Unbelievable facts
Would you like to find treasures? There is no doubt that the vast majority of people will answer this question positively. However, many of us believe that finding treasures is extremely troublesome and expensive, accessible only to professionals.
And professional treasure hunters, in our opinion, are fanatics diving into the depths of the seas and oceans in search of chests of gold that sunk along with ships; or exhausted hot and cold travelers who have been living in jungles or deserts for years.
However, there are situations in this life when completely ordinary people, just like you and me, who live a completely ordinary life, suddenly find hidden treasures (or just values). Moreover, hidden in completely unexpected places.
Here are ten amazing stories about ordinary people who lived their ordinary lives, but found very valuable things by chance. Some were so expensive that they can safely be called treasures.
Gold bars found
Gold at the bottom of the dustbin
Life is unpredictable. And career advancement is not always the way to make you a rich person
(not to mention the opportunity to make millions).
However, one sanitary worker in South Korea (simply speaking, a cleaner) managed to become much richer. In April 2018, one of the cleaners at Incheon International Airport changed bags in the airport's garbage bins.
At the bottom of one of the baskets, a lucky Korean found large gold bars (seven pieces) wrapped in a newspaper. As it turned out later, the bullion cost 350 million South Korean won (or 327,000 US dollars).
The sanitary worker (who, by the way, wished to remain anonymous) handed over this generous gift of fate to the police, reasonably reasoning that the gold bars were not in the trash can because they were for some are rubbish. It is obvious that some criminal act is connected with this gold.
I must say that South Korea has a law that can be described in a nutshell as the title of one of Stephen King's books — “Whoever finds it, takes it”. According to this law, anyone who reports valuable items to the police is entitled to such finds unless someone else claims their rights to them within six months.
But even if the owner of gold bars suddenly “remembers” them, goes to the police and claims his rights to the precious metal (while proving the legality of its origin), a Korean janitor, according to local legislation, it is still entitled to 5-20 percent of the value of the find.
However, there is a small chance that the Korean cleaner will be unlucky. A man may not get anything at all if the police have reliable evidence of the criminal origin of these gold bars.
Millions of dollars in a cookie jar
The Cerezo family, living in the small town of Batavia, Kane County, Illinois, USA, suffered a serious tragedy in 2012. On August 12, they lost their 14-year-old daughter, Savannah Cerezo, due to the girl's serious health problems.
In 2015, the family faced another problem — they began to have serious financial difficulties, as a result of which they lost the right to use their home (apparently, it was mortgaged due to debts or credits).
The head of the family, Ricardo Cerezo, has long since lost any faith in luck. However, every week he bought lottery tickets at a gas station. This is not to say that the man did not turn off the TV, as do many people who buy lottery tickets who fiercely believe in a lucky accident.
Ricardo bought tickets more out of habit — he did it for a long period of time. And I guess I didn't even check these tickets for a win. But maybe somewhere inside he had little hope that anything else would improve his family's lives.
Ricardo put all the lottery tickets he bought in a cookie jar. This cookie was once given to them by their daughter Savannah. They kept this touching gift, which reminded them of their deceased daughter, putting in it not only tickets, but also various valuable and important items.
After a while, the bank simply ran out of space due to the accumulated lottery tickets. Ricardo's wife threatened her husband that she would throw away all his useless pieces of paper if the man himself did not free the jar from unnecessary rubbish.
Cerezo took all the tickets and went to the nearest gas station, where he could check the tickets for the winnings. Luck finally smiled on them — one of the tickets turned out to be happy. As a result, the Cerezo family won the Illinois Lottery, which brought them $4 million 850 thousand.
About how useful it is to understand abstractionism
Those who like to visit museums will not let you lie: sometimes, in a temple of cultural, artistic or historical heritage, there are exhibits that are so simple at first glance that it seems as if anyone could do them.
