought on Antiques Roadshow gets unbelievable valuation despite damage

Be honest, you’re still using something in your kitchen that’s undeniably a bit broken. But hey, if it still does the job why throw it away? It’s fair to say many of us have this approach to hold back from splashing the cash on new stuff.

Except in this woman’s case, her old, damaged, kitchen utensil is worth an unbelievable amount.

Filmed in Witney back in 2002, she took her cheese keeper onto Antiques Roadshow where it was clear it wasn’t just any old piece of tat.

Yes, a keeper for cheese. But not just any random one, a ‘beautiful kingfisher’ cheese keeper. The big old item was made in a George Jones factory all the way back in 1869 so it’s fair to say it’s pretty rare.

The expert said while he’d seen this ‘shape’ before he’d ‘never’ seen one with a kingfisher holding a fish in its mouth as the knob for the lid.

He went as far to say such design is ‘incredibly silly’ and pretty ‘daft in pottery’ because it can be broken so easily.

And in fact, the beak on this one had been broken.

The woman explained she hid it behind a chair ‘so no one would find it’ but her husband dropped something and ‘took the beak off’.

It's pretty unique, that's fair to say. (BBC)

So, the expert said this damage ‘is a problem’ as he began to look further at the item, removing the extravagantly designed lid.

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“We’ll just check it out to see if it’s got any other problems,” he said. “One of the problems, is that they pick up the smell of the cheese and they pick up the smell of 100-year-old cheese – it’s a bit iffy.”

He then inspected the plate part itself which had been restored as you can see a crack running ‘right the way around’.

“It’s been sprayed all over here to disguise it,” he added.

A crack in the plate had been restored. (BBC)

But he still went on to deliver a bit of a shock with the value of this unique cheese keeper.

“Presumably, with quite a bit of damage to it, it’s lost a lot of its value,” he said.

The expert went on to advise the woman to stop hiding it down the back of the sofa and it needs ‘proper coverage’ on insurance.

That’s because ‘even though it’s damaged’, it’s worth between £4-6,000.

Now that’s a decent payday for an old broken piece.