Bargain Hunt expert Charles Hanson was left devastated after accidentally dropping a 400-year-old dish and smashing it to pieces - just moments after he found the priceless gem in a secondhand shop. The BBC star was so stunned by the find that he was rendered speechless at first, and then forced to whisper so his admissions wouldn't be overheard by staff.

In a clip shared on TikTok, Charles told viewers as he browsed the shelves: "It's always nice to be antiquing in Lichfield. I'm in this really nice shop, there's some wonderful jewellery, nice George III helmet shaped jug over here. My favourite things are things that have an Asian providence-"

He cut himself off once he spotted a small blue and white dish, revealing: "This could be quite good. This is Chinese, what you call a lobed, almost melon-form, blue.

"Look at the blue and this shade of blue is what we call Kangxi. The blue is the richest blue of what you might call the late Ming dynasty. This would date to around 1620, 1640. Could be quite good. Actually very good."

When he took it to the till, he discovered the shop owner would sell it to him for just £10 - and admitted "mind blown at this point. It could do very well at auction."

But by the time he got outside, Charles was so excited he was balancing the dish on the very tips of his fingers, telling the camera: "Sometimes in the world of antiques, objects - I kid you not - can be absolutely life-changing. Look at the amazing blue, the amazing landscape."

At that moment the dish tumbled from his precarious grip and smashed into pieces on the floor, leaving him wailing "nooo!" in the caption of his video.

He said he "still can't believe" what happened, branding the moment a "disaster". Fans rushed to support him, with one writing: "Stuff happens. When you realise that as a child you destroyed precious antiques stored in your gran's attic. You certainly did not do it on purpose."

"Oh no I bet you were gutted!" someone else agreed. While a third said: "Omg. Sounds like me though. Keep excitement under control. Calm. Be more careful and calm in future."