Luckiest Discoveries That Made People Rich

all of us want to find ways to get rich quick and sometimes that fortune we're looking for isn't far away maybe buried in a garden or in a pile of junk in an attic or a sale just waiting for that lucky person to unearth it some people might spend their entire lives searching for that stroke of luck and for some and might stumble right into their laps in today's episode of top trending we feature the ten luckiest discoveries that have made people rich beyond their wildest dreams and number 10 on our list is a construction workers accidental discovery of the first comic book where Superman made an appearance David Gonzalez of Hoffman Minnesota decided to go out on a limb and purchase for $10,100 an old house that was to be torn down he wanted to renovate it and hopefully make a profit reselling it but little did he know what the house had in store for him while he was pulling down the ceiling he found a bunch of newspapers that had been stuffed in as insulation materials amongst these papers was a 1938 volume of Action Comics number 1 which introduced the character of Superman and is now considered the most valuable comic book of all time with only about a hundred known copies in existence as can be expected after 70 years of being used as padding the book was not in great condition and it became worse as David accidentally tore the back cover a few days after finding it nevertheless he was able to sell the comic in an online auction for $175,000 in the house he continued renovating it but now vows that he will never sell it here's a place that thousands of people visit every week hoping to get lucky the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arizona offers its visitors a unique experience hunting for diamonds in the open fields and if you're lucky enough to find a diamond it's yours to keep over 32,000 diamonds have been found at the park since it opened in 1972 but since most of the diamonds found are small they're only a few fortunate ones who have converted the now $10.00 entrance fee into a fortune most notable among those is w W Johnson of Amarillo Texas who was vacationing with his family in 1975 when he found a rough white diamond weighing over 16 carats christened the Amarillo starlight the diamond was cut into a seven and a half carat marquise shape and is estimated to be worth between 150,000 and 175,000 dollars don't give up hope though in March 2017 fourteen-year-old Karl Langford hit the jackpot when he found a seven and a half care dark-brown diamond 30 minutes into his visit to the park the hand of faith is the largest gold nugget in existence today it was found in 1980 in Victoria Australia by prospector Kevin Hillier for 18 months he'd been living in a caravan with his wife Beth and their four children struggling to make ends meet as they traveled around Australia Beth a firm believer in the Christian faith had been praying consistently for guidance in a helping hand to keep their family living comfortably and it seems like God truly answered her prayers when Kevin literally struck gold he was investigating a spot where his metal detector had gone off and found this 27 kilogram hunk of gold resting in a vertical position just 12 inches under the surface of the ground Kevin and Beth dug up the nugget and headed it into their Caravan naming it the hand of faith as from some angles it looked like a hand delivering a blessing their find received huge publicity in the Australian media and they sold the Nugget for a whopping 1 million dollars to the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas where it is still on display we've all heard of a Lucky Penny but can you imagine a single penny being worth a fortune San Diego real estate agent Randy Lawrence suddenly found that he was the owner of a unique penny minted in 1974 and made of aluminum at a time when the rising costs of copper forced the United States Mint to start experimenting with other metals almost all of the aluminum sense that they minted were recalled and destroyed after it was found that they didn't work in vending machines and didn't appear on x-ray scanners one of these coins it appears was given to Lawrence's father when he retired as deputy superintendent of the Denver Mint after his death in 1980 it remained in a plastic sandwich bag together with his collection of about 300 other coins until Lawrence suddenly discovered them and took them to a coin dealer in 2014 they were amazed when their research revealed how rare this one coin was since there were only two other known examples of such coins including one that was presented by the mint to the Smithsonian Institution and the penny was valued at anywhere between 250,000 and two million dollars at number 6 on our list is the incredible story of Bobby who was an opal miner for over 40 years in Australia before he fell on hard times and decided to quit selling all his mining equipment to a friend all he had left with him was one last bucket of rocks and for old times sake he decided to look through them as he was rubbing one of the grimy rocks clean of the dirt and cemented sand he caught a flash of blue green and gold and lo and behold there it was the jewel he had always been lucky for he spent the next two years chiseling away the rocky husk with a dental drill in his effort brought to life a 306 carrot gem quality opal he was so frightened that it would be stolen that he slept with it under his mattress for the next 12 years not disclosing its existence to a single soul considering himself the guardian of one of God's greatest creations we're not sure what brought about a change in his mindset because in 2013 the jewel was put on sale for a cool three million dollars we're not sure where the opal or Bobby is now this 19th century American artist might not have been very popular during his own lifetime but owning his paintings has been a life-changing discovery for more than one person in 1999 an anonymous Indiana resident was playing the Parker Brothers board game masterpiece when he saw that one of the paintings featured in the game was very similar to one that he had at home that he bought a few years ago for next to nothing to cover up a hole in the wall curious about its provenance he searched the internet and got in touch with an art dealership which authenticated the painting as heeds Magnolias on gold velvet cloth and also put him in touch with