Thrown away too soon
The find: The Churchill collection.
Where it was found: At a garbage dump.
“I’ve worked [at a garbage dump] for 15 years,” David Rose told the Telegraph, “and I get to pull out whatever I like, mostly antiques.” Rose said he has three sheds full of rescued treasures, but nothing like the Churchill collection that he brought to London for an episode of BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
Some background: After Queen Elizabeth II, the most famous Brit of the 20th century is probably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who helped lead the Allies to victory in World War II. So if you owned a top hat that belonged to Churchill, as well as a box of his cigars and some personal letters, you might want to hold onto them. But for some reason – which remains a mystery – someone who actually did own these items threw them away in early 2019.
The appraisers were able to authenticate the collection thanks to the 200 letters that were stored with the top hat and cigars. The letters weren’t written by Churchill himself, but by his personal cook. According to Rose, “She used to write to her son every day about the daily goings of Winston Churchill, what he was getting up to, how he was feeling and just interesting stuff about him.” The collection has an estimated value of £10,000 ($AU17,500), but its worth goes beyond money; the content of the letters will provide historians with previously unknown aspects of Churchill’s life. (If you’re wondering at exactly which dump the items were found, don’t ask Rose. He said he’s keeping that detail to himself.)
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Source: RD.com
