Woman buys brooch for £20 from market and could sell it for 750 times more

A 19th century brooch picked up at a market for less than £20 could make more than £15,000 at auction.

Flora Steel bought the silver brooch in 1988 – not realising it was a ‘historically significant’ piece of long-lost jewellery given as a wedding gift to a relative of Admiral Lord Nelson.

She contacted auctioneers after seeing a similar brooch sell on The Antiques Roadshow – which later went on to sell for £31,000.

Experts confirmed her piece of jewellery was designed by Gothic Revival architect William Burges, who also designed Cardiff Castle.

The brooch was made as a bridesmaid’s gift for the wedding of Lord Nelson’s great-niece.

It’s set to go under the hammer next week (March 19) and it has a guide price of £10,000-£15,000.

Flora, who has collected silver jewellery since she was 13, said: ‘I wore the brooch for about five years on the green velvet lapel of a favourite coat.

‘When both the coat and brooches went out of fashion, it remained in my London wardrobe for another 20 years until my daughter-in-law found it and started wearing it.

‘So, when the TV clip popped up out of the blue last March, I couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely stunned.

‘My speciality lies elsewhere in 18th century and early 19th century art, but as an art historian this was such an exciting thing to discover out of the blue and after so many years.

‘So, of course I’m very much looking forward to seeing what happens at the auction.’

The brooch is going up for sale at Gildings Auctioneers in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, and the auction house’s director Will Gilding said: ‘We’re thrilled and astonished that for an almost unbelievable third time, a chance viewing of Antiques Roadshow has led to a lost Burges brooch finding its way to our saleroom.

‘It remains to be seen if this brooch will exceed its estimate in the spectacular manner of the 2011 one.

‘However, because of its very special significance as a Burges design, we’re delighted to see it already attracting interest from all over the world, particularly in the USA, where there are many avid collectors of items from the Victorian Gothic era.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.