- A guest came to the program to have her late husband’s rice bowl appraised.
- He was surprised to learn that it was worth much more than $1,000 as he thought.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was completely shocked to discover that her late husband’s rice bowl was valued at just five figures.
The guest began to explain, in the resurfaced clip, that the rice bowl and its corresponding plate belonged to her mother and father-in-law.
She said her father-in-law was the first consul general of the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea, and handed the bowl of rice to her husband.
The appraiser, Lark E. Mason, stepped in to give some background on the piece.
Expert appraiser Lark E. Mason gave the guest a master class on 18th and 19th century Chinese pottery techniques.
In the photo: the rice bowl and plate that the guest inherited from her late husband. The bowl used to be in the possession of her father-in-law, who she claims was the first consul general of South Korea.
Mason noticed that the bowl and lid were separate from the plate because they were different colors.
‘Oh really? Since I had them, they have always been together,” the guest said.
Mason added that the plate was never intended to be a stand for the bowl because there is no iconography or details on the plate to indicate this.
Moving on from the first revelation about the plate’s lack of relationship to the bowl, Mason told the guest that the plate had features reminiscent of 18th century China.
‘You notice it has a very wide center section that is flat and then curves upwards. “This shape is a distinctive Chinese shape,” Mason said.
“This particular form was something that was… a form that was favored in 18th century China and into the early 19th century.”
He concluded that the plate was probably made closer to the 19th century because 18th century plates would have had a mark on the bottom.
‘The very white color of this is indicative of a type of quality that would only have been available to the wealthiest people. “That’s what helps us understand the timing of this,” Mason said.
The guest was completely dumbfounded by the real value of the rice bowl. It was much, much more than the $1,000 he thought he could sell for.
He used a similar method to determine the time period the bowl and lid were from, although he theorized that the dual piece was from the 20th century.
After taking a deep dive into centuries-old Chinese ceramic techniques, Mason asked the guest to guess how much her family heirloom was worth.
‘Maybe $1,000?’ she ventured.
“Well, I think it’s worth a little more than that,” he said.
He estimated that the bowl and its corresponding plate fetched between $15,000 and $25,000 at auction.
When she said $15,000, the guest’s face turned into disbelief and she covered her mouth with her hand.
‘Oh my goodness. Oh my heavens! That is surprising”.