Man’s ‘cornflake bowl’ discovered to be worth over $80k

Leslie Marsham bought a yellow porcelain bowl at an antiques shop years ago. He stored the nondescript dish — the Daily Mail calls it a "cornflake bowl" — in a cookie tin until just recently when he discovered that the bowl is an 18th-century relic from Imperial China.

The bowl is likely worth £50,000 ($80,700 CAD).

Marsham was only made aware of the bowl's worth when he spotted a similar bowl sold for a lot of money at auction last year.

Experts from Duke's Auctioneers of Dorchester, England, concluded that Marsham's bowl, with it's white interior and yellow exterior, was made for use by one of Emperor Yongzheng's first-rank concubines.

"It is exquisite," Guy Schwinge of Duke's Auctioneers said of the mint-condition dish.

"The porcelain produced during the reign of Yongzheng is generally regarded by scholars as the finest ever produced and the bowl exemplifies the delicate potting and exquisite glazes associated with the finest imperial porcelains of the period."

Schwinge added, "The auction is likely to attract collectors from the UK Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and the US."

The bowl is being sold at auction today.

Last month, a rare Imperial Chinese porcelain bowl fetched $27 million at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong.