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An Antiques Roadshow guest was left speechless after discovering the true value of her “holy grail” item which had never been seen before on the BBC show.
In the episode, expert Jon Bradley traveled to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to meet visitors hoping to sell their prized possessions for cash.
Among them was a woman who brought in an antique American coastal children’s bench, an item the expert admitted he had never seen in person before.
Inspecting the item, Jon gushed: “One of the most notable things about Antiques Roadshow is that after many, many years working on it, time and time again I see things I’ve never seen before, and this is one of them.” .
It is, as it says there, the Coasting Bank. It’s an American-made money bank and they were made as a novelty because obviously you wanted your child to save money.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was left speechless after discovering the true value of her “holy grail” item which had never been seen before on the BBC show.
In the episode, expert Jon Bradley traveled to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to meet visitors hoping to sell their prized possessions for cash.
“It’s made of cast iron and often has the patent date on the base, but unfortunately this one doesn’t, nor does the brass slider.”
He demonstrated how the contraption worked: a coin was placed in the arms of the child figure, which was then pushed down the brass slide to deposit the money at the bottom.
The guest revealed that she found the unique item in an old toiletry bag while doing spring cleaning.
She explained: “It must have belonged to my husband when he was younger, but I don’t know more than that.”
When asked if there was any way to know how many of the banks were formed, the expert replied: “It’s impossible to say.”
‘I know they were in the catalogue, but they were often produced as a catalog illustration and then if they got an order they would produce them.
‘What makes it so rare is that, although it appears in this 1884 catalog and cost less than a dollar, a copy, in my experience and in all records, has never appeared anywhere, neither in a museum nor in a auction.
“From a collector’s point of view, this is the holy grail of banking collecting. My problem is getting a valuation.’
He demonstrated how the contraption worked: a coin was placed in the arms of the child figure, which was then pushed down the brass slide to deposit the money at the bottom.
The guest revealed that she found the unique item in an old toiletry bag while doing spring cleaning.
As he prepared to reveal the huge sum, he explained: “Now the condition is not brilliant, it’s obviously been sliding up and down for years, but actually this is all the original paint on the base, this could all be wiped off “. .
‘So it’s an eight out of 10 from a condition point of view. Now the world record price for a bank ever sold is in the United States and the price was $426,000, which is equivalent to about £285,000.
“If you ever decide to part ways with it, the United States is where you’ll find the market.”
“I don’t think this is going to achieve that, but if you decide to go to auction I would strongly suggest entering a figure between £20,000 and £25,000.”
Once the astonishing figure was revealed, the guest put her hands to her mouth in shock, prompting a gasp from the crowd.