00:00In case the most exciting thing you've ever found in the street was an old quarter, prepare
00:04to be really jealous of this elderly woman from Romania.
00:08She found a rock in a stream bed and decided it was bulky and heavy enough to become an
00:13excellent doorstop, so she brought it home and used it for years.
00:18After she had passed away, her relative inherited her property and the doorstep with it.
00:23He somehow realized it was more than a quirky home decor piece and sold it to the state.
00:28It turned out to be one of the biggest intact chunks of amber in the world, worth over
00:34$1 million!
00:36Experts believe it's somewhere between 38 and a half and 70 million years old!
00:42Amber is a fossilized tree resin that's millions of years old.
00:46In the Romanian village of Colti, people have been digging up this gem from the riverbanks
00:51since the 1920s.
00:53The largest amber deposits in Europe are in the Baltic region, but with the right conditions,
00:58different types of amber can form anywhere, from Alaska to Madagascar!
01:04The huge amber nugget serving as a doorstop blended in so well that even jewel thieves
01:09ignored it when they robbed the house!
01:12Luckily, the Romanian authorities did recognize it as a national treasure of the country.
01:17It's now kept in a museum, and no, they don't use it as a doorstop!
01:23A building contractor named David Gonzalez bought a house in Minnesota for slightly over
01:28$10,000.
01:30It was built in 1938 and needed some serious renovation.
01:35While fixing it, David found an unusual piece of insulation among old newspapers.
01:40It was the very first comic book introducing Superman, a copy of Action Comics No. 1, from
01:47the same year that house was built!
01:49The comic wasn't in perfect condition and the cover was detached, but it still sold
01:54for $175,000, which was 17 times more expensive than the house!
02:01If the comic had been in better shape, it could have been worth way more!
02:05By the way, the most expensive comic ever sold so far is the very same one, yet it was
02:11in pristine condition.
02:13To get the comic in their collection, the buyer had to shell out $6 million in 2024.
02:19Previously, other copies of the same comic book were sold for $1.5 million and $3.5 million.
02:29A fisherman from the Philippines was out on his boat near Palawan Island during a storm.
02:34When he tried to drop his anchor, it got stuck on something he thought was a rock.
02:39He swam down to free it and realized it was a giant clam, and inside it, there was a huge
02:45pearl!
02:46The fisherman didn't know how valuable the pearl was, so he kept it under his bed for
02:50good luck for nearly 10 years.
02:53After a fire ruined his house, he showed the pearl to other people.
02:57It turned out to be the largest pearl in the world, weighing 75 pounds, about 4 times as
03:03heavy as a dachshund, and as big as 1 foot wide and 2.2 feet long!
03:09It's worth around $100 million!
03:12Today, the pearl is on display at the City Hall near Puerto Princesa to help attract
03:17visitors to the city.
03:20A really lucky someone who preferred to stay anonymous bought a ring at a car boot sale
03:25in the 1980s.
03:26It looked like a beautiful piece of costume jewelry, so $13 seemed like a fair price for
03:32it.
03:33They wore it for many years, until one day they decided to take it to a jeweler to find
03:37out more about it.
03:39The jeweler discovered that it was actually a real 26-carat cushion-shaped diamond set
03:45in a mount from the 19th century.
03:47The ring was put up for sale at an auction in London and sold for over $800,000!
03:54It was roughly double its initial estimated value.
03:57Diamond fans from today would hardly recognize their favorite gem in this rock because it
04:02was cut in an old-fashioned way.
04:04It was made for candlelight, so they tried to do everything to make it visible.
04:09The silver around it darkened over time, so it didn't look like something worth hundreds
04:14of millions.
04:15The ring most likely belonged to someone from the royal family or just a really rich person,
04:20as diamonds were super rare back then.
04:23Experts think the new owner will re-cut it and it's going to multiply the diamond's price!
04:32Next time there's a yard sale next to your house, don't ignore it!
04:35You could end up buying a small bowl for $3 that's actually worth millions!
04:41It's actually what happened in New York State.
04:43A lucky someone got a Chinese bowl for around $3 without knowing it was 1,000 years old!
04:49The bowl was sitting in the living room for several years, and then curiosity took over
04:54and the owner got it assessed.
04:57It turned out to be a real treasure from the Northern Song Dynasty, called a ding bowl.
05:02The only other bowl like it is in the British Museum in London.
05:06Four bidders were fighting for the New York bowl at an auction.
05:10Finally, a London dealer bought it for over $2.2 million.
05:16In 1970, a woman from Rhode Island bought a pretty ceramic plate for less than $100.
05:23She liked it so much that she hung it on the wall above her stove.
05:26For three years, it got covered in grease from cooking.
05:29In 2014, the lady took her favorite decoration to the TV show called Antiques Roadshow to
05:35have it checked out.
05:37To her surprise, she found out it was a plate designed by the famous artist Pablo Picasso
05:42in 1955 and worth over $10,000!
05:48In 1991, a man bought a painting at a thrift sale for just $4 because he liked the frame.
05:56Even though the picture itself wasn't very pretty.
06:00When he took the painting apart, he found a piece of paper hidden behind it, folded
06:04up like an envelope.
06:06It turned out to be a very old copy of the Declaration of Independence, printed in 1776,
06:14right after the original was signed.
06:17A friend convinced him to take the copy to an auction house.
06:21When experts looked at it, they recognized it was one of only 25 copies printed by John
06:27Dunlap, the official printer for the Continental Congress.
06:32The document sold for $2.2 million the same year, and then again for $7.4 million in the
06:39year 2000.
06:42A man named Andy Fields, who loves garage sales, bought a set of five paintings for
06:48just $5 at one of those events in Las Vegas in 2010.
06:53He took one of the paintings home and decided to reframe it.
06:57When he took off the backing, he discovered a hidden drawing behind the painting.
07:02It looked like a sketch by the famous pop artist Andy Warhol, known for his bright colors
07:08and bold designs.
07:10Experts believe Warhol drew the sketch when he was just 9 or 10 years old, and it could
07:16be worth $2 million.
07:19Andy Fields decided not to sell it immediately, though.
07:22He hopes it can be displayed in a museum instead of being locked away in a vault.
07:29A painting worth over a million dollars was used to cover a hole in the wall.
07:35The owner bought it along with some furniture for almost no money.
07:40They didn't know how valuable the painting was until they played a board game about art
07:45called Masterpiece, which had a picture of a similar painting.
07:49It turned out to be magnolias on gold velvet cloth by a famous 19th-century American artist
07:56named Martin Johnson Heade.
07:59The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston bought the painting for $1.25 million.
08:06That's it for today!
08:07So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:12friends!
08:13And if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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