Awkward Antiques Roadshow moments – expert accidentally ‘drinks’ urine to portrait ‘copy’

There have been plenty of surprising Antiques Roadshow valuations – but there have been a few awkward moments too.

Guests bring their items on both the UK and US versions of the beloved show, in the hope that may find out more about their valuables or even receive a surprising valuation.

However, some guests have been left heartbroken after discovering the truth about their items – while audiences have been left in shock as experts nearly dropped vases or accidently “drank” urine.

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Here, Daily Star looks at some of the most awkward Antiques Roadshow moments.

Guest begs ‘don’t drop vase’

Earlier this year, Antiques Roadshow expert Andy McConnell jokingly almost dropped a guest’s vase, leaving the guest begging him not to.

The guest looked nervous as Andy showed the crowd the multi-coloured vase she had brought to be valued, before he jokingly went to drop the item.

She could be heard telling him: “Please don’t drop it.”

Andy luckily did not drop the item, before going on to tell her that she had “very good taste.”

Speaking about the vase, the guest explained: “I inherited this vase from my granny, who I really, really adored.”

She added: “It was absolutely stunning, and I always thought it looked like a bird, like a toucan.”

Andy then told her that the vase was designed by Dino Martens in 1951, before revealing that it could be worth anywhere between £6,000 to £8,000.

Expert accidentally ‘drinks’ urine

Andy was involved in another awkward moment when he discovered that what he thought was a 150 year old bottle of port was actually full of urine, rusty nails and human hair.

A guest brought a bottle he had found in his house onto the show in 2016, with Andy dating the bottle all the way back to the 1800s.

He injected a syringe into the cork to extract some of the liquid inside, before deciding to give it a taste – much to the shock of the crowd.

Andy unsurprisingly pulled a face as he exclaimed: “I think it’s port – port or red wine…or it’s full of rusty old nails and that’s rust!”

Host Fiona Bruce later revealed to Andy what was actually inside the bottle, saying: “Inside were these brass pins, all of these dating from the late 1840s and the liquid – urine, a tiny pit of alcohol and one human hair.

“And a mysterious little creature called an ostracod, which is like a little cockle. So what this was was not a bottle of port or wine but a witches bottle.”

She continued: “So buried in the threshold of the house as a talisman against witchcraft, against curses, against misfortune coming into the home. So you glad you tried it?”

Andy then joked: “It was too much of a good opportunity to miss!”

Drawing revealed as a copy

One Antiques Roadshow guest received a huge shock in 2021, when they discovered a painting they brought to be valued was actually a copy.

The owner explained that the portrait, known as “Sulky,” because of its grumpy expression was bought at a car boot sale.

She said: “My parents bought him from Cirencester car-boot sale in the late 80s, because my dad thought that Sulky looked like his dad, it’s been in our house ever since.”

However, antiques expert Alexandra Gill had some sad news to break after revealing that the original drawing was sketched by Gerald W Tooby – but sadly the guest’s item was a copy of that drawing.

“One of the reasons you can tell that it is a copy is because it’s got very sharp edges,” said Alexandra.

“And if you look very, very closely, you can see it’s pixelated, so you can see very, very small dots as the image is made up, which is another indication that it’s a copy.”

Although the guest looked dissapointed, Alexandra did have some good news, adding: “It does have Gerard Tooby’s signature on it, in ballpoint, so that’s always quite fun to have. It means that he knew about it.”

High school art project mistakenly valued

It’s not just on the UK version that viewers have witnessed on-air blunders – as the US edition has had plenty of surprises too.

In 2016, a guest brought in a glazed redware jug decorated with six faces that they bought for $300 (£238).

An antiques expert dated the piece of pottery to the “late 19th century,” and then compared the piece to work by Pablo Picasso – before declaring its value to be anywhere between an eye-watering $30,000 (£23,800) to $50,000 (£39,670).

However, it was soon revealed that the piece of pottery was not antique at all – and had instead been made by an art student in a high school ceramics class in 1973.

A viewer watching the episode recognised the piece of work and contacted the programme to say it had been made by her friend Soule.

The Guardian reported that Soule later told her local newspaper: “I don’t know where those faces came from; they just came roaring out of me on to those pots.”

The pot’s value was corrected to between $3,000 (£2380) to $5,000 (£3967), with The Guardian reporting that the antiques expert added: “Obviously, I was mistaken as to its age by 60 to 80 years.

“I feel the value at auction, based on its quality and artistic merit, is in the $3,000-$5,000 range. Still not bad for a high schooler in Oregon.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk