‘Antiques Roadshow’ Guest Learns ‘Cheap’ Ring Worth A Fortune
The best part of Antiques Roadshow on PBS is when the hosts let someone know they have something much more valuable than they ever could have believed. That happened again recently with a woman who had bought a cubic zirconia years ago for $30.
That ring was a lot more valuable than she ever dreamed.
Cubic Zirconia Found To Be Worth A Fortune On Antiques Roadshow
A woman brought a ring she bought for $30 at an auction to Antiques Roadshow in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When she bid on it, she was told it was just made of cubic zirconia, so she figured $30 was a good price since she liked how it looked. However, she said after she got it, things about the ring seemed a little off.
“I bought it at auction, got it home and I noticed it had a lot of sparkle,” she said (via The Express). “It was sold to me as a cubic zirconia in silver so it really had a lot of fire, so I got it under a microscope and noticed little symbols on the outside of the shank.”
She said that she did some research on it and looked online. She looked up “dogs head,” “hallmark,” “Platinum,” and “French mark” in search engines. That led her to the historical information that France started using the dog head hallmark in about 1912.
She then said she always wondered why someone would “put cubic zirconia in possibly a platinum setting.” That then led to her getting some incredible news about the little ring for which she had paid $30.
Antiques Roadshow Prices The Ring
Expert Mark Schafter came into the picture and began to explain things about the ring. “Perhaps it’s a very good question and you make a very good point that the setting can actually reveal something about the piece,” he said.
“We tested this and tested it again, and the reason that it’s confusing is that it’s not one stone,” he explained. He then pointed out that it looked like one stone with multiple faces. However, he said it is actually a central stone in an unusual setting.
“There are small trapezoidal stones in a step fashion set all around the central stone,” he said, which he admitted was a little odd. They tested more and proved it was a diamond, not cubic zirconia. He said it is eight to ten carats and a stone that is about 1.5 with more carats surrounding it.
This ring was made in the 1920s or 1930s. The woman paid $30 for it at an auction but just learned it is actually worth $25,000 to $30,000.
What are your thoughts on this new valuable find thanks to Antiques Roadshow? Let us know in the comments below.
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