Antiques Roadshow has been to some of the best locations around the UK, during the show’s time in Bristol when they visited the Aerospace museum, expert Susan Rumfitt took a closer look at a pair of earrings and a matching brooch. The owner was under the impression to items were costume jewellery, and he was pleasantly surprised when Susan revealed their true value.
“These are utterly spectacular, the movement, the flow – doesn’t matter what they’re made of, I just love them,” Susan began.
“How do you feel about them?”
“I felt fairly indifferent until earlier and I just thought they were costume jewellery that my wife gave me to bring along,” the guest replied.
“Who did they belong to before your wife?” Susan asked.
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“They belonged to my wife’s step-mother and she fled from Nazi Germany with her parents in the 1930s,” the man explained.
“And grew up there and then she had a very interesting life travelling the world. With things like that, they could’ve come from absolutely anywhere!”
“Well the jewels themselves are dating from the mid-50s,” Susan said.
“They have what is often referred to as this “new look” which referred to the clothes that Christian Dior had brought in in the late 40s.
“It was a freedom of expression after the Second World War, we went back to this idea of bringing out the beauty in clothes, the beauty in women.
“Now, not to shatter the dreams, but you thought they were costume jewellery – they’re not.”
Susan went onto reveal: “We have got them, full of beautiful diamonds – absolutely stunning.
“Set in white gold, but the reason why they might have been redesigned from other jewellery, is because they are different cuts of stones going on.
“Modern, brilliant-cut diamonds, which are very round, set with older, Victorian-cut diamonds, so those are the ones that probably would’ve been extracted from an older piece of jewellery.
“And then on the side, we’ve got some really lovely step-cut diamonds here,” she explained as the camera zoomed in.
“Now the older, brilliant-cut diamonds with the modern, brilliant-cut diamonds and these step-cut diamonds contracting the Victorian look that we’ve seen developing in the 1920s and 1930s.
“That’s what this brooch is about, bringing these older stones into a very contemporary piece of jewellery, together with the earrings as well,” Susan concluded.
“Obviously, it’s the Roadshow, we’re going to put some value on the items,” she said.
