Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo - Season 2 Episode 01- National Treasures
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00:00Buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under our own feet.
00:11And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:20Tonight, lost national treasures from a Grand Slam score at a garage sale.
00:27Most people wouldn't give this old wooden bat a second look, but Bruce grew up watching the game, and something about this bat just seems really familiar to him.
00:39To an American masterpiece sealed behind a secret wall.
00:44He's afraid of losing the painting in the settlement, so he secretly makes a copy.
00:50Even the staff at the Norman Rockwell Museum thought they had the original.
00:53To a discarded piece of Hollywood history.
00:56This thing is incredibly detailed, and it doesn't really seem like a trash can at all.
01:03It gets Todd thinking, could this be a prop from the actual Star Wars movie?
01:09Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:13Everyone knows tripping houses comes with risks.
01:27But for one man, a routine renovation leads to something unexpected.
01:33A discovery that blows the roof off his expectations.
01:37In 2013, in the small town of Elbow Lake, Minnesota, a guy by the name of David Gonzalez buys a home that was built in 1938 for $10,100.
01:51He's a house flipper, and while the house has good bones, that's about it.
01:56He begins demo on the investment property, but he soon notices something strange within the walls.
02:06The house isn't insulated like you would expect.
02:08It's not foam or fiberglass.
02:10There's a lot of crumpled newspapers in between the studs.
02:13Now for David, this is just another day at the office.
02:15So he starts pulling out the crumpled pieces of newspaper section by section, until he sees something colorful in between all of that black and white.
02:25He pulls it out from the newspapers and realizes it's a comic book.
02:30And on the cover is none other than the Man of Steel himself, Superman.
02:36The comic is showing its age.
02:39It's beat up on the corners.
02:41It's yellowed.
02:42But David immediately notices something startling.
02:44The date on the cover, June 1938, the same year the house was built.
02:51David isn't a comic book collector, but he obviously knows that Superman is one of the most iconic comic book heroes of all time.
03:00So he figures a really old Superman comic has to be worth something.
03:06David leaves the newspapers in a pile and jumps online.
03:10What he finds nearly knocks him off his feet.
03:13In David's hands is Action Comics number one.
03:18This is the holy grail of comic books.
03:23This comic isn't just the origin story of Superman.
03:28It's like the Big Bang for the modern day superhero genre.
03:32Without Action 1, you don't get Batman.
03:35You don't get Wonder Woman.
03:36You don't get Spider-Man.
03:37You don't get all of DC Comics, Marvel Comics.
03:40You don't get superhero comics at all.
03:42But before it kick-started a billion-dollar superhero empire, Action Comics number one was just another novelty on the newsstand.
03:53Back in 1938, when Action Comics number one was released, it was selling for about 10 cents a copy, which in today's money is around two bucks.
04:01At the time, nobody would have thought anything of its worth beyond its inherent entertainment value.
04:08You read it, you enjoy it, you throw it out, or in this case, stuff it inside the walls of a new house.
04:14Around 200,000 copies were originally printed, and today only about 100 are believed to still exist.
04:20So David could be sitting on a gold mine worth far more than the house flip.
04:26Needless to say, the man is thrilled.
04:29And so he brings it home, and he wants to show it off to his family, and they're all just as excited.
04:34They invite friends and more family to come over and see this rare find, and everything is going well until his wife's aunt shows up.
04:44She grabs Action Comics number one and starts waving it around.
04:49David attempts to grab it back.
04:53In the chaos of the moment, the back cover rips.
04:59Damaged or not, this is still one of the most sought-after comic books in the world.
05:05So David puts it away for safekeeping until he can put it up for sale at auction.
05:11Even in less than perfect condition, it sells for a whopping $175,000.
05:15But experts think that the tear cost David anywhere between $50,000 and $75,000.
05:25So without that tear, this copy of Action Comics number one could have sold for a quarter of a million dollars.
05:32Thanks, Auntie.
05:33It was a costly mistake, but David bought the house for just over $10,000, and he's walking away with more than 17 times that, from something that he literally pulled out of the wall.
