It is a common trope in comedy that if a clumsy person enters an antique shop, they are bound to knock over a precariously positioned and priceless Ming vase. For centuries, collectors in the West have sought out the rarest Chinese antiquities, of which Ming vases are just the most famous. As China has boomed economically recently, the prices of Chinese artworks have exploded.

This has led to many cases where people who were about to throw away an old pot or donate a cracked plate to a junk shop have suddenly discovered they are actually in possession of something worth a fortune. Here are ten cases where Chinese antiques turned out to be a windfall.

Related: 10 Amazing Antiques Roadshow Discoveries

10 £1 Million Collection in the Attic

Clearing out the attic can be one of the most annoying tasks for any homeowner. It’s dusty and full of spiders, and then you have to decide which of the things you have stored over the years is worth keeping and which should be put in the trash. Sometimes, though, you might just strike gold.

Edward Radcliffe became an antiques dealer just before WWII, and during his career, he built up a nice collection of Chinese antiques. Some of them were so exquisite that he lent them out to museums around the world. But for some reason, after he died, this collection was dumped in the attic and forgotten for over 50 years before his family decided to get it valued.

Among the stars of the collection was an enamel box made for the Xuande emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century. Finding one is phenomenally rare, as just four are known to exist in the world. The family must have been pleased when it was valued at 10,000 pounds at auction. They must have been beyond belief when the hammer went down, and it was sold for £288,000. With the rest of the collection selling as well, the whole lot made nearly 1 million pounds.^[1]

9 “Teapot”

The British love a cup of tea, so it is not unusual to find an elderly relative who has a teapot or two stored in their home. In 2020, a man finally sorted through the things his parents had stored in their attic. He found a plastic bag containing a tiny metal and enamel teapot, brought from China in the 1940s by his father. He thought of taking it to a charity shop. Instead, it was taken to an auctioneer who valued it at £100-150.

It soon became clear that it was actually something more special than a teapot. It turned out to be an imperial wine ewer made for the Qianlong emperor in the 18th century and one of only three in the world. On the day of the auction, nine bidders from around the world competed to own the minuscule masterpiece, and eventually, it sold for £380,000.

The owner, a construction worker, was thrilled with his sudden fortune. Asked what he would do with the money, he suggested he might buy a metal detector. With luck like his, who knows what treasures he might find.^[2]

8 Imperial Vase

Familiarity breeds contempt, so something we see every day tends to get overlooked. When an auctioneer visited a friend’s house one day, he noticed that an old vase they had just in their kitchen looked quite special. The tall vase had been bought for a few hundred pounds and was a pretty piece of porcelain – but to the owners, it was nothing too exciting.

It was only years later that the piece, made at the Imperial Court of the Qianlong emperor, was put up for sale, and collectors began to get excited. The rich blue vase is decorated with gold and silver and depicts cranes and bats flying against a cloudy sky. A vase of this age, with this decoration and in this size, caused a stir, and it was valued at around £100,000.

Bidding was fierce, and the vase was sold for £1.2 million. Not bad for an old thing shoved in the kitchen.^[3]

7 Loose Change Bowl

Pottery is a sturdy material but easily broken and damaged. For collectors of antiques, even the smallest chip can destroy the value of a piece, so most will do everything possible to protect their treasures. One family inherited a bowl owned by a well-known collector of Chinese antiques but did not give it the same care as he might have liked. They placed it in a guest room where friends would drop their keys and coins while they stayed.

It was only out of curiosity that they took the 9-inch (22.9-cm) wide turquoise glazed dish to an open day at an auctioneer’s event. It was immediately seen to have been produced for the early Ming Imperial Court. Known as a narcissus bowl, the object caused the valuers’ hands to shake, and the owners were happy to put it up for auction.

The bowl sold for £240,000. Hopefully, the new owner doesn’t toss metal objects into it.^[4]

6 Cracked Umbrella Stand

Sometimes, we are given things and don’t know what to do with them, but we hold onto them anyway for sentimental reasons. One couple in England had come into possession of a blue and white vase as a gift and thought no more of it for 50 years. They relegated it to a spare room, and since it was about the right size, they placed their umbrellas in it. Needless to say, this was not the right way to treat the vase.

