Dusty dish on shelf serves up a surprise _ it’s a 260-year-old royal antique worth $160,000
By APTuesday, February 9, 2010
A meal fit for a King? No, but the plate is!
LONDON — A British woman says she’s shocked that a dusty dish on her shelf has been identified as a very valuable 260-year-old antique made for the King of Prussia.
Wendy Jones said Tuesday she was unaware for years that the 22-inch (55-centimeter) meat dish — which once even clattered to the floor — was a rare collectable from a 100-piece dinner service.
Jones took the plate to a taping of BBC television’s “Antiques Roadshow,” even though she originally hoped experts would value her collection of books.
Experts instead examined the plate and confirmed it was part of a set presented to Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1750 by the Prussian East India Company.
Jones was told the dish, a family heirloom from Germany, is worth about 100,000 pounds ($160,000).
