Inherited From Royalty? 175-Year-Old Garnet Set Leaves Expert in Awe | BBC Antiques Roadshow UK

I love antique jewellery and when I see a brooch like this in the box, it really gets to me. And when we look at this box here, to me that looks a little bit like a kind of a horse's hoof. It doesn't look like a box from this country, it looks like a European box, just in its style and in its construction. But, of course, when we reveal what's inside the box, it does it full justice, doesn't it? What an absolutely fantastic garnet bracelet that is. You were going to tell me something about the actual place where you think it may have come from originally. Apparently my great-great-grandmother was left them by her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law had, or somebody in her family before that, had bought them from the Swedish royal family sometime during the 19th century apparently and they've become known as the crown jewels in our family. Quite justifiably. Yeah. These are garnets though really of a very deep blood red colour. Now that gemstone, the garnet, is quite a popular stone in the 19th century. You get it in jewellery in Germany, in Czechoslovakia, and it would be quite normal to assume that you'd also get this kind of stone set in jewellery in perhaps Stockholm, you know, in Sweden. Now we can't confirm for certain about the royal connection, can we? No. It's family hearsay. Yes. Look at the garnets first of all. You'll see that they're all faceted individually. You've got these pear-shaped stones at the side of the frame, smaller ones in towards the centre, and then the cabochon cut right in the middle. These are called pyrope stones but they're garnets of a particular density of colour and that's what makes them so beautiful. Now with all those garnets, the one that really is dwarfs them all is this massive faceted garnet in the middle of the bangle. In a border of little half pearls and then you've got some little drops for the ears here. Quite often with this kind of jewellery, the settings, the gold mounts, are actually quite low-grade gold so it's kind of if you like nine carat gold mountings which sort of doesn't really do justice to the sheer expanse and beauty of the set. Do you wear this at all? I can't wear the bracelet. It's a bit small and therefore quite wide and quite uncomfortable and I've never had an occasion where I've had needed something that splendid. Total value for this set, four to five thousand pounds. That's fantastic, wonderful, thank you very much.