The vase turned out to have been made for the court of the Qianlong emperor and had survived centuries mostly intact. Unfortunately, the years of being an umbrella stand had left their mark on the vase, with it being cracked and scarred on the inside. Despite the damage, it was still valued at around £500,000.

Buyers seemed able to overlook the hard life the vase had endured and ended up paying £765,000.^[5]

5 Umbrella Stand

There must be something about priceless Chinese vases that makes people look at them and think, “That would make an excellent umbrella stand.” When an expert from Christie’s auction house was made aware of a large, blue and white dragon vase that had once been an umbrella stand, he asked the French owners whether he could inspect it in person. As soon as he looked at it, he knew that the vase was a perfect example of 15th-century Ming Imperial pottery.

The umbrella stand phase of the vase’s life had miraculously left no trace on the flawless glaze. The large dragon motif was as fresh as the day it had been painted by the imperial artisans. When the vase was put up for auction in Hong Kong, excited bidding led to it reaching $20,447,642.^[6]

4 Yard Sale Bowl

Everyone likes a bargain, and there is nowhere you can pick up an excellent deal as easily as at a yard sale. People use yard sales to get rid of the various stuff they have accumulated over the years and generally just want it out of the house. For $35, you can grab a pretty bowl for your home—or one that might make you a fortune at auction.

When a buyer saw a small blue and white bowl at a yard sale, they liked it so much they didn’t bother to haggle over the $35 price tag. Almost straight away, they suspected they had bought something special and alerted an auction house. It was found that the bowl was Ming porcelain made in the early 15th century in a form called a lotus bowl—with only six examples in museums around the world.

The bowl sold for $721,800, a mere 29,000 times more than it was bought for.^[7]

3 Qianlong Vase

Thrift shops are great places to browse for unusual things because you never know what people have donated. You get to buy things cheap and also help a good cause. Sometimes, you really do find something special.

One shopper spotted a somewhat gaudy-looking vase with a yellow glaze and Chinese characters painted on it. It was only marked at £1 so they decided to buy it. Thinking it might be worth a little more than that, they put the vase on sale on eBay. However, as the price started to skyrocket, they removed it from the site and showed the vase to an auctioneer.

The vase was made at the court of the Qianlong emperor, and a mark on the base stated that it was not meant to be exported from the country. How it came to be in a charity shop in England is not known. At auction, the vase sold for £480,000. ^[8]

2 Brush Pot Donation

Thrift stores do not always let valuable antiques slip through their fingers. Volunteers who sort through donated objects are often given advice on spotting potentially important pieces and having them shown to experts. When one worker at St. Peter’s Hospice charity shop in Bristol, England, picked up a cracked old wooden pot that had been handed in and, for some reason, suspected it might be special—despite it not looking very promising.

The pot turned out to be a brush pot used in calligraphy and was made from bamboo around 1700, which perhaps explained why it was so cracked. Not only did the pot have a charmingly carved landscape scene on it, but it was also created by Gu Jue, one of the foremost bamboo workers at the time.

Luckily for the charity, this precious little object did not end up on their shelves and sell for a pittance. It went to auction and sold for £360,000, far outstripping the estimate of £15,000.^[9]

1 Shoebox Vase

If this list does nothing else, it should make you consider clearing out your attic. The ultimate case of a treasure lurking in the attic comes from France and involves one of the finest Chinese vases ever to be offered for sale.

Sotheby’s auctioneer might well have missed out on this discovery as the owner of the vase simply sent them an email saying she had found some Asian objects in her attic as she prepared to move but would not be able to send them any photographs. Some other details she provided suggested they might be worth looking at, so they invited her to bring them in. Riding on the metro, she carried the vase in a shoebox. The owners had relegated it to the attic after deciding it was “too pink” for their tastes.

The vase, with its animal motifs, was so lovely that even if it had been a copy of what it looked like, it still might have been worth €100,000. However, the experts recognized it as genuine. It really was a vase made for the Qianlong emperor’s birthday and given an auction estimate of €700,000. It blew past this when bidding started and finally sold for €16,182,800.^[10]

Antiques Roadshow is one of the most fascinating shows on television. Yes, you get to hear the interesting stories of old objects, but most people watch for another reason. How will this person react when they are told something they dragged out of the attic is worth big bucks? Or not worth as much as they thought?