05:46All in all, it's a much better return than any house he could have flipped.
05:50Meanwhile, in the heart of Iowa, another sharp-eyed citizen makes a major-league discovery, hiding in plain sight.
06:06In 2013, Bruce Skopecky visits a garage sale in Des Moines, Iowa.
06:11He's a history buff, and he likes to see if there's anything of historical value that he can then resell for pocket money.
06:18He's not looking for anything in particular, but as he comes to the table full of sports gear, he spots something interesting.
06:26It's an old, beaten-up wooden baseball bat tucked underneath a few other metal ones.
06:32The price tag for this bat is a dollar.
06:35Now, most people wouldn't give this old, wooden bat a second look, but Bruce grew up watching the game, and something about this bat just seems really familiar to him.
06:45The grip of this bat is very distinctive.
06:50It has a thick handle and base with a unique knob.
06:54And that's when it hits him. He's seen a bat like this before.
06:59Bruce is a baseball nut.
07:01He knows most players' names are burned into the barrel of the bat, and he has a sneaking suspicion of whose name is on this one.
07:07Excitedly, he approaches the woman running the sale, Sue McEnany.
07:13He asks for a pencil.
07:14She hands one over, and Bruce gently rubs the pencil over the barrel of the bat.
07:21Suddenly, something extraordinary happens.
07:24As if by magic, a name slowly appears.
07:29Jackie Robinson.
07:30In the 1940s and 50s, Jackie Robinson played 10 seasons in Major League Baseball.
07:38He was a lifetime 313 hitter, a World Series champion, and now a Hall of Famer.
07:43But today, he's much more known for breaking all kinds of barriers.
07:48Jackie Robinson was the first Black American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era.
07:54So, he changed not only baseball, but the country forever.
08:00Robinson's legacy is legendary.
08:03So, how did his bat end up at a Midwestern garage sale?
08:07Turns out, Sue's uncle, Joe Hatton, also known as Lefty Joe, pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1946 to 51.
08:15When Bruce discovers Jackie Robinson's name on the bat, Sue starts to connect the dots.
08:21Her uncle Joe played five seasons for the Dodgers alongside Robinson and was even the starting pitcher on the day that Robinson broke the color barrier during his Major League Baseball debut.
08:33The two weren't just teammates.
08:35They were friends.
08:36They even roomed together on the road, something a lot of Jackie's white teammates wouldn't do at the time.
08:43Sometime in their playing days, he must have been gifted the Jackie Robinson bat or traded for it because he ended up with it.
08:50It seems crazy, but Sue just assumed that this was just one of Uncle Joe's old bats.
08:57She even let her kids use it to hit balls and rocks around when they were younger.
09:02Thankfully, all that backyard batting didn't take a hit on its value.
09:07Sue gets the bat appraised and the result is a grand slam.
09:11In its current condition, it's worth about $20,000.
09:14But it could be worth even more if she has it professionally restored.
09:19Sue has no plans to sell the bat, saying it's something that belongs to our family.
09:25It's incredible to think how close she was to parting with this precious artifact.
09:30But thanks only to the kindness of a stranger who was doing the right thing, this American treasure remains in her family's hands.
09:44Sometimes the most valuable finds are the ones we overlook.
09:49Take this next story about a rare piece of American history.
09:52March 1962.
10:0056-year-old George Walton is driving in heavy rain in North Carolina.
10:10When his car collides head-on with another vehicle.
10:14Tragically, he doesn't survive the crash.
10:15The police arrive and it's a mess.
10:19There's glass, there's metal, there's just debris everywhere.
10:24But there's something unusual scattered around the highway.
10:29Dozens upon dozens of coins, but these aren't just regular nickels and dimes.
10:34The coins look old and really unfamiliar to the officers, so they pick them up along with George's other belongings.
10:40George was a bachelor, and so his estate gets managed by his siblings, and ultimately his coins get sent to an auction house to sell.
10:48It turns out, George's quiet hobby is worth a fortune, and his collection sells for a staggering $875,000.
10:58But not all the coins are sold.
