00:00A 55-year-old Thai fisherman was walking, as usual, on Koh Samui beach
00:05when he found a huge piece of yellow material in the sand.
00:09He thought it could be gray amber,
00:12also known as the treasure of floating seas and gold,
00:15or, less poetically, whale vomit.
00:18This incredibly expensive substance is mostly used in the perfume industry.
00:23For someone who earns about $10 a day, such a discovery changes life.
00:27The fisherman was not 100% sure that it was gray amber,
00:31so he put it in his hangar and went back to work.
00:35The news spread and his neighbors offered to help him
00:38determine if the piece had any value.
00:40They asked him for samples that he said Banshee wanted to be analyzed,
00:44then told him that it was nothing special.
00:47Almost a year later, the fisherman decided to solve the mystery himself
00:51and called on the authorities to proceed with tests.
00:54The governor of the province arrived with specialists
00:57who confirmed that the discovery contained more than 8% gray amber.
01:01He also found out that he could sell his treasure for more than $400,000.
01:06The fisherman was, we can not be happier.
01:08Can you imagine that?
01:10Similar stories come to us regularly from different parts of the world.
01:13It happened that people find floating gold,
01:16worth more than a million dollars.
01:18It has been used for more than a million years.
01:20Whales eat calamari and dried fish.
01:23And it happens that they swallow the beak and the gladius of these creatures,
01:26which transform in a few years into a huge mass of matter.
01:31Once extracted, gray amber has a terrible smell,
01:34but when it dries, it becomes musky.
01:36The liquid that is removed allows the perfume to keep its smell longer.
01:40Gray amber is the most precious
01:43and is only used in the most expensive perfumes.
01:46One day, a woman bought a painting on a market in West Virginia for $ 7.
01:51She wanted to get rid of the work and keep the beautiful frame.
01:55But having some doubts, she decided to show it to an expert first.
01:59He quickly determined that the painting had been painted by the famous French artist Renoir.
02:04There was also an inscription in French,
02:06as well as a label and a number on the back of the canvas.
02:09The expert immediately found it in the catalog of works of the Impressionist master.
02:14The touch corresponded exactly to that of the painter.
02:17After some research,
02:19the expert also discovered that the painting had probably been offered by the artist to his model,
02:25who had then sold it to an American lawyer.
02:27It is worth several tens of thousands of dollars.
02:29Jessica Vincent, a horse trainer in Virginia,
02:33loves to go to flea markets and has always dreamed of finding an object
02:36that would be worth thousands of dollars in a Goodwill store.
02:39One day, she noticed a pretty glass vase
02:42among old kitchen items and canned food.
02:45At the bottom of the vase, there was a mark indicating Murano, Italy.
02:49This vase pleased her so much that she was ready to pay a large sum to be able to acquire it,
02:54but it only cost 4 dollars.
02:56When she brought it home, she posted photos of her purchase on Facebook
03:00and someone recommended her to join a private group dedicated to Murano glasses.
03:04The members of this group helped Jessica to identify the creator of the vase,
03:08the Italian glassmaker Carlo Scarpa.
03:11The vase was made in the 1940s and, as its creator died a few decades later,
03:17it had become a rarity.
03:19Collectors were looking for vases of this type,
03:21but they were so expensive that few of them could afford them.
03:26Jessica then contacted the president of a auction house in Chicago,
03:30who confirmed to her that her object, especially with its colors,
03:33was really rare and precious.
03:35She loved the vase,
03:37but she didn't feel comfortable keeping such an expensive object in her farm.
03:41And she needed money to heat up her new property.
03:45She ended up selling the vase at an auction for 85,000 dollars.
03:49In France, a couple of elderly people found an African mask while vacating their secondary residence.
03:55They decided to sell it to a local antique dealer,
03:58who agreed to buy it for a little over 150 dollars.
04:01A few months later, they learned from a newspaper
04:03that their mask had been sold at an auction for nearly 4.5 million dollars.
04:08It was a rare model,
04:10whose wood was covered with kaolin.
04:12It had been used during rituals by an African secret society.
04:16The grandfather of the man had brought it from Gabon,
04:19where he had lived at the beginning of the 20th century.
04:21The couple attempted a fair action against the dealer,
04:24who had not indicated to them the real value of the mask.
04:27They were convinced that he knew it,
04:29because instead of selling the mask in his store,
04:32he had immediately contacted auction houses.
04:35The first two had underestimated the finding,
04:38but the third had asked for a carbon dating analysis,
04:42and found that the mask was from the 19th century.
04:45After an investigation,
04:46the court announced that the couple had the right to appeal,
04:49and blocked the sale until the case was judged.
04:53In the 19th century,
04:54a chessboard containing ivory pieces of meticulously sculpted morse
04:58was discovered in the sand dunes of Lewis Island in Scotland.
05:02Five pieces were missing.
05:04Nearly two centuries later,
05:06a family from Edinburgh brought a chess piece
05:08to the auction house Sotheby's,
05:10stating that one of their ancestors had bought it long before.
05:14The grandfather in question had bought it in the 1960s for only 6 dollars.
05:18He had passed it on to his daughter.
05:20And although the family had no idea of the real value or importance of the piece,
05:25they had kept it in the house as a family heirloom.
05:29By examining it,
05:30Sotheby's team realized that it was a Lewis chess piece
05:34dating from the 12th or early 13th century,
05:37and being part of the famous incomplete game.
05:39The other Lewis chess pieces are now found in institutions
05:43such as the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
05:48The complexity of the execution,
05:50the historical importance and the incredible travel of the piece
05:54have greatly contributed to its value.
05:56And it was sold at the auctions in London for more than 900,000 dollars.
06:00During an auction,
06:01a resident of the United Kingdom bought a diamond ring of 26 carats for 13 dollars.
06:06She was convinced to buy a fantasy jewel
06:09and wear it with disdain for about thirty years.
06:12One day, she decided to check with a local jeweler
06:16if the ring was worth more than its original price.
06:19The stone turned out to be a real diamond in the shape of a cushion,
06:22which probably belonged to a very rich person,
06:26probably a member of the royal family.
06:28In the 19th century,
06:30it was before the discovery of modern diamond mines,
06:32and there were very few of these stones in the world.
06:35Recognizing the diamond was not an easy thing,
06:37because it did not look like the sparkling jewels we are used to.
06:41This pretty stone had been cut for a candlelight,
06:45with an old mount,
06:47and it had darkened over time.
06:49The silver had also tarnished,
06:51and it was probably very dirty too.
06:53The ring was sold at Sotheby's auctions in London
06:56for nearly 850,000 dollars.
06:58Experts claim that its new owner
07:01will be able to carve the diamond to give it a more modern look,
07:05and that it will then be worth several times that amount.
07:07For a long time,
07:08a painting by the Florentine artist of the 13th century Simabu was unavailable.
07:13But in 2019,
07:15he made a surprise appearance in the comfortable house
07:18of an old lady living in the French countryside.
07:21The lady was about to sell her house
07:23and had invited an auctioneer
07:25to find out how much she could get for her goods.
07:28The auctioneer found that the painting in his kitchen
07:31was painted by a famous painter
07:34who had lived for several centuries.
07:36An expertise confirmed that it was an original
07:39from a series made in the 13th century,
07:42one of Simabu's eleven paintings
07:44kept in the world.
07:46An infrared analysis
07:47even revealed subtle corrections
07:49made by the artist during the creation process,
07:52doubly proving the authenticity of the work.
07:55The new owner paid more than 26 million dollars for the painting.
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