WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow. An Antiques Roadshow guest needed to sit down after finding out that a children’s bank she stumbled upon was worth a five-figure sum. BBC expert Jon Bradley was among the specialists who ventured to The Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art to meet with visitors and their unusual array of items.
Among them was a pensioner who had presented him with an American coasting bank used to help encourage children to save money. He initially commented: “One of the most remarkable things about the Antiques Roadshow is after many many years of working on it, time after time, I see things that I’ve never seen before and this is one of them.” She then went on to explain its provenance: “Well when my mother-in-law and I were spring cleaning, we found it in an old vanity case with some material about a year ago.
“So it must have belonged to my husband when he was younger but more than that I don’t know.” He clarified that he had never seen the item in real life before but had in an “old American catalogue from 1884”. Bradley went on to demonstrate how the item works, with the child figure from the top of the slide being pushed down with the cold in its arms, before reaching the bottom where the money is deposited.
He stated that its base was made from cast iron with a brass slide before elaborating on why it’s so valuable. He said: “What makes it so rare is that although it appears in this 1884 catalog.