11:00One of them is a 1913 Liberty Nickel, one of the rarest coins in history.
11:06This five-cent piece is engraved with a likeness of Libertas, also known as the Goddess of Liberty, whose image originates from ancient Roman coins.
11:19Liberty Nickels officially stopped being released in 1912.
11:23But in 1913, a mint employee named Samuel W. Brown ended up secretly striking five of these to sell on the black market.
11:31Over the years, four of them have been located, but the elusive fifth Liberty Nickel has yet to be found.
11:39The nickel has all the markings of a historic discovery until experts take a closer look.
11:47Unfortunately, the coin is determined to be a fake.
11:50George's siblings take the forgery, put it in a closet, and forget about it.
11:55Dismissed and forgotten, the nickel stays buried for decades, until a 2003 coin convention in Baltimore puts it back in the spotlight.
12:07The main attraction is that this coin convention is featuring the 1913 Liberty Nickel.
12:15The organizers of the show put out a call to the public, hoping that someone might come forward with the final coin.
12:23And that's when George's family starts to wonder, should they give the fake coin one last look?
12:29So they dig it out, head to the convention, and in a secret room at the Baltimore Convention Center, six experts compare their nickel with the other four, including one that has been authenticated by the Smithsonian.
12:44And it turns out the so-called fake is actually real and one of the most sought-after coins in history.
12:52In the 1940s, George purchased the coin for $3,750.
12:59He held onto it for years, and in 1962, he packed it up alongside his collection and drove them to a coin convention.
13:07Sadly, he never made it, dying in that fatal car crash.
13:11In 2013, George's family puts the Liberty Nickel up for auction, and it sells for $3.2 million.
13:20All told, George's collection brings in over $4 million.
13:27A nickel everyone thought was worthless turns out to be priceless.
13:33So, as they say, don't take any wooden nickels, but buy all the rare ones you can.
13:40Not all treasures shine.
13:42Some are hiding on a dusty shelf, just waiting for the right person to find them.
13:47On February 19, 1988, a fisherman wanders into a New Hampshire book barn.
13:56It's basically an old, rustic shop full of used books.
14:01Amid all the mundane stacks of old and used whatever, he finds a beaten-up old copy of Tamerlane and other poems.
14:11But strangely, the author is not listed by name.
14:17It says it was written by a Bostonian.
14:20It just so happens that the fisherman had recently read about Tamerlane, which happens to be one of Edgar Allan Poe's earliest works.
14:28So, he figures for $15, he might as well own this 40-page poem.
14:33Back home, the fisherman's curiosity gets the better of him, and he can't get past the fact that if this is an Edgar Allan Poe book, why is it not attributed to Edgar Allan Poe?
14:43There can't be two 40-page epic poems called Tamerlane.
14:47So, he starts doing a little bit of digging.
14:51When he first published Tamerlane in 1827, Poe was an 18-year-old nobody, so he published it anonymously under the pseudonym a Bostonian, hoping it would lend air of mystery.
15:07He only has about 50 copies printed, and he sends them off to critics, and ultimately no one is really interested, and most of the copies sort of vanish into obscurity.
15:18By 1988, there are only 11 known copies to exist.
15:24Later publications of Tamerlane do include Poe's name on it, but this first edition is so rare, so sought after by collectors, they call it the Black Tulip of Literature.
15:36Could it be possible this is one of those rare first editions?
15:41The fisherman doesn't know for sure, but the book looks old, and his research has been exciting him.
15:46So, he calls the Sotheby's Boston office.
15:49Their response is immediate.
15:52They dispatch an armored car to his house and take the book to their New York City headquarters.
15:58The Sotheby's experts meticulously compare his version with the other 11 known versions.
16:05They check the paper quality, the typography, even the binding.
16:10And when they're done, the verdict is clear.
16:12This is the genuine, real deal, authentic, rare first edition of Tamerlane.
16:21This is massive.
16:25We all know that Poe goes on to become one of the great American authors, which makes a rare edition of his first ever published work an incredibly valuable find.
