It’s the dream, isn’t it? Unearth something old from the attic, blow the dust off, hand it to a valuer, and realise you’ve been hoarding a secret fortune this entire time.
Well, that’s more or less what happened to Antiques Roadshow guest Lucy.
In a Childhood Special episode of the show, hosted at Belmont House, the woman made an appearance with original sketches of the Teletubbies. They’d been drawn by Jonathan Hills, her late husband ― he was a designer and illustrator who died in 2020, aged 66.
The drawings were completed before the TV show’s initial airing in 1997, meaning they represented a vision of the kid’s telly legends most of us had never seen before.
Antique expert Mark Hill evaluated the collection, saying “We’re looking here at a selection of drawings of what look like the Teletubbies, but there’s a sort of slight difference in some of them. They’re original drawings – how on Earth did you come to get these?”.
“My husband was asked to develop some characters for a programme they were making, which was directed at children that were at home watching TV without an adult,” Lucy answered.
“Jonathan sadly died two years ago. And this is his legacy,” she added.
The initial sketches look very different to the Teletubbies we all know
The early drawings revealed creatures that more closely resembled bears and mice.
In fact, the show was almost called something completely different ― Lucy shared that the TV touchstone almost went by Teleteddies (that’d explain the bear-like design, right?).
Mark Hill commented on the “creepy” appearance of a sketch of the iconic baby’s face in the sun, but Lucy said children liked it because they could see themselves in it.
How much is it worth, then?
“At some point, you want what made you feel warm and happy and cosy as a child. And I think when that age group matures, I think they’re going to want to buy things like this,” Mark Hill began his evaluation.
“They’re going to want to own these and display them. When it comes to value, we have to ask what they might pay. What would you pay for a Teletubbies original drawing? £500? I think so. £1,000? Highly possible,” he revealed.
Lucy’s collection contains 80 original drawings, meaning she could bank £80,000 from the entire set.
″[Jonathan Hills, her ex-husband] would be so thrilled,” she said. “It’s great.”
D’aww.