Ben Nicholson, an English abstract artist and sculptor, is considered by many to be the author of just such works. The list of his most famous works includes paintings in which most people see only geometric figures of various colors. Nicholson sometimes painted landscapes and sculpted sculptures.
Connoisseurs consider Nicholson, who died in 1982 at the age of 87, to be one of the first abstract artists to fill seemingly chaotic forms with substantive content. In 2015, a certain Joe Haven, a woman from Swindon, Wiltshire, England, managed to make money precisely because she was familiar with Nicholson's work.
The woman decided to take a walk through one of the 99p Stores thrift stores, which sell goods that cost less than one British pound. She was walking around the store when she suddenly noticed a patterned fabric on the floor.
This drawing was not much different from what, say, a five-year-old who could draw at least somehow could draw. It also looked like a drawing made in the simplest image editor, such as MS Paint. The picture showed clumsy horse figures, deer, houses and some simple boats in the background.
The woman later admitted that she decided to buy this painting because she found the picture “bizarre”. Only in the car did the woman notice that on the back side there was information about the origin of this cloth.
Read also: Picasso's painting has become the most expensive work of art in the world
As it turned out, this “rag” was produced in the 30s of the last century by one of the British textile factories with the participation of Ben Nicholson, who was invited to design it. Prior to that, only three similar works by the artist were known to be exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
When she got to the Internet, Joe realized that this item could cost money, but she had no idea how much she could get for this fabric. As a result, the work was put up for sale at Bonhams, a private British auction house in London.
Joe raised $5,691 from selling a piece of cloth with a simple pattern, donating 10 percent later to the same thrift store. I must say that she would not have known the true value of her work if she hadn't once heard something about Nicholson from her mother, an art teacher.
Hidden money in the book
About the benefits of loving literature and the bucks between pages
In 2012, a man named Carlos, who lives in Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA, visited a local book exchange office. At such points, people can, after donating some of their literature, exchange a certain number of books brought by other people for exchange.
Carlos, after selecting several books that interested him, took them to his car. There he borrowed one book so he could skim through it to read the content. Imagine his surprise when real dollars suddenly began to fall out of the book pages.
The Stash was not weak — Carlos took about 20,000 US dollars out of the book. However, the native of Brazil turned out to be not only a great book lover, but also a man of high moral character, because the man decided to find the owner of this book.
There were no notes on the cover or pages to indicate who owned this piece of literature, along with the content in the form of a pile of money. Carlos reported his discovery to a local newspaper, making it clear that if the book owner contacts him by email, he is ready to return the money he found.
Whoever claims the dollars will have to tell Carlos the title of the book, as well as the approximate amount of money that was hidden between the pages. In addition, there were some other values that Carlos did not openly disclose, inviting the potential owner to describe them.
The man also said that he would be ready to hold the money for several months. If the owner of the dollars does not show up during this period of time, Carlos will donate some of the money to charity and take the rest for himself.
The continuation of this story is unknown. But you can write to Carlos (he left an email at Ipatimga2005@comcast.net), although many years have passed since this incident. Perhaps the owner was found, wanting to remain anonymous. Or Carlos was honestly lucky, for which he was rewarded with such a generous chance.
Fishing was a success: a hundred million dollars as a catch
This story is about a fisherman and… no, not a fish, but about an incredibly large pearl that a man kept at home for ten years. One day, a fisherman from Puerto Princesa in Palawan Island, Philippines, anchored his boat to go fishing in peace.
When he tried to raise the anchor, he found that it had caught on to something at the bottom of the sea. The fisherman had to dive to release the anchor. At the bottom, he encountered the largest mollusk ever seen (it looks like a giant tridacne).
The man immediately thought about the possibility of finding a pearl inside (fish is fish, and it is quite possible to make money on such a treasure by selling it to jewelers). The fisherman used a lever to open the leaves of the mollusk shell, where he saw something!
This was not the usual “classic” rounded gem we were used to. The Filipino discovered a massive irregularly shaped pearl, weighing 34 kilograms.