16:36So, the fisherman decides to put his 150-year-old copy of Tamerlane up for auction.
16:43And that fisherman's little old $15 book sells for $198,000.
16:51Now, that is a really good catch.
16:54Imagine you're cleaning out your father's estate with your brother, sorting through years of memories.
17:07Then, hidden among it all, you find something that doesn't belong here.
17:12Something that should be hanging on a museum wall.
17:16In 2006, Dave and Don Trachty are sorting through some things in their late father's home.
17:25Their father, Donald Trachty Sr., was a well-known cartoonist.
17:28And they're just going through his estate to see what they want to keep and what they want to sell.
17:34They've been through these rooms hundreds of times.
17:36But as they're talking about their dad's life and reminiscing, something odd catches their eye.
17:43It's a bookcase that their father built himself.
17:45But it looks a little off.
17:48The brothers notice a gap in the wood-paneled wall behind it.
17:51And when they press into it, the wall slides open.
17:58Behind the false wall, they find paintings.
18:02And not just any paintings.
18:04These are by artists that were very prominent in publications like the Saturday Evening Post.
18:11You're talking about artists like Mead Schaefer, George Hughes, Gene Pelham.
18:14And while those paintings are interesting, there's one piece in particular that stops the brothers' cold.
18:21It's Breaking Home Ties by Norman Rockwell, one of America's most renowned artists from the middle of the 20th century.
18:30The brothers are confused.
18:31They're very familiar with the painting.
18:33And they know that it's supposed to be at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
18:36And that's because back in the 1970s, their dad donated to them.
18:40And it's been on display ever since.
18:42To solve the mystery, the brothers turn to experts.
18:46And what they uncover raises more questions than answers.
18:51After testing and brushstroke analysis, it's determined that the painting in their father's secret room is authentic.
19:00Back in the 1950s, their father, a cartoonist that was known for his comic strip Henry, lived in Arlington, Vermont.
19:16And his neighbor was none other than renowned Americana artist Norman Rockwell.
19:20The two men became friends, and at one point, Trachty bought Breaking Home Ties from Rockwell for $900.
19:27It then hung proudly in the family home for years, alongside other works the cartoonists had collected.
19:34But in 1973, Trachty and his wife go through a contentious divorce, and he's afraid of losing the painting in the settlement.
19:42So, as a talented artist in his own right, he secretly makes a copy, a near-perfect one.
19:50Even though Trachty wound up getting to keep the painting in the settlement after all, he was still paranoid that someone would try to take it away from him.
19:59So, he donated the copy of the Norman Rockwell painting to the museum, all while secretly keeping the actual painting in his home so that no one would go looking for it.
20:10His copy was so good that even the staff at the Norman Rockwell Museum thought they had the original.
20:17That is, until the Trachty brothers discovered that hidden space up in Vermont.
20:24In late 2006, the Trachty family decides to sell the original painting, and it nets an amazing sum of $15.4 million.
20:34It's certainly an American story, just not the type that Rockwell painted.
20:40Next, another work of art uncovered in an even more unlikely place, church.
20:51In the fall of 2022, a carpenter named Paul Brown is walking through an old church in West Philadelphia.
20:59It's being renovated by new owners, and they're gutting the place, getting rid of many of the building's old fixtures.
21:05Brown's attention is immediately drawn to two large stained glass windows.
21:11They're covered in grime and encased in the wall, but even under all that dirt, there's something about them that speaks to him.
21:18The church is just planning on throwing these old windows away, but he hates the idea of them just ending up on some trash heap somewhere, so he offers to buy them.
21:29Back home, he wants to clean them up and restore them, but he's not quite sure how to handle delicate stained glass, so he calls up a local auction house for advice.
21:40They tell him he didn't just buy some pretty windows, he now owns custom pieces handcrafted by Tiffany & Company.
21:51Founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany, the company becomes an iconic name in American luxury.
21:57While Charles was known for his glitzy jewelry, his son, Lewis Comfort Tiffany, developed a particular knack for crafting stunning stained glass lamps.
22:08What's not as well known is that Tiffany also crafted church windows during America's Gilded Age.
