They really weren’t expecting it to fetch that amount.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was taken aback when the show’s expert Lisa Lloyd attached a £30k valuation on their ancient rugby shirt.
In a classic episode, the Antiques Roadshow team travelled to Cathays Park in Cardiff, Wales, where a guest presented Lloyd with a classic Welsh rugby shirt won by legendary player Gwyn Nicholls.
Nicholls had been the captain of the Cardiff rugby team during their iconic match against New Zealand in 1905.
He also gained 24 caps for Wales as a centre and had the nickname the ‘Prince of Threequarters’.
Nicholls spent all his playing career with Cardiff, playing 18 seasons for them, apart from half a season with Newport in 1901/2 when he began a laundry business there with fellow Welsh international Bert Winfield.
Alongside the historic shirt were other precious items: a mourning card issued in honour of New Zealand’s defeat and a touch flag from the very match itself, with Lisa revealing that only two of such flags were ever made.
Lisa then shifted the conversation to the all important price tag. “Right now we have to talk about values.”, she told the nervous-looking guests.
Gesturing towards the mourners card, she added: “I suspect that there are quite a few of these still in circulation but it’s a great novelty.”
She gave a price expectation, suggesting: “Perhaps you know £100 to £200 on that.”
Then assessing the unique touch flag, Lisa indicated: “This would obviously be the only one in existence so that’s probably going to be mid-hundreds, maybe £400 to £600, something in that region.”
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Yet, it was the valuation of the rugby jersey that truly stunned the guests, as Lisa remarked: “These really early rugby shirts, you know they do command extremely high prices.
“Another shirt from the same match was sold a number of years ago for £19,000 but this one because it actually belonged to the caption of the day, obviously that’s going to command a higher price than that.”
She then revealed: “So you are probably looking at about £25,000 to £30,000 on that.”
In one of the more dramatic moments on the long-running show, the crowd let out a gasp and started clapping as the owners of the prized piece of sporting memorabilia were left speechless.
If you want to watch this moment play out, you watch past episodes of Antiques Roadshow on BBC iPlayer.