The fisherman had never seen anything like it before. He decided that his discovery was unlikely to be used to make jewelry, but took the pearl with him. Just in case, like a useless trinket. And he threw it under his bed at home, where it had been kept for ten years.
I must say that the man's aunt worked in the local municipal government, attracting tourists. She once told her nephew that she was looking for any way to attract vacationers to the island, which would boost the town's economy.
The man suddenly remembered his old find and suggested that tourists would be interested in looking at this strange but useless object. The pearl was exhibited in the city hall building under glass, for everyone to see.
The fisherman's aunt also turned to specialists to confirm the authenticity of the pearl's natural origin. When they studied the find, it turned out to be the biggest gem on Earth ever found!
It measures 30 centimeters in width and 67 centimeters in length. And it far exceeds the previous record holder, the six-kilogram pearl of Allah found in 1934, also found in the Philippines. And now the most important thing is that the new record holder is worth more than one hundred million US dollars!
Treasures found
Patience and work will overwrite the loan
Somerset, England, UK, was home to the Eliot family, who rented a plot of land for a farm there for many years. They had been cultivating their land for decades when they finally got a mortgage in 1988 that allowed them to buy the land.
Cousins Kevin and Martin Eliot ran the farm together. After eventually becoming full-fledged landowners, they came up with the idea to walk on their land, scanning it with a metal detector.
It wasn't just pure curiosity that led the brothers. They knew this land had been used as a farm for hundreds of years. And so the brothers suggested that their plot might well hide more than just good farming potential.
The brothers got a metal detector, turned it on and started combing the ground. Just a few minutes later, at the very beginning of the site, they found the first coin. The search continued, eventually bringing the Eliot family an incredible “catch” of 9,123 denarii, ancient Roman silver coins.
But initially, the brothers did not even think to count them: there were so many coins, and they were so constant that they only had time to drag them into the house in buckets. As it turned out later, the coins were of different dates — from 31 BC to 224 AD.
The lucky but hardworking brothers sold the coins to the Somerset County Museum for $358,224. It is not reported what the Eliots spent their money on. They may have immediately paid off their mortgage for the land that their family has been cultivating for 36 years.
The benefits of buying used furniture
Many of us have bought used furniture. There is nothing wrong with this, especially considering the fact that sometimes you can buy quite decent and even rare items, the cost of which is several times less than similar new items.
A student (the name of the lucky woman was not disclosed) from Berlin, Germany, received unexpected benefits from buying used furniture, beyond expectations. The girl rented an unfurnished apartment, so she went to one of the local flea markets to buy a sofa.
There she bought a pull-out sofa bed, which she bought for $215. The purchase was delivered to the student's place of residence, where she decided to pull out the sofa. After lifting one part of it, the girl found a small picture measuring 26 by 39 centimeters inside.
It was an oil canvas that looked like a very ancient canvas. The student did not find any inscriptions either on the front or on the back of the canvas that could help determine the authorship and age of the painting.
However, the girl decided that this work could be of some value, so she put it up for sale at one of the local auctions. As it turned out later, this painting was painted by an unknown author who was a contemporary of the famous Venetian artist Carlo Saraceni.
This work, written sometime between 1605 and 1620, was called “Preparing to Flee to Egypt”. It was sold at auction for 27,630 US dollars. It turns out that the lucky student stopped buying a sofa more than tenfold.
How useful it is not to save on repairs
In Evreux, Normandy, France, there was an ancient crumbling castle, which for many years was inherited by the same family, from generation to generation.
The money required to repair this castle (or mansion), as well as the cost of maintaining it, significantly exceeded the cost of the building itself and the land. Apparently, this is why none of those who took ownership as part of the inheritance seriously engaged in this very repair.
This situation is quite typical, as many old buildings owned by aristocratic families have remained without repair and restoration for many generations. On the one hand, this is not bad, as they remain authentic. On the other hand, nothing lasts forever under the Moon, and therefore buildings are gradually being destroyed.