22:16In 1901, as Philadelphia's St. Paul's Presbyterian Church was under construction, they turned to Tiffany to create two eight-foot rose-shaped windows.
22:27But over the ensuing decades, the special origins of these windows get completely forgotten.
22:35By the time the new owners take over, nobody recognizes these gorgeous treasures that are hanging in plain sight, at least until Paul Brown walks in.
22:46But the Lord works in mysterious ways.
22:48After the Tiffany attribution is confirmed, Brown sells the windows for over $250,000.
22:54And he ends up donating a portion of the proceeds back to the very church that almost threw the windows away.
23:07For one woman, a regular morning stroll with her dog turns into something wild.
23:12When she picks up what she thinks is trash.
23:15In the summer of 2022, an accountant named Maria Carrillo takes her daily break to walk her dog.
23:23She steps out the back door of her Anaheim office and into the alley behind.
23:27Now, normally this alley is sort of full of squatters, and she also uses the opportunity while walking the dogs to straighten up and take care of any of the trash that they might have left behind.
23:39As she stops to clean up after her dog, she spots something on the ground.
23:45It's a crumpled up McDonald's bag, something that she's seen a number of times before and just thrown away.
23:51She picks it up to take it to the nearest trash can, but she realizes something's off.
23:56This bag is much heavier than it should be.
23:59Curious, she uncrumples the bag and looks inside.
24:02This is no leftover Big Mac.
24:04There, besides some ketchup packets and leftover french fries, is something that's gold.
24:11Maria pulls it out, and she reads it, and she can't believe her eyes.
24:15Etched into the side, it says, Games of the 32nd Olympiad, Tokyo 2020.
24:22A real deal, authentic Olympic gold medal.
24:27Maria calls her husband and asks what he thinks they should do.
24:32And they have a friend who works for the Anaheim Police Department, so they decide they should call him.
24:38It turns out this is the break Anaheim PD has been waiting for.
24:43Because four weeks earlier, an Olympic gold medal was reported stolen.
24:47But the story of how it got there and who earned it is even more surprising.
24:53In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. women's indoor volleyball team took home the gold for the first time in the program's history.
25:04It's an incredible achievement, and Jordan Poulter, dubbed the best setter of the tournament, was a huge part of the team's success.
25:13When Jordan got home, everyone wanted to see and touch and hold an authentic Olympic medal.
25:17Did you blame them? So she started toting it around with her to show off and show her friends.
25:26I mean, honestly, who can fault her?
25:28This is a generational achievement.
25:31The first women's volleyball medal for the United States, and you're part of that success?
25:37But one day, she left it in her car and forgot to lock it.
25:40And someone stole all her belongings from the center console, including the gold medal.
25:48A few weeks later, the perpetrator is found and arrested, but not with the medal.
25:54Police believe that he was attempting to sell the gold medal at a pawn shop down the street from Maria's office.
25:59But when he was turned away, he abandoned it in the alley.
26:03Thankfully, this story has a happy ending.
26:06For Jordan and her teammates, that medal is priceless.
26:10She's so grateful to have it back, she actually gives Maria and her husband a $1,000 reward.
26:17And very wisely, she says from then on, she's going to keep the medal at home.
26:242,000 miles away, another golden discovery is made at an equally odd place, this time buried in a field.
26:33In early 2023, a Kentucky farmer is finishing up a hard day's work.
26:41As he walks back to his truck, he looks out across the dirt, as he's done countless times before.
26:47But this time, the setting sun throws up a glint off something on the ground.
26:52He walks over, and he sees a small, round, yellowish shape in the dirt.
26:58He picks it up, wipes it off, and he realizes it's a gold half dollar.
27:04The farmer tosses the coin in his pocket and keeps walking.
27:09But that's when he sees another glint coming from the dirt.
27:12It's another gold coin.
27:15And then he keeps walking, and he finds another one, and another one, and another one.
27:21There's a trail of shiny little dots in the dirt.
27:25This is the most insane thing ever.
27:27And look, I'm still digging them out.
