Welcome to Top10Archive! Rummaging through others peoples clutter has
been a pastime for many, cause well "it was 99 cents". Submitted by YouTuber user Pluto545, we were
happy to go picking through the artcles, finding those who found valuable items at garage sales,
thrift shops, estate sales or flea markets. From a painting of flowers to a few simple
photographs, here are 10 finds worth millions. 10. Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth
Found in Indiana for $30, along with a few pieces of used furniture, the purchaser, who
wishes to remain anonymous, originally bought the painting to cover a hole in a wall that
was bugging him. Some years later, while enjoying the board
game Masterpiece, similar photos of his painting within the game made him curious, so he decided
to do some research. Finding Kennedy Galleries in Manhattan, who
handles most of this artist's work, they came to the conclusion that the painting was authenticate. As it turns out, the painting was one from
nineteenth century painter, Martin Johnson Heade. In 1999, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston,
Texas, purchased the painting for $1.25 million dollars. 9. Andy Warhol Sketch
Andy Fields, an art collector from Tiverton, England, bought five sketches at a Las Vegas
garage sale for five dollars in 2010. Although the seller informed him that they
used to belong to his aunt who watched over the Warhol child, Mr. Fields thought nothing
of it. When he decided to reframe one of the sketches,
he found a picture drawn by Andy Warhol tucked behind its frame. Having it validated, its appraiser estimated
the sketches were drawn by Warhol when he was 9 or 10, and to be worth $2.1 million
dollars. Mr. Fields has no intention of selling the
sketch anytime soon and has hopes it will be featured in a museum show. 8. Northern Song Dynasty Bowl
In 2007, a New York family purchased a ceramic bowl about five inches in diameter that had
a sawtooth pattern etched around the outside for $3, and left it on their mantle for years
to come. Eventually, having the bowl looked at by experts,
it was determined that it was a 1,000 year old Chinese bowl created during the Northern
Song Dynasty, which was known for its cultural and artistic advances during its period, roughly
between 960 and 1127 AD. The only other known bowl of similar size
and design was in a collection owned by the British Museum for over 60 years. Experts estimated that it was worth between
$200,000 and $300,000, but the final auction price, made by London dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi,
was 10 times that amout, with a final bid of $2.2 million dollars. 7. Declaration of Independence
A Philadelphia financial analyst bought an old painting with a depiction of a country
scene at a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, for its frame in 1989, costing him $4. Investigating a tear in the canvas, the frame
fell apart upon detaching it from the painting, but lead him to the discovery of a folded
document appearing to be the Declaration of Independence. Urged by a friend who collected Civil War
memorabilia to get it appraised, he would come to find out that it was in fact an original
Dunlap broadside, one of 500 official copies from the first printing of the Declaration
of Independence in 1776. Going up for auction, it doubled its estimated
$1.2 million dollar appraisal, selling for $2.42 million dollars in June of 1991. The story doesn't end there, though - in June
2000, the same document resurfaced, fetching an $8.14 million dollar bid from television
producer Norman Lear in an online auction. 6. Billy the Kid Photo
Buying three old photographs at a Fresno, California thrift shop as a miscellaneous
lot in 2010, Randy Guijarro, a U.S. history buff, studied the 4 by 5 inch image with the
others closely, soon realizing he may have an important 19th century historical item. Taking it to Kagin's Inc., a San Francisco
company specializing in U.S. gold coins and Western Americana, it was eventually verified
to be the only 2nd known image of Henry McCarty, also known as William Bonney. Depicting Billy the Kid playing croquet with
his accomplices, the Regulators, this is also the only known photo to feature his gang. Experts have estimated the value of the photograph
to be as much as $5 million dollars. 5. John Constable Painting
An art enthusiast paid roughly $5,000 in 2013 for a painting of a 19th century English landscape
at a London Auction that turned out to be "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadow", painted
by John Constable, a famous English countryside landscape artist. Originally thought to be a fake, Anne Lyles,
a former 18th and 19th century British art curator for Tate gallery in London, wrote
that the painting was heavily retouched approximately in the late 19th or 20th century, in a misguided
attempt to finish the painting. The experts appraised the painting to be worth
around $2 to $3 million dollars, but sold for $5.2 million at Sotheby's auction in Manhattan
in early 2015. 4. Mazarin Chest
The French engineer who worked for Shell Petroleum purchased this gem for roughly $150 in 1970,
used it as a TV stand in his South Kensington apartment for 16 years, then retired in Loire
Valley in 1986, where he used it as a bar, and died before ever knowing its true value. In 2013, the engineer's family contacted the
auction specialists of Rouillac to sell his estate, when Philippe Rouillac spotted the
chest and suggested the family to get it appraised. The gold lacquered cedar box was owned by
several historical figures, but disappeared in 1941 after its last owner, Sir Clifford
Cory, passed away. The chest disappeared and was considered lost,
leaving London's Victoria and Albert Museum searching
for the relic for 80 years. It was auctioned to Amsterdam's National Museum,
Rijksmuseum, on June 9th, 2013, for $9.5 million dollars. 3. King Henry VII Tudor Bed
The intricately carved ornate bed was left in a parking lot of the former Redland House
Hotel in Chester, northern England, by builders renovating the property. Ian Coulson spotted the piece and bought the
bed for $4,000 in 2010. He then approached Jonathan Foyle for authenticity,
who obtained DNA from parts of the bed and confirmed that it belonged to the monarch
and is the only known surviving Tudor bed. Mr. Foyle is backed by other experts such
as Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor of the history of the church at Oxford University,
describing the rediscovery as "exceptionally important". The Tudor bed is estimated to be worth $28.5
million, but is currently not up for sale and instead resides on public display as part
of the "A Bed of Roses" exhibition at Hever Castle in Kent. 2. Imperial Faberge Egg
Not much is known of the man who found this lost treasure in a flea market, except that
he hailed from the Midwest United States and purchased the egg for an easy metal scrap
profit, just to have severely underestimated the value of the metal it contained. Purchased for $14,000 dollars, the egg sat
on a kitchen counter for years, until a Google search of "Vacheron Constantin" followed by
the word "egg" turned up a 2011 article in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, describing
a lost Faberge Egg. The purchaser took pictures to London and
talked to a Faberge expert, Kieran McCarthy, where they then authenticated it to be a lost
Imperial Faberge Egg from the Russian royal family. The decorated egg is estimated to worth upwards
of $30 million dollars. 1. Ansel Adams Lost Negatives
Acquired at a garage sale for $45 by Rick Norsigian in Fresno, California, they were
subsequently kept under his pool table for four years before he decided to investigate
their origin. The man he had purchased them from said he
bought them in the 1940s from a salvage warehouse in Los Angeles, California. After a six-month examination, a team of experts
concluded that the 65 negatives were of the famed nature photographer, Ansel Adams. These negatives were believed to be his earlier
works, lost in a fire that destroyed his Yosemite National Park studio in 1937 due to some of
them being charred around the edges. Combined, they are assessed to be worth at
least $200 million dollars.
