Top 10 Most Surprising Discoveries At The Antique Roadshow

5. Frederic Remington Portrait

Ty Dodge brought in a family portrait by Frederic Remington, an influential American painter and sculptor. The painting almost looks like a photograph, despite being done in 1896. This is one of the trademarks of Frederic Remington’s work. Ty had the portrait appraised in the 60s, and at the time it was said to be worth $7,500. This time around, however, he discovered the painting was actually worth about $800,000!

4. Diego Rivera Oil Painting

Rowe Ferguson brought in this painting by famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. He told the appraiser that the painting had been in the family for 80 years, most of which spent hanging behind a door in their kitchen. The appraiser told Rowe about the history of the painting – that it was actually done during Rivera’s teen years, and there are only a handful of paintings around from that time in the artist’s life. In fact, experts knew that this painting existed, but they had no idea where it was for the last 70 years. Rowe knew the painting was probably worth something, but he was floored to find out it was valued at $1 million!

3. Red Stockings Baseball Archive

This is one of the most valuable collections to make its way to the roadshow. The owner of the collection knew she had something special. Her grandmother owned a Boston boarding house, which ended up housing the Red Stockings baseball team – one of the first professional teams that got paid. As a result, she kept their baseball cards, thought to be among the first trading cards in circulation. She also had letters from the players with funny anecdotes and signatures. The entire collection is worth about a million dollars!

2. Jade Carvings

Taylor brought her father’s collection of jade carvings to the roadshow in 2014, hoping to see if they were worth anything. She didn’t know very much about the small collection, only that the pieces were purchased during the 30s and 40s. Once each piece was examined, she was shocked to find that the entire collection was worth over a million dollars – and that was on the conservative end of things!

1. Patek Philippe Pocket Watch

Patek Philippe watches are among the top most prestigious watches you can buy. Even their newer models go for thousands of dollars, so when this vintage model came to the roadshow a few years ago, the appraisers knew it was something special. The owner of the watch said he had it appraised a few years ago at $6,000. The appraiser at the show knew that was a low estimate. So low, in fact, that he gave the watch an updated value of about $250,000. It turns out, however, that after even more research, the owner of the watch found out his grandfather had it custom made, which made it one-of-a-kind. It sold at Southby’s for $1.5 million!

Watch the video below to get more details of these amazing discoveries!

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