27:29There's five, two, three, four, five, six.
27:33Six more gold coins.
27:34After about 45 minutes, he's found more than 700 coins, all dated from between the 1840s and the 1860s.
27:43He reaches out to a coin dealer named Jeff Garrett.
27:46Garrett is astonished.
27:49Most of the coins are $1 gold pieces, known as Indian princess dollars.
27:54But mixed in are also 20 $10 Liberty Head Eagles and 8 $20 Liberty Double Eagles.
28:01The Liberty Double Eagles are especially unique.
28:05Mended in 1863, fewer than 150,000 Double Eagles were ever created, and most of them were never circulated due to widespread hoarding.
28:14So today, they're exceptionally rare and highly sought after by collectors.
28:18The discovery becomes known as the Great Kentucky Hoard.
28:22But no one's sure how it got here.
28:25Some speculate that the coins might have been hidden by a landowner who didn't trust the security banks of the time could provide.
28:35Remember that in the early 1860s, the Civil War is raging.
28:39Kentucky declares itself a neutral state, but it's caught between Union and Confederate forces.
28:44Kentucky's banks and homes were frequent targets of Confederate raids, so perhaps the owner of the coins was just burying them in his field to keep them safe.
28:58Others think that it could have been raiders themselves who buried the treasure.
29:02It could have even been the infamous Confederate general, John Hunt Morgan, notorious for his violent raids in Kentucky and other states.
29:09Luckily, the coins now belong to the farmer who found them.
29:13And it turns out these gold dollars are worth more than a pretty penny.
29:17They have a face value of $1,200, but when he puts them up for auction, they net him over $3 million.
29:26Now, that's a remarkable find.
29:34When most people move into a new house, they hope they don't find the last owner's trash.
29:39But what one Long Island man finds is priceless.
29:47It's 1994, and a machinist named Bruce Campbell is cleaning out the basement of a cabin on Long Island that he's just purchased.
29:56It's a mess filled with the former owner's belongings.
29:59As he's cleaning out the basement, he comes across a box that's filled with what, to him, first looked like old home movies.
30:06But on closer inspection, these turn out to be amortaped.
30:11This is a reel-to-reel audio technology used in the early 20th century.
30:16With no idea what's on them and with no way to play them, Campbell reaches out to an audio expert who might have the equipment that will get the job done.
30:24Bruce takes them over, and together, they have a listen.
30:29But the audio that comes out of the speakers is not what Campbell was expecting.
30:32The audio starts with whizzing airplanes, yelling, gunfire, and the occasional explosion.
30:44Cutting through it all is a steady voice describing the horrific scenes of a beachfront invasion in battle.
30:51Bruce has stumbled upon an original recording of radio correspondent George Hicks' D-Day reporting from the coast of Normandy.
31:08On June 6, 1944, Hicks was aboard USS Ancon just off the coast of Normandy.
31:14He speaks into a primitive tape recorder called a record graph, reporting on the D-Day invasion as it happened.
31:21If the recording is falling down through the sky, there'd be a Hicks plane.
31:26Amid the chaos of war, Hicks delivers a gripping play-by-play in a calm, clear voice.
31:35There he goes. They got one.
31:37His report was just 13 minutes and 29 seconds long.
31:41But when the recording hit the American airwaves later that night,
31:45it conveyed the intensity of the fighting to the American home front.
31:52The press hailed it as the greatest recording of the war.
31:55It's been decades since anyone has heard these recordings.
31:59So how did the originals end up in the basement of a cabin in Long Island?
32:06Bruce does some digging through property records
32:08and discovers that the former owner was once an executive at a record graph company.
32:13That's the recording system that the reporter Hicks used on that fateful day.
32:17The executive was a bit of a collector,
32:19and it turns out he'd been using his cabin as storage
32:23for old recordings and relics from the record graph industry.
32:27When he passed away in 1992,
32:30the collection just remained in the basement waiting for the next owner to find.
32:33In 2019, Bruce donates the tapes to the National D-Day Memorial Foundation,
32:39ensuring that the sounds and voices from one of the war's most important battles
32:43will continue to be heard and never forgotten.
