BBC Antiques Roadshow guest left speechless as 1,000-year-old 'scary' item he purchased for just £40 receives staggering valuation

A guest on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow was left speechless after a 1,000-year-old ‘scary’ item he purchased for just £40 received a staggering valuation.

The latest episode of the BBC series came from Derry, Northern Ireland, as guests brought along their treasures to be examined.

Expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan stunned a guest during Sunday’s episode when he valued his ‘scary’ statue at between £1,000 and £2,000.

Described as a ‘scary looking fellow,’ by Ronnie, the guest had brought in a tiny statue thought to have been from the 11th or 12th century.

The guest revealed he had picked up the goblin-like statue at an online auction and paid just £40 for it, so was shocked when Ronnie revealed its true worth.

A guest on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow was left speechless after a 1,000-year-old ‘scary’ item he purchased for just £40 received a staggering valuation during Sunday’s episode

Expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan stunned a guest during Sunday’s episode when he valued his ‘scary’ statue at between £1,000 and £2,000

‘I know some things about him but I kind of found him on an online auction site,’ the guest said of research he had done on the statue. ‘He was fun and very interesting.

‘His facial expressions…I hadn’t seen anything like them before. His fangs, his eyes, and his protruding eyeballs. I just thought the detail was fascinating to me, you know? So I did a small bit of research and it seemed to indicate that he came from Java.’

Ronnie nodded, confirming that the guest’s research had been along the right lines and said: ‘I believe that he was dated maybe the 11th or 12th century, but I’m not sure.’

‘Maybe we should swap places,’ Ronnie joked, clearly impressed by the guest’s knowledge of the statue’s origins.

‘You’re right about a lot of those things,’ Ronnie continued. ‘It is the Javanese name, the god of the underworld.

‘So he is responsible for eclipses and so everybody gets afraid of eclipses and they think they’re gonna lose the sun or lose the moon.’

Ronnie added: ‘He was sent down to us to keep human beings in line in their mythology, but instead of keeping humans on the straight and narrow, he started eating people.’

‘Okay, that’s quite interesting,’ the guest replied, to which Ronnie asked: ‘But we don’t know if it’s real or not, do we? We have to be sure that it’s real.’

Described as a ‘scary looking fellow,’ by Ronnie, the guest had brought in a tiny statue thought to have been from the 11th of 12th century

The guest revealed he had picked up the goblin-like statue at an online auction and paid just £40 for it, so was shocked when Ronnie revealed its true worth

Inspecting the statue, Ronnie explained that it was nearly a millennium old. ‘It is the 11th or 12th century,’ he explained.

Ronnie then asked guest: ‘So what did you pay for it online?’ to which the guest replied ‘I paid a whopping £40.’

‘An auction valuation for this would be between £1,000 and £2,000,’ Ronnie replied, as the guests eyes widened in disbelief.

‘Wow, that is fantastic,’ he replied.

It comes after viewers were left in hysterics during the same episode when one woman sought a valuation for her innuendo-laden ‘muff chain’.

The woman revealed to expert Joanna Hardly that the gold chain had been in her family since the 1950s when her aunt picked it up at an antiques shop.

Joanna then revealed it was almost 200 years old, saying: ‘It’s a belcher link chain or we call it a muff chain’ and would have been attached to a lady’s fur hand warmer.

Antiques Roadshow viewers were left in hysterics when one woman sought a valuation for her innuendo-laden ‘muff chain’ on Sunday

The latest episode of the BBC series came from Derry, Northern Island as guests brought along their treasures with one lady learning her jewellery was worth thousands of pounds

Before leaving the guest stunned when she concluded it was so popular that the item could likely make £5,000 at auction.

However the name left some cheeky viewers in fits of giggles with one writing on X: ‘Someone has brought in a muff chain and reader, I am laughing’.

While a second said:  ‘Ok, you got my attention’.

A third quipped: ‘I googled it in anticipation and was disappointed’.

And: ‘A muff chain you say?’.