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Key Takeaways
- A woman appeared on an episode of Antiques Roadshow that first aired in 2024 and asked the expert to look at two of her late mother’s rings.
- One ring, with turquoise stones, turned out to be relatively inexpensive; the other featured what the expert said was a sizable 4.3 carat round-cut diamond, worth nearly $30,000.
- The woman explained that her mother once dropped the ring down a sink drain at a gas station, so its value felt even more exciting.
Inheriting family jewelry can leaving a person feeling many things at once—on one hand, it’s wonderful to receive a ring, necklace, or bracelet that you’ve loved for as long as you can remember; on the other hand, inheriting jewelry generally means that a relative you love is no longer with you. For one Antiques Roadshow guest, who brought two of her late mother’s rings on the show to be appraised, that was exactly the case. Though it was an emotional experience, it was one that was worthwhile. In the end, she learned that the baubles she and her mother both loved were worth far more than they realized.
According to a video shared on Market Realist, a woman went on Antiques Roadshow in 2024 and asked an expert to take a look at two of her late mother’s favorite rings. The first ring was a gold band with larger turquoise stones and a few smaller, colorless gems, which looked a bit like diamonds. According to the expert appraiser, John Benjamin, the ring was probably from the early 20th century and worth between £120 and £150, or $163 and $204.
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The other ring the guest brought along was far more “interesting,” Benjamin noted. When asked what the guest knew about the ring, she shared an interesting story: One early morning, her mother went to visit a friend and stopped at a gas station along the way. There, she dropped the sizable ring down the drain in the women’s restroom. “She went out, someone came along, opened the trap, and luckily, it fell out,” the woman said.
As it turns out, she’s very lucky that the ring was able to be rescued. Benjamin explained that he had a chance to examine the ring, and he was able to confirm that the large center stone was, in fact, a diamond. The diamond turned out to be a 4.3-carat “large” brilliant-cut stone from the 1950s, and it was flanked by a few smaller diamonds. Thought it wasn’t colorless and did have a few inclusions, Benjamin determined that it would be rated as J for color, which the GIA describes as a diamond with “a faint yellow or brown tint.”
Benjamin also explained that the diamond was extremely well-cut, which allowed it to sparkle even on an overcast day. “Twinkling nicely in the slightly overcast day at the moment at least,” he remarked.
That ring’s value? A whopping £20,000, which converts to $27,205. “The overall impression that it makes, for a ring that was lost down the sink, it’s pretty good,” the expert noted.
