BBC Antiques Roadshow guest lost for words at true value of dad's 50-year-old Chinese pot

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.

An guest was left stunned when the true value of his father's old pot, which he had owned for half a century, was unveiled.

The popular show visited Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire for another thrilling episode, with Oriental expert David Battie taking centre stage.

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Battie was presented with a pot by a guest who confessed he had no idea what it was. He said: "I've got no idea. It was given to me by my father probably 50 years ago and I know nothing at all about it."

Despite his lack of knowledge, the guest admitted he liked the mysterious object. Battie then revealed that it was a Chinese brush pot made of bamboo.

He explained: "And the pots can be anything from actually quite tiny for a tiny brush, up to massive great things for the really big brushes.

"The date, my guess is, it would be somewhere around 1760 to 1810, somewhere along that basis.

"Brush pots were part of the accoutrements of the scholar's table. These were literati, these are people who'd passed the exams, the civil exams, and rather than working as an administrator or whatever, they took themselves off into the Bosky Landscape and did whatever they fancied.

"And some of them were highly skilled poets, writers, painters and carvers.

"They actually did some of the carving themselves. And those objects are now very sought after by today's market."

Expert David Battie was taken aback by the intricate decorations on an antique pot, which featured pine trees, "towering rocks" and what appeared to be Literati in a boat.

The pot also bore Chinese inscriptions that Battie couldn't fully decipher, but his colleague Freya Yuan revealed it contained a "four-phrase poem".

Battie couldn't hide his admiration, saying: "I like this a lot. It's the kind of thing, like I said, that the Chinese market is very keen on. So you like it?" to which the owner nodded in agreement.

In a cheeky bid, Battie asked: "If I offered you £300 for it?" but the owner stood firm, replying: "No. You could buy it off me for £10,000 and I still wouldn't take it."

The audience was then stunned into silence as Battie announced, "I'm not going to offer you £10,000. I'm going to tell you it's worth £30,000 to £40,000."

The revelation left the owner unsteady on his feet, eliciting gasps from the audience as he exclaimed, "God. Dear," while Battie playfully prodded, "Now you're tempted."

Visibly overwhelmed, the owner turned to a family member in the crowd, letting out a heavy sigh and remarking, "Oh boy. Good old dad."

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.