BBC Antiques Roadshow fans stunned as £250k prized possession is valued at just £150

ok.co.uk:

A recent Antiques Roadshow guest had their hopes dashed after discovering their item was worth just £150, and not the £250,000 they had expected.

Antiques expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan took a look at the figure, from the Kota tribe in Gabon, when the show stopped in Nottingham's Wollaton Hall.The owner revealed that they had purchased the item for just £1.50, 10 years ago at an Antiques Roadshow event in Cambridge.

Hearing this, Ronnie quipped: "You really took a risk, didn't you?" To which the guest had replied: "Well, I was intrigued by the fact that it looked as if somebody had put a lot of work into making it." Holding the statue, Ronnie said: "When you unwrapped this, my heart really skipped a beat because it's one of my favourite tribal African figures.This is a Kota reliquary guardian figure and they put these on the bones of their ancestors to protect them and they polished this metal. "And in the 19th century, they were brass and copper, this is just copper, the brass and copper were like gold to them.They're so highly revered in the art world that they have one of these in the Metropolitan Museum in New York." He continued: "They're such iconic examples of African tribal art.They hammer the metal over the wood sculpture and then they chase the metal with these designs. "And it's the geometric form of them that makes them so desirable, and they influenced the greatest modern artists of all time because at the beginning of modernism, they are very, very sought-after." Ronnie then revealed that a few years ago, one of the figures sold for £250,000.

However, he added: "But unfortunately, this one is a very fine copy. It's slightly the wrong size. "This was likely made around 1980 and one of this kind is probably.