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Research reported recently by the Associated Press found that lead and cadmium were present in cartoon character drinking glasses. Now a new study has found that many other items available for purchase throughout the United States – such as toys, home décor items, salvage, kitchen utensils and jewelry – contain surface lead concentrations more than 700 times higher than the federal limit.

The 18th century Qianlong porcelain vase had been estimated to fetch between £800,000 and £1.2 million by Bainbridges, the provincial auction house handling the sale. The 18th century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase is believed to have fetched the highest price for any Chinese artwork sold at auction However both the auctioneers and the owners were stunned when it went for the highest price of any Chinese artwork sold at auction. The elaborately decorated piece was put up for sale by a brother and sister who found it while clearing out their parents’ home in Pinner, north-west London after they recently died.

Here is the current top ten list of the most expensive items to ever appear on the show ‘Antique Roadshow.’ These 'national treasures' are in the hands of some very lucky people. SEE TOP 10...

Watch a report from WGAL in Harrisburg, where a $17,000.00 diamond ring (2.6 carat) was donated and will be auctioned off on Goodwill’s site. It is being recorded as a donation, and is the largest Goodwill donation ever in the Pennsylvania area. WATCH $17K ANTIQUE RING DONATED to GOODWILL...

NEW YORK, March 29 (UPI) -- Members of a New York family charged with stockpiling 30 guns and other weapons are antique collectors, not criminals, a friend says. Thomas Siano, 57, Kathleen Siano, 58, and their son, Vincent Siano, 29, were charged with criminal possession of weapons. Michael Poole, 29, their friend and tenant, also was charged after a Friday search of the Siano home turned up 30 guns, seven knives and two crossbows, but the charges against him were dropped, the New York Daily News reported Monday. The weapons were left to Thomas Siano by his grandfather and uncle...

Now 300 years old, the Loring Bowl, as it is known, will be the star of the show at Sotheby’s auction of early American silver in New York on Jan. 22. It is, by far, the biggest bowl of its kind and period that Sotheby’s has ever handled. Now 300 years old, the Loring Bowl, as it is known, will be the star of the show at Sotheby’s auction of early American silver in New York on Jan. 22. It is, by far, the biggest bowl of its kind and period that Sotheby’s has ever handled. (Southeby's) Fearing for his...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jinx Taylor always thought her father had impeccable taste. Now she knows it's true. Four pieces of jade that her father bought in the 1930s and '40s at No. 10 Jade St. in Beijing were valued last month at more than $1 million on PBS' "Antiques Roadshow" while the program was in Raleigh, a record appraisal for the show. They're so valuable, in fact, that Taylor can't afford the insurance on the keepsakes and plans to sell them. "I adored my father," Taylor, who lives along North Carolina's coast, said in a recent phone interview. "He was...

A gilded bronze clock which could have ticked away the final hours of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime has resurfaced in a new antiques shop in Dereham. The elaborate timepiece, believed to be a British soldier's prized memento of victory in the Second World War, is one of many historical collectables brought to the shop opened by Breckland councillor and former Dereham mayor Michael Fanthorpe. Mr Fanthorpe said the clock belonged to a soldier despatched to the dictator's bunker after the fall of Berlin in 1945, whose wife refused to display it in her home and chose to sell it after...

This evening's Antiques Roadshow (from Belfast) had some interesting fortean-tinged items. Unsurprisingly, there were various pieces of Titanic memorabilia but the final segment had the daughter and granddaughter of Frances Griffiths showing the famous Cottingley fairy photographs and a camera given to Griffiths by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Roadshow expert, Paul Atterbury. You can watch the episode in full on the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days.A few things worth noting from the programme:Frances only admitted that the photographs (bar one) were fakes after she had discovered her cousin Elsie had spoken out about them (Elsie had come...

Bernice Gallego sat down one day this summer, as she does pretty much every day, and began listing items on eBay. She dug into a box and pulled out a baseball card. She stopped for a moment and admired the picture. "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the card read, under a sepia tone photo of 10 men with their socks pulled up to their knees. The card itself was dirty and wrinkled in a few places. [SNIP] The card is actually 139 years old. It, and a handful of others like it, are considered the first baseball cards. This...

The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery. "This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said. The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology...

Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday. The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said. The volumes are part of a massive collection of books confiscated by the secret police of the executed Iraqi dictator and stored in security installations in the Iraqi capital until the US-led invasion of 2003. Many volumes were damaged during the bombing of government buildings in...

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DETROIT - A man charged with smuggling dlrs 12 million in bogus cashiers checks into the United States told agents the man named on the checks may belong to al-Qaida, authorities said Wednesday. Omar Shishani, 47, also told investigators during an interview that "if you want to know about terrorism, I can help you with that," Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Straus said during a hearing. Defense attorney Nabih Ayad denied his client ever made such statements. Shishani, who was born in Jordan but is of Chechen descent, was arrested last week after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a flight...

OK folks, need some help. I have scoured the net and have yet to find documentation on what these are or a history on their worth.Anybody???

*Monitor not included

Col. Ra'ad, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division Iraqi Army commander, leads American Soldiers through one of the few excavated areas in the Hatra ruins July 14. Ra'ad, whose brother-in-law work on the site in the 1970s, gave his endorsement to a coalition iniative to build a protective fence around the 2,000-year-old site to keep out looters. Story and photo by Sgt. Rachel Brune101st Sustainment Brigade,101st Airborne Division AL HADR -- Even as he is mired in the present concerns of coordinating logistics for Q-West Base Complex, Capt. Jesse Ballenger, 153rd Field Artillery Brigade, has one eye on the future,...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Attorney General Mike Beebe says a proposed constitutional amendment to ban the sale of slave paraphernalia can be resubmitted for his review. Beebe rejected the proposal Thursday, saying it did not include a copy of the full measure for his review. He also noted several problems with the proposal including that it does not clearly define slave paraphernalia or slave items. But Beebe told Marquitta J. Corbin of Conway that she can submit the proposal again. Corbin wants to get the measure on the November ballot but the attorney general must first review the proposal...

Before I could write my column this week, I had to take an hour off to watch "Antiques Roadshow" on PBS, locally WHA. It feeds my fantasy of finding or buying an item and have it turn out to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The show always has a few people who either bought an item at a yard sale for a dollar or two or found it. For example, Monday's show featured a man who went dumpster diving and found a rare print by John Turnbull of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was worth...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is seeking to revive its carpet industry by weaving the world's biggest rug, weighing in at 35 tonnes. The mammoth rug from the spiritual homeland of Persian carpets will cover almost 6,000 square metres and will fetch some $8.2 million, its makers told Reuters on Saturday. "We will have two working shifts of 1,000 weavers working for 14 months non-stop to deliver the carpet on time," said Karam Reza Haseli, a deputy manager at the state-supported Iranian carpet company. Work is due to start in three months. The carpet has been ordered by the Sheikh Zayed...