Antiques Roadshow expert reassures he 'wouldn't lie' about five-figure value for penknife

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow. 

An Antiques Roadshow expert insisted he “wouldn’t lie” after dishing out an extraordinary price for a penknife hundreds of years old.

Surrounded by fans of the BBC series, expert Jon Baddeley met with a guest and straight away said his item of a penknife was “one of the most beautiful things” he’s ever seen on the show.

When asked if it had any history, the pensioner said: “Well no I’m afraid not, because it actually belongs to the family of my son’s wife and it was collected, as I gather, hundreds of years ago so it will be interesting to know just how old it is.”

“And is there a history of the family being collectors?”, Baddeley queried, to which the guest replied: “Indeed, apparently of Elizabethan memorabilia but I gather it also plays a tune at one end but it’s difficult to actually get at it.”

The expert continued: “It’s a bit of a secret, isn’t it? Now let’s look at it in detail.

“Two blades, one silver guild. It’s decorated beautifully in enamel and little sea pearls inlaid.

“And then you turn it over, flip it over, and on the other side, more sea pearls and you see the flowers decorated, that’s all hand enamelled. Absolutely exquisite quality.

“The best, best possible type of enamel."

“And then at the bottom, you just flip open and as you can see there, that’s a little keyhole which is where you would wind it up and then it would play a couple of tunes I would expect.

Unfortunately, the key for the item, which dates around 1810 to 1820, was “slightly broken” so the tune couldn’t be played by Baddeley said it could be fixed by a watchmaker.

He then queried: “Now, before we come to value, you say it belongs to a member of the family, your daughter-in-law. So why isn’t she here today?”

To this, the guest smiled: “Well she just produced a child actually, that’s why. So she sent me here in her place.”

Baddeley went on to tease: “Good, maybe you can relay this information back to her and hopefully the value will put a little smile on her and her baby’s face.”

“It is something that is fantastic quality, extremely rare and currently very popular.

“The Russian market is very strong in buying this type of unusual mechanical musical instrument stroke object.

“I’ve shown it to my colleagues here, they’ve never seen a musical knife so if you’re a collector, this has got something that everybody wants because they haven’t got one.”

“So now I’m on tenterhooks for what it’s worth”, the guest laughed.

Baddeley then concluded: “We’re leading up to that. At auction, I would suggest an estimate of between £60,000 and £80,000.”

Collective gasps could be heard around the audience as the guest exclaimed: “No? Honestly? Really? You sure?”

Baddeley put his hand on the pensioner’s shoulder and reassured him with a smile: “I wouldn’t lie.”

He replied: “Oh that is amazing. That is astonishing, because they only know one of its kind.”

“I’ve never seen one, I’ve spoken to other people, we’ve been in the business and added up over 100 years and when nobody’s ever seen one, you know it’s something truly desirable”, Baddeley added.

The guest went on to joke: “I better put that back in my pocket quickly!”

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.