Nobody likes clearing out the attic, but you could have some valuable pieces up there, including ceramics, antique jewellery, first edition books, paintings and vintage watches
Rings on a table(Image: Getty Images)
You could unknowingly be sitting on some incredibly valuable items – and they might just be stuffed in your attic waiting to be discovered.
For 47 years, BBC’s Antiques Roadshow has wandered the UK, turning loft clear-outs into eye-watering valuations. Most items come in at three- to five-figure sums, but on rare occasions, experts have identified pieces worth tens or hundreds of thousands.
Antiques Roadshow is an appraisal show, meaning items are valued on air, not sold, but several have later gone to auction and made headlines all over again.
Data experts at playcasino.com have combed the show’s 48-series archive to identify five categories that turn up repeatedly, meaning unlike one-off pieces such as the FA Cup trophy or the Angel of the North maquette, you might genuinely have one in your own home.
1. Chinese Imperial Ceramics Chinese vases turn up on the Roadshow year after year. In a 2021 episode at Christchurch Park, Ipswich, expert Alexandra Aguilar Doméracki valued a damaged 18th-century Qianlong-period Imperial Chinese vase at £30,000–£50,000, telling the tearful guest that the piece would have been worth £2- £4 million had it not been cracked. In a separate case, a Qianlong-era vase that the Roadshow valued at just £2,000–£4,000 decades ago resurfaced at Sloane Street Auctions in November 2025 and sold for £164,750, more than 80 times the Roadshow estimate.
What to look for: blue-and-white porcelain, six-character reign marks on the base, dragon or floral motifs.
2. Antique Jewellery and Brooches Jewellery is the show’s most consistent performer, with five- and six-figure sales. The category record-holder remains the £1 million Fabergé flower study (Dudley, 2017), but more attainable examples appear constantly: at Clissold Park in March 2023, diamond expert Susan Rumfitt valued a Georgian ring at up to £5,000 and a 2.7-carat Art Deco single-diamond ring with the potential to reach £40,000 if recut. In October 2022, expert John Benjamin valued an emerald ring the family had assumed was costume jewellery at up to £4,000.
What to look for: Old Mine Cut diamonds, hallmarked settings, and original presentation boxes.
3. First Edition and Signed Books In 2003, expert Clive Farahar valued a single guest’s collection of 23 Beatrix Potter drawings and watercolours at £250,000 during a Dumfries filming, at the time the most expensive item Farahar had ever appraised. In May 2022, at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden, expert Justin Croft valued two battered signed Harry Potter paperbacks — including a first edition Chamber of Secrets without its dust jacket at a combined £4,000–£5,000, with most of the value coming from the J.K. Rowling inscription.
What to look for: first editions (the print line on the copyright page should read “1”), original dust jackets (vital), and any author signature.
4. Old Master and Victorian Paintings The famous case is Father Jamie MacLeod’s £400 Cheshire antique-shop find that turned out to be a £400,000 Van Dyck portrait of a Brussels Magistrate at Cirencester (June 2013). Notably, the painting later failed to sell at Christie’s in July 2014 despite a £500,000 estimate. But Old Master and Victorian works appear regularly: at Arley Hall, Cheshire, in June 2016, picture expert Rupert Maas identified a long-lost Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema portrait of engraver Leopold Löwenstam — a wedding gift kept in the family for generations, and valued it at up to £300,000, calling it “one of the best pictures we have ever seen on the Roadshow.”
What to look for: old canvases with provenance going back generations and any inherited works from Victorian or earlier ancestors.
5. Vintage Rolex and Quality Watches Vintage Rolex models in particular have become a Roadshow staple. At Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden in April 2022, horologist Richard Price valued a Rolex Sea-Dweller 1665, the “Great White”, at £18,000–£20,000, despite scratched glass and 30 years sitting in a drawer. The owner had bought it new in January 1982 for just £449.
What to look for: original boxes and papers (these can double the value), all-original parts, and reference numbers stamped between the lugs.
The lesson from 47 years of Antiques Roadshow: the most valuable items rarely look special at first glance. The £400,000 Van Dyck hung in a hallway. The £18,000–£20,000 Rolex sat in a drawer for three decades. It’s worth taking a closer look at what’s already in your house.
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