valued

One item taken onto the BBC show was valued at ‘well over a million pounds’

Antiques Roadshow regularly wows viewers as hopeful guests discover whether they are sitting on fortunes.

Over the years the BBC favourite has served up plenty of big surprises, from disappointments as people are told that heirlooms they thought might be valuable are higher in sentimental value than pounds, to delight as people discover that knick-knacks from their attics could be worth thousands.

For a lucky few, their visit to the long-running programme proves to be potentially life-changing, with some items reaching the one million pound mark.

In 2008 a maquette of the Angel of the North by Antony Gormley was taken on the show, which is hosted by Fiona Bruce. It ended up being valued at £1 million, becoming the first ever item in Antiques Roadshow’s history to be valued that high.

Then in 2018 another treasure reached the same lofty seven-figure height, when a Faberge flower taken on to the programme was also priced at £1 million.

However, the highest-valued item ever on the show was actually worth even more than a million pounds.

What is the highest-valued item ever on the Antiques Roadshow?

In an episode in 2016, silver expert Alastair Dickenson was asked to appraise an actual FA Cup.

The huge silver trophy was taken onto the television show by presenter Gabby Logan and Leeds United’s former manager and 1972 FA Cup winner Eddie Gray.

It turned out that cup had been made in 1911, although Dickenson felt the fact that it was engraved with a pattern of grapes and vines suggested it might “have been used as a wine cooler or a champagne cooler”.

“I’m sure it’s had plenty of champagne inside over the years,” Gabby agreed, as the TV star laughed: “More than you and I could possibly think of, I think!”

After Dickenson outlined the cup’s history and how it was likely to have been made in Yorkshire, Gabby asked him: “Is it possible to put a value on something like that, with all that history that you’ve just described?”

The expert replied: “This is probably, along with maybe the Wimbledon Trophy, the most famous cup in the country.

“So, I think, quite comfortably, this has got to be worth well over a million pounds.”

“The highest value piece of silver I have ever valued on the Antiques Roadshow,” he added, as Gabby exclaimed: “Wow!”

Antiques Roadshow airs on BBC One at 8pm on Sunday October 12.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — A pair of drug seizures by Customs and Border Protection agents along the Texas-Mexico border has netted methamphetamine shipments with an estimated street value of $50 million, the agency announced on Thursday.

In the first and larger of the two, agents stopped a truck hauling aluminum burrs that was concealing $37 million worth of the drug through the Colombia-Solidarity cargo facility in Laredo.

“Physical inspection led to the discovery of four sacks of alleged methamphetamine with a combined weight of 4,241 pounds concealed within the shipment,” a release from CBP said.

In the other seizure, agents seized 488 packages of what they believed was methamphetamine with a street value of $13.2 million in a commercial truck hauling a load of broccoli at the Pharr international cargo facility in Pharr, Texas.

Nearly 1,500 pounds of the drug was concealed in the roof of the truck, CBP said.

The seizures are the latest in a series of drug stops along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.

In June, agents seized a load of amphetamines valued at $6.7 billion being smuggled across the border at the Pharr crossing by someone in a stolen sports sedan.

“The cargo environment continues to be a top choice for trafficking organizations but our CBP officers, along with our tools and technology, are a force to be reckoned with,” Carlos Rodriguez, port director of the Pharr port said at the time.

The ‘de minimis’ import tax exemption helped fuel home delivery and the rise of e-commerce in the US.

The US has suspended tariff exemptions for small delivery packages valued at $800 or less, ending a loophole that allowed more than one billion packages to enter the US last year without customs duties.

The loophole is due to end on Friday in the US, followed by a six-month transition period to a new tariff regime.

More than 30 countries, including Australia, Germany, Japan and Mexico, have suspended or partially suspended package shipments to the US in advance of the cost change.

Postal unions around the world say more clarity is needed about how the tariff will be calculated before they resume shipments to the US.

Global logistics giant DHL said it would not ship standard business parcels to the US until “unresolved” questions are answered regarding “how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future”, and “how the data transmission to the US Customs and Border Protection will be carried out”.

A White House fact sheet released on July 30 stated that tariff rates on small packages will be calculated in one of two ways starting August 29.

The first option sets a flat rate of $80 to $200 per item, depending on the country of origin. The second option is based on the value of the package and the “reciprocal” tariff rate set by the White House for individual countries.

The flat rate will only be available for the next six months, after which all small packages will be subject to a tariff of 10 to 40 percent for most countries.

The White House set its “reciprocal” tariff rates in July for most trade partners, although negotiations are ongoing with key trade partners Mexico and China.

The administration of President Donald Trump says that tariffs are necessary to lower the US trade deficit, while ending the “de minimis exemption” – which lets people off on paying import tax on small items – will help slow the movement of narcotics posted across borders.

The de minimis exemption has been in place since the 1930s, but it played a critical role in the US economy after it was raised from $200 to $800 in 2015. The exemption on import tax on items valued less than $800 helped pave the way for international e-commerce by letting retailers ship directly to the customer.

Over the past decade, the number of packages crossing the US border each year rose tenfold from 129 million to 1.36 billion, according to US customs data.

The exemption also previously allowed Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to avoid paying tariffs set on Chinese goods during Trump’s first term in office.