Get daily celeb exclusives and behind the scenes house tours direct to your inbox We have more newsletters Get daily celeb exclusives and behind the scenes house tours direct to your inbox We have more newsletters The best moments in Antiques Roadshow are when a member of the public brings in their treasured item to be valued and happily discovers it is worth much more than they expected. That was the case on the US version of the popular antiques series recently as a Nashville fan was very pleasantly surprised by the value of her copy of William Shakespeare’s sonnets. The woman had inherited the book from her father and was expecting a valuation of around $300 to $400.
However, expert Martin Gammon surprised her by revealing that the book, which was a rare edition, was actually worth somewhere in the region of $5,000 to $6,000. The book was an 1899 Roycroft Press edition and Martin explained that it was one of only 12 printed on vellum, a paper made of cow or pig skin, which was why it was so rare. The owner explained that the book had survived the Great Depression, when her grandfather, who had been a rare book dealer, was forced to sell most of his collection, with The Sonnets of Shakespeare one of the few he kept safe.
“My dad was born in Brooklyn and his father had a rare book business,” she explained. “He collected rare books but unfortunately we have just a few of the books left because my dad’s father had to sell a lot of the books during the Depression.” .