the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston which paid a cool 1.25 million dollars for the painting earlier that year Christie's Auction House in London sold a heat painting called two magnolias on blue plush for eight hundred eighty two thousand five hundred dollars its owner had bought the same painting ten years before in a rummage sale in Wisconsin for $29 these are not the only such stories in 1996 a lady bought a pair of heat paintings and an Arizona garage sale for $100 she sold them both in an auction later that same year for a total of 1 million 72,000 now that's a good reason to splurge at your next neighborhood garage sale and number 4 on our list is a real story of discovering buried treasure it begins with Peter Watling a resident of Suffolk and England losing his hammer in a field he was working in he asked his friend Eric laws and amateur metal detectorists to help him find it as laws was searching through the field he started finding some valuables silver spoons gold and silver coins and even pieces of gold jewelry he immediately notified the City Council who were the owners of the land and they sent in an archaeological unit to excavate the place the next day what they found was history the largest hoard of Roman gold and silver ever found in the United Kingdom dating back to the 4th century the collection included over 200 gold and silver artifacts and over 15,000 gold and silver coins the Hutt's new hoard was taken over by the British Museum but as per the law the government had to reward the finder with money equivalent to its market value so in 1993 the British crown paid to Eric laws one point seven three million pounds equivalent to about two point five million dollars a sum which he decided to share equally with his friend Peter Watling a huge reward indeed for losing just a hammer at number three on our list of the luckiest discoveries that made people rich is the copy of the Declaration of Independence that an unnamed man found inside a torn painting he purchased the old country scene for four dollars at a flea market in Adams town Pennsylvania mostly because he liked the frame and wanted to reuse it when he got home and tried to dismantle it the frame broke but hidden in the picture backing was an old folded document a civil war memorabilia collecting friend advised him to have it appraised and turns out that it was a declaration of independence that had been printed at the instructions of the Continental Congress in the 4th of July 1776 to carry the news of America's independence to citizens across the 13 colonies will never know how this particular copy ended up in this painting but there were only 23 other known copies of this historic document only two of which were in private hands it was sold in auction in 1991 for 2.42 million dollars more than double the son that had been anticipated a declaration of financial independence indeed for the lucky finder of this treasure number 2 on this list is also a buried treasure hoard that was found in the county of Staffordshire England for many years Terry Herbert had been asking landowner Fred Johnson for permission to search his farmland with a metal detector and an exasperated Fred finally agreed in July 2009 over the next five days Terry found 244 gold objects of different sizes on the freshly plowed field and as required by law he notified the authorities their excavation revealed the most important anglo-saxon treasure ever found in England a collection of over 1,300 exquisitely carved gold silver and jeweled items many of them designed for battlefield views in total there was about 5 kilograms of the purest gold in about two and a half kilograms of silver the treasure was valued at three point two eight five million pounds which the Birmingham museum raised through a public appeal so that it could acquire the hoard in its entirety the law though had changed in 1996 to require the reward to be paid not just to the finder but also to the owner of the land on which it was found so Fred Johnson and Terry Herbert were each paid over 1.6 million pounds or 2.6 million dollars for the Staffordshire or a blessing one would think but it appears that it has been a curse on their friendship because the pair have not spoken to each other since the treasure was found at the top of our list is the miraculous story of a Midwestern scrap dealer who was coming through a flea market when he chanced upon a heavy but jeweled gold object he bought it for about fourteen thousand dollars hoping that he could sell it forward for a thousand dollar profit to someone who'd melted down for the golden jewels he was unable to find any buyers who thought it was worth more than what he had paid for it but he still believed in the value of the piece and turned to the Internet to try and find out more about it his search results flabbergasted him he was in possession of the legendary third Imperial egg made to order for the Russian Tsar in 1887 by jeweler Carl Faberge he couldn't believe his luck and flew to London to consult the fabergé egg expert mentioned in the online article the expert was equally stunned by the photographs he saw and flew back to America with the scrap dealer to verify the discovery and right there in a modest home next to some muffins on the kitchen counter was the fabulous handcrafted Easter egg that had been believed lost for over 90 years a purchase was quickly arranged on behalf of an unidentified private collector who reportedly paid 33 million dollars for this Emperor's gift that's a profit of 32 million nine hundred eighty-five thousand dollars more than what this lucky man was hoping to make from his flea market purchase that's our list of the ten luckiest discoveries that made people rich did you agree disagree do you know of other such strokes of luck that people have made a fortune front let us know in the comments section we love hearing from you if you enjoyed the video feel free to like the video share with friends and subscribe to top trending for more regular countdown videos such as this one

Channel: Top Trending

Views: 5,152,698

Rating: 4.6248498 out of 5

Keywords: rich, expensive, discovery, luckiest discoveries, hidden treasure, gold, diamond, treasure chest, burried treasure, most expensive, lucky people, lucky finds, made people rich, finds, real hidden treasure, millionaires, lottery, luckiest, top 10

Id: 7H-H-QpHwyI

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 03 2018