32:46George Hicks speaking.
32:47I now return you to the United States.
32:53I guess one man's trash is another man's treasure,
32:57which is literally the case in our next story.
33:00In 1993, Todd Franklin and a couple of his buddies
33:05are walking through this country-western music venue in Missouri.
33:09The venue is closing down, it's going out of business,
33:11so everything inside is up for sale.
33:15Among the clutter, Todd spots a trash can
33:18that he just can't take his eyes off.
33:21It's overflowing with garbage,
33:23but the bin itself looks a lot like the Death Star.
33:26Every Star Wars fan knows what the Death Star is,
33:32the famous moon-sized planet-killing weapon
33:35that Luke Skywalker and the other rebels blow up at the end of Star Wars.
33:38Todd is quite the sci-fi buff,
33:40and while he's seen a lot of Star Wars merchandise over the years,
33:44he's never seen a Death Star trash can before,
33:46so he approaches the owner and buys it.
33:49When he gets it home, he takes a closer look.
33:52This thing is incredibly detailed,
33:54and it doesn't really seem like a trash can at all.
33:58While it does have a small opening,
34:02the inside isn't completely empty.
34:05There is all these metal cross beams
34:07to keep it perfectly spherical.
34:10So not only does this make it a pretty ineffective trash can,
34:13but it gets Todd thinking,
34:14could this be a prop from the actual Star Wars movie?
34:19Todd reaches out to the one place that can tell him for sure,
34:24Lucasfilm, the producers of Star Wars.
34:27When he finally gets someone on the phone,
34:29they tell him that the props were stored off-site in a warehouse.
34:32But after production finished,
34:34they didn't want to continue paying storage fees,
34:36and so they had everything thrown out.
34:38Lucasfilm tells him he must be in possession of some sort of replica.
34:43They don't think much of it,
34:44so they're like, bye, Todd.
34:45But regardless, Todd hangs on to the strange object
34:49as a conversation piece.
34:52A few years later, Todd attends a lecture by Mark Thorpe,
34:57a model maker from Industrial Light and Magic.
35:00This is the company George Lucas used
35:02to make the props and special effects for the Star Wars films.
35:07After the lecture is over,
35:09Todd approaches Mark and tells him
35:11about this Death Star model that he has in his possession.
35:14Now, Mark has first-hand knowledge of how the Death Star was built,
35:19and the details surrounding this replica sound very similar.
35:24Todd tells Mark that Lucasfilm insisted
35:26that all the props were destroyed at the end of production.
35:30But Mark's not so sure about that,
35:32and he thinks the Death Star trash can might be the real deal.
35:37Mark recalls that there were these rumors
35:39that there was an employee at the warehouse
35:41who allegedly took the Death Star model home.
35:45Instead of destroying it,
35:46he kept it for nearly a decade.
35:49Then, in the late 1980s,
35:51he'd moved to Missouri
35:53and stored the prop in his mother's antique shop.
35:56There it stayed for years
35:58until the owner of the music venue bought it.
36:02Fueled with new information,
36:03Todd decides to give Lucasfilm one more call.
36:07This time, they are shocked.
36:10Now, even they believe
36:12that Todd has the actual Death Star model
36:15from the original movie.
36:17So Todd decides that now would be the time
36:20to sell his prized discovery.
36:22Generously, he offers Lucasfilm
36:24the first shot at purchasing it from him.
36:26They offer him a tour of the Lucas Ranch
36:29and an autographed picture of George Lucas.
36:33It's a cool offer, to be sure,
36:35especially if you're a Star Wars fan,
36:36but Todd is convinced that somebody
36:38is going to pay him a whole lot of cash for this model.
36:41So he declines.
36:42So eventually, in 1999,
36:47he sells the prop to mega-fan, super-collector,
36:51Gus Lopez.
36:52While the details of the sale are never released,
36:55some estimate that the value of the Death Star model
36:58could be as high as a million dollars.
37:01But Gus doesn't keep it for himself.
