Antiques Roadshow expert issues warning over WW2 item with staggering valuation No more
Antiques Roadshow: Paintings are worth more than guest wanted
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Sunday’s Antiques Roadshow came from Ulster Folk Museum, located just outside Belfast. Medical instruments specialist John Foster talked to an interesting group of guests – a headmaster of a school and two students, while examining a penicillin vessel from the Second World War. While explaining its unique history, he urged the guest to stop allowing the item to be passed around by children as he revealed the five-figure valuation.
He began: “Over thirty years ago, when I was at an auction house in Oxford, the boss came up to me and he said ‘John, do you know what this is?’
“And I was like ‘is it a bedpan?’ and he said ‘no, no, no – much more important.'”
“Yes, just a little bit,” the guest replied. “It’s not a bedpan, it’s a Heatley penicillin vessel from the Second World War.
“And some of the world’s first penicillin was manufactured in this vessel and a few others like it.”
“Amazing,” John commented. “Now, you say Heatley vessel, what have you found out?”
“Okay, so we know professor Norman Heatley was at Oxford University.
“He had the connection with our school, my school where I’m headmaster.”
Pointing towards two youngsters standing beside him, he added: “And I’ve got two sixth formers here who are science students, and they helped transport the old relic down today.
“He [Heatley] actually married the head’s daughter, who was also at Oxford.
“And we know that he gave some lectures about the development of penicillin and at some stage, he presented this to the school.”
“Various scientists have said without Heatley and this vessel, you wouldn’t have had the production of the penicillin because it was actually him that came up with this process for purifying the growing of moulds for the extraction of penicillin, which saved millions of lives since,” John explained.
The headmaster admitted: “The amazing thing is it was kind of lost for a while on a shelf in my study.
“And I was reading a book on Norman Heatley and I saw a photograph and I thought ‘we’ve got one of those.’
“And that’s when we dug it out and it’s been passed around assembly and it’s just a nice story and a story for school, a little bit of medical history.”
Looking shocked, John ordered: “No more passing around.”
“No?” asked the owner, as John went on to elaborate on the value of the item.
“Well, the thing with these is they’re quite delicate so yeah, in fact I’m going to insist, no more passing around!
“It needs to be given pride of place and they can just look at it through locked doors.
“Because they have form at auction. £15,000 to £25,000.”
“Wow,” the headmaster exclaimed. “And it’s been rattling around the floor of the car, as well. Wow, it’s incredible.”
Antiques Roadshow airs Sundays at 7pm on BBC One.
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