Occasionally, it is not the value that is most interesting about an item. On the British Antiques Roadshow, an expert on old glassware drank a liquid from an old bottle—only to later discover it was human urine. The bottle had been turned into a “witch bottle” at some point. Such items were used to keep evil from a house.

So whether you have an attic worth of your great grandfather’s “collectibles” or luck out at an estate or garage sale, you never know what’s going to happen on the show. Here are ten times the experts on the Roadshow uncovered remarkable finds.

10 Thrift Store Vase

Going to second-hand shops, thrift stores, and charity shops is always exciting because you never know what you might come home with. Plus, there is always the chance that you might stumble on something hugely valuable that was cheap.

One man on the British Antiques Roadshow brought in his small collection of ceramics to find out whether they had any age. Most had been picked up cheaply in charity shops. One, a square vase in pale green with a pierced pattern on the sides, had cost him just £7.99. It was this vase that got the expert most excited because it was an old Chinese design. It was also a technical masterpiece because the vase was actually two vases joined together during production. Having examined the object, the expert was in no doubt. This was a vase dating from the Ming Dynasty.

The owner was stunned. “Ming, really Ming?” he asked. His joyful reaction when told that it was worth between £5000 and £10,000 was one shared by viewers.

9 Navajo Ute Blanket

Sometimes, it is the simplest-looking objects that have the most astounding stories—and prices to match. This Navajo Ute blanket is finely woven with bands of white, black, and blue. Many people would walk right by it. But these so-called “chief blankets” can raise high prices.

The owner of the blanket seen on Antiques Roadshow had inherited it from his grandmother. As a young child, it was simply put on his bed and occasionally thrown over him on chilly nights. The experts on the Roadshow immediately recognized it for what it was. As an amazing example of Navajo weaving, it was estimated to be worth at least $350,000. The owner was left in tears because his grandparents had merely been poor farmers.

Another example of a blanket like this, which had once been used by a cat to give birth on, sold for $1.5 million. The owner of that blanket had been struggling to get by on $200 a month. So maybe check your attic for one of these.

9 Diego Rivera Painting

Diego Rivera was one of the most important Mexican painters of the 20th century. His large murals sparked a new style of artwork. His third wife, Frida Kahlo, may be better known today, but when an article was written about her in 1933, it was headlined “Wife of master mural painter gleefully dabbles in art.” Today their reputations may have reversed, but Rivera’s works are still highly sought after.

One of his early paintings was thought lost for decades. It was only when a man brought it into the Antiques Roadshow that it was recognized and brought back into public awareness. Called “El Albañil,” or “The Laborer,” it was estimated to be worth around $800,000 to $1 million. Not bad for a piece of art that was just hanging up behind a door in a family home.

7 Walt Whitman Letter

Walt Whitman was among the most influential poets that America has ever produced. His works were celebrated and vilified in his own time, but his stature has grown. Today, he is now recognized as part of the American literary canon.

What was brought into the Antiques Roadshow was not a rare copy of his literary works but something more personal. During the Civil War, Whitman helped wounded soldiers by taking dictation so that they could send letters back to their families. He apparently wrote many such letters, but few have survived, and even fewer where Whitman signed his name on them.

The letter was brought into the Roadshow not for its own merits but because it was part of a family’s store of Civil War-era items. However, when the experts saw it, they recognized how rare it was. The price put on it was $8,000-$12,000. After later speaking to a specialist on Whitman, the price was revised to maybe as much as $20,000.

6 Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness Letter

There are few moments in American history as famous as the assassination of President Lincoln. Everyone knows how John Wilkes Booth entered the box in Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln and his wife were watching a performance of Our American Cousin. During a moment when the audience was laughing at a joke, he pulled out a pistol and shot the president. Wilkes then leaped from the box, landed awkwardly on stage, held up a dagger, and proclaimed, “Sic semper tyrannis!”—”Thus ever for tyrants!”

That’s the accepted version of events, but to people in the theatre at the time, it was a moment of confusion. That is why the letter brought into the Antiques Roadshow by one lady was so important. It is a contemporary eyewitness account of the assassination by her grandfather, who was there. He had gone to the theatre after hearing General Grant would be present. Instead, he saw one of the most momentous events of the 19th century.