They are also becoming dilapidated due to the fact that members of the younger generation prefer modern houses and comfortable houses to old and not very cozy ancestral mansions and ancestral nests apartments with everything you need.
But the idea of renovating came to the new heir (his name was not disclosed). The large family home he inherited in 2016 was literally full of antiques and other belongings that had been piled up by previous generations.
The new owner's family began their activity by moving furniture in their mansion, and came across several old drawers (well hidden) covered with a thick layer of dust. And they were more than rewarded for their modest efforts!
See also: 61 tons of silver bars were found in the Atlantic Ocean
The lucky ones found gold bars and gold coins in the boxes. The total cost of this unexpected treasure, which did not even have to be dug up, was approximately 3 million 700 thousand US dollars. There were even two bars weighing 12 kilograms each!
The gold, whose total weight exceeded 100 kilograms, was accompanied by documents according to which it was purchased legally in the 1950s and 60s of the last century. The new owners of the house decided to auction the jewels, which was done.
However, they first had to pay a tax on the inheritance of valuables. But even so, the heirs have enough money not only for a comfortable existence, but also for a decent repair of the collapsing family nest.
Accidentally found money
Money as a gift from the dead
You probably know about the existence of secondary metal processing plants, where scrap metal is melted down in order to obtain raw materials for subsequent use in various industries.
Various metal containers are also supplied to such plants. Some must be cleaned of rubbish, and also brought into a condition suitable for melting furnaces (for example, cut into pieces, and so on). Burlington, Kentucky, USA, also has a similar plant run by a company called Bluegrass Recycling.
A few years ago, a factory worker, a certain Mike Rogers, was just preparing such metal barrels for melting when suddenly he saw something green at the bottom of one of them. As it turned out, these were US government bonds in denominations ranging from $50 to $500 each.
The total amount of bonds was $22,000. How they ended up in a metal container is unclear. Obviously, it was scrapped by accident. Mike brought the securities home, where his wife, after doing some Internet searches, found their owner.
All the Rogers could find was information about a certain Martha Dobbins, who bought these bonds for a certain Robert Roberts. As it turned out, many hundreds of people with this name live in the country. But Rogers didn't even think of giving up!
He began to methodically call every Robert Roberts whose number he could find. And every time he wondered if the person on the other end of the line knew Martha Dobbins. He eventually found the very Roberts for whom Martha was his mother.
Roberts was 82 years old. His mother passed away a long time ago, but it is assumed that she secretly purchased these securities from her son to thank him for his son's love and care that Roberts arranged for his mother in old age. She hid the bonds in a barrel that lay somewhere in the shed.
This explains the fact that no one looked for these papers—no one knew they existed. And now, just a few days before Christmas, Robert Roberts receives an unexpected substantial gift from his long-dead mother. And all this is thanks to Mike, an ordinary decent worker from Kentucky…
Cherry orchard and ancient Roman silver
A farmer from the small town of Iken, Switzerland, was walking through his cherry orchard when he suddenly noticed a sun-shining object sticking right out of the ground. The man picked up a shovel and started digging up… ancient Roman silver coins.
In principle, this is not surprising, since 1700 years ago, just in that part of modern Switzerland, there was a Roman settlement. And even in those days, this same land was used as a farm.
Luckily for a Swiss farmer, houses were never built on this territory, so the coins lay quietly underground all this time.
Read also: An ancient gold treasure was found in Bulgaria
The farmer continued further excavations with a visiting archaeologist, as he expected to get all the available artifacts safe and sound.
However, they found nothing more than coins. But there were also quite a few of them — 4,166 pieces. Historians have estimated that this amount of money was equal to one or even two years of service for a Roman warrior. However, for the Swiss gardener, this find did not become a treasure, and he was not given a lot of money for it.
It's all about Swiss law, according to which such historical finds made in this country belong to all Swiss people (even those found on private plots). Thus, the coins became a museum item, and the farmer received a small prize from the state.