The lucky owner purchased this pear-shaped 19-cm vase for only one pound at a second-hand shop in Hertfordshire, England, without any idea of its true value.
After putting the object on sale on eBay, and after receiving a flood of offers, the owner removed it from the site and went to a local auction house to have it valued, the Antique Trade Gazette reported. The vase, known as the Qianlong famille rose, has two ruyi handles, is engraved with an imperial poem, a yuti mark, and two iron-red inscriptions reading Qianlong chen han (the personal mark of the emperor), and Weijing weiyi (be precise, be undivided).
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The vase is up for sale at Sworders on 8 November, in their sale of Asian Art, with an estimate of £50,000 to £80,000.
This isn’t the first time a valuable Chinese art object has landed on the auction scene in this manner: in 2016, the auction house Wooley & Wallis received an imperial Qianlong vase which was bought for £10 in a car boot sale. After the owner posted it on eBay and received bids of up to £10,000, he decided to instead consign it for sale in Salisbury, where it went for £50,000.