According to the account given, Booth also announced from the stage, “I have done it!” and “The South’s avenged!” The letter was valued at $10,000-$15,000.

5 Card Table

John and Thomas Seymour were master furniture makers in the late 18th and early 18th century working in Boston. Their “Federal” furniture, made with expensive wood and richly decorated, can be found in museums across the country. This made it all the more unexpected when a table made by the pair was wheeled into the Antiques Roadshow upside down on a cart.

The owner of the table had picked it up at a yard sale for just $25 after haggling the price down from $30. Even then, she might not have purchased the table as her friend thought it was too wobbly to support a lamp. It was also filthy and covered in mold. The demi-lune mahogany card table was more than worth the price she paid and the effort of cleaning it. The experts estimated it might be worth $225,000. Had the owner given it too thorough a cleaning and destroyed the original patina, the price would have plummeted.

When the table was auctioned soon afterward, it sold for $490,000. With the buyer’s premium that is paid to the auction house, this made the final sale price $541,000.

4 Charlotte Brontë Ring

When a woman was rifling around in her attic, she found a grimy old locked box. After searching for the key, she was contacted by a relative who had found it. Once opened, she discovered a small ring inside. The ring was decorated on the outside, but the most remarkable thing was that there was a hinge on the edge. What was inside was even stranger—a braid of what looked like hair.

When taken to the Antiques Roadshow, the puzzle of the ring was uncovered. An inscription inside the ring bore the name Charlotte Brontë and a date—the date of the author’s death. The hair inside? Probably hair belonging to Charlotte Brontë. This would not have been uncommon in the 19th century. Mourning jewelry was often made to commemorate loved ones who had died. Other examples of mourning jewelry made of hair were known to have belonged to the Brontë family.

This ring was valued at around £20,000. Never leave a locked box unopened.

3 Tang Marble Lion

The Chinese market for antiques and antiquities has never been higher. A newly wealthy generation of Chinese investors is spending their money to acquire art and artifacts that have left their country over the centuries. Objects that were once picked up by tourists have suddenly become hugely valuable.

One woman might have been somewhat disappointed when told that a marble lion that she had inherited from her grandparents was not from the Ming Dynasty as she had thought. But she should not have worried. The expert on the Antiques Roadshow realized that the exquisitely carved animal was actually from another golden period in Chinese history—the earlier Tang Dynasty. The expert was so impressed with the statue that he became emotional.

The marble lion was valued at $120,000-$180,000.

2 Fabergé Flowers

Just like the word “Ming” sets the hearts of antique collectors racing, so does the name Fabergé. The master jeweler of the early 20th century worked extensively with the Russian royal family, including making Easter egg gifts for them. The jewelry expert Geoffrey Munn is famously a fan of Fabergé objects. He once mentioned on an episode that he had been informed that watchers who play a drinking game while Antiques Roadshow is on have to take a shot every time he mentions Fabergé.

Those drinkers must have been very drunk by the time he stopped talking about a delicate spray of blossoms he was shown. These were no ordinary flowers, however. The vase was made of solid rock crystal, the stem of gold, the petals were enamel, and a tiny drop of water on each bloom was a diamond. All were made by Fabergé.

When considering what such an object might be worth, the expert was forced to suggest that it could be worth over £1 million.

1 Bohdisattva Statue

Bronze statues can command high prices, but typically, they have to be in mint condition if they are to be truly valuable. When a slightly damaged bronze statue of a bodhisattva turned up on the Antiques Roadshow, it might not have been immediately obvious that it was worth much at all. The experts in Asian art, however, got very excited—even though it had lost one arm.

The owner of the piece had been shopping in an estate sale when she spotted it. Several antique dealers had already snapped up many of the best objects, but this statue had been ignored. The owner was able to buy it for around $100. The experts agreed she had got a bargain. They dated it to the early 15th century and suggested a retail estimate of $100,000-$150,000. It turned out they were wrong… on both counts.

When the statue was later auctioned, it was described as coming from the earlier Tang Dynasty. It eventually sold for $2 million at Sotheby’s.