Cracking The Code
The appraisers on Antiques Roadshow figured out that this 1785 box was meant to store makeup, and such boxes were usually given to women as a gift by men who liked them. The numbers at the top, however, remained a mystery.
A man watching it from TV decided to try to crack the code and got to work that same night. He figured that the double 8s could be "LL", and he developed a system to figure the rest out. It turns out that it said: "The gift is small but love is all". How romantic was that?