37:03He loans it to the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle,
37:06so now it can be enjoyed
37:08by aspiring Jedi, Wookiees,
37:11and stormtroopers for years.
37:18We've all walked into a thrift store
37:20not expecting to find much more than a small bargain.
37:25But one find turns out to be a relic
37:27tied to the birth of a nation.
37:32In 2022, workers at a Goodwill in Washington, D.C.,
37:36do what they do day after day.
37:38They sort through incoming donations.
37:42As the workers dig through a bag of donated clothes,
37:46they find a dusty, old, torn-up rag with red trim.
37:51They're about to toss it
37:52when someone notices a piece of paper attached to it.
37:56They glance at it and see a name.
38:00George Washington.
38:02This gets their attention,
38:04and they look closer and see
38:05it is a handwritten note
38:07indicating that this piece of fabric
38:10is a fragment of a tent
38:12used by the Revolutionary War hero
38:15and first president of the United States,
38:18George Washington.
38:19It seems hard to believe,
38:21but the workers save the cloth
38:23from the trash heap.
38:26They decide to put it up for sale
38:28on a Goodwill auction site
38:30where people can bid on items
38:32found in Goodwill stores
38:33across the United States.
38:35And that's where it catches the eye
38:37of an American history buff
38:38named Richard Moore.
38:40He decides to take the gamble,
38:42and he buys it for $1,700.
38:45But he's so uneasy about it
38:47that he hides the purchase from his wife.
38:50The prospect of owning a piece of a tent
38:53used by George Washington
38:54is very compelling,
38:56but Moore is unsure
38:58since a handwritten note
39:00is not exactly rock-solid documentation
39:03that this is real.
39:04Anxious to figure out
39:06if the fabric is the real deal,
39:09Moore contacts Philadelphia's
39:10Museum of the American Revolution.
39:13They tell Moore that Washington used
39:15two main tents during the war.
39:17There was a large tent that he used
39:19as both his office and sleeping quarters,
39:22and that's on display at the museum.
39:23And then there was a smaller dining tent,
39:26which is currently stored
39:27at the Smithsonian in Washington.
39:29Moore sends this piece of cloth
39:31to the museum in Philadelphia
39:33for analysis.
39:36When it's compared to the tent
39:38that's on display there,
39:39it turns out it's not a match.
39:41Holding on to hope,
39:43he sends the cloth to the Smithsonian,
39:45and when they compare it
39:46to Washington's smaller tent,
39:48it turns out to be a perfect match.
39:50But now that it's authenticated,
39:55everyone still wants to know
39:56how a piece of George Washington's
39:59dining tent ends up in a goodwill store.
40:03After Washington's death,
40:04the tent was passed down to his family,
40:06and they would often display it publicly.
40:08In 1907, the tent was put on display
40:12in Norfolk, Virginia,
40:14to celebrate the 300th anniversary
40:16of the founding of Jamestown.
40:17It was there that someone named John Burns
40:21allegedly cut a six-inch piece of fabric
40:25from the tent
40:26and attaches a note explaining its origin.
40:30Historians believe that the piece of cloth
40:32that Burns cut from the tent
40:34is the same as the one
40:35that Richard Moore purchased from Goodwill.
40:38But to this day,
40:39nobody knows how it got from Burns to Goodwill.
40:42The value of the tent piece
40:44has been estimated to be
40:46in the tens of thousands of dollars,
40:48but for Moore,
40:49it's a piece of family history.
40:52Moore could trace his family tree
40:54back to a Revolutionary War soldier
40:57who served under Washington
40:59at Valley Forge.
41:01This means that the fragment of cloth
41:03was part of a tent
41:04that his ancestor may have seen
41:07or even dined in
41:08during the war that won America's freedom.
41:10A mysterious stash
41:14of buried Civil War coins,
41:16a relic that belonged
41:18to our country's first president,
41:20and a hidden artistic masterpiece
41:22worth a fortune.
41:24These incredible finds
41:26really are surprising national treasures.
41:30I'm Danny Trejo.
41:31Thanks for watching Mysteries on Earth.
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