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00:05I'm Mike Wolfe and I've spent my life traveling the world chasing forgotten objects and the
00:11histories behind them. People everywhere are turning up artifacts every day, often by chance.
00:19And if you're lucky, some of these finds can be worth serious money.
00:27Tonight, on History's Greatest Picks. Not all treasures are buried away in some far-off
00:34place. Some might be hiding in your very own backyard. We're talking epic movie history
00:41forgotten in a woodshed