Antiques Roadshow guest refuses to sell item after eye-watering valuation

dailystar.co.uk:

Antiques Roadshow expert Geoffrey Minn left a guest lost for words during a valuation on an episode of the BBC One programme.The guest appeared on the show as they presented a Faberge sculpture of a pear blossom which had belonged to the Worcestershire army regiment.But unbeknown to the guest, the item was worth a series amount of cash which is believed to be an Antiques Roadshow record-breaker.READ MORE: Antiques Roadshow guest gasps after finding out pistol given as a gift is worth £20k The guest explained where the item in question came from before the jaw-dropping figure it would fetch at auction was revealed.He told Geoffrey: "It was formed in 1794 to protect the shores against a Napoleonic invasion."It was agreed that the regiment should serve only within the United Kingdom, however, in 1899 when the Boer War was going badly, it was decided that some of [the regiment] as volunteers would be mobilised."When they left the shores, the Countess of Dudley, whose husband, the Earl of Dudley was a member of the regiment, he was second in command, she presented each and every soldier that went out with a sprig of pear blossom, worked in silk that they were to wear in their hat."He added: "As a reminder of the county that they had left, ie, the pear blossom emblem of Worcestershire."When they returned in 1903, she presented this sprig of pear blossom manufactured by Faberge, it's a lovely piece."Geoffrey added: "It certainly is a lovely piece, his looks for all the world like a glass vase and there's a stratagem here that it's filled with water, and this is the meniscus at the top of the water."It's a solid block of what is apparently glass, but it's certainly not, it's stone."It's rock crystal, it's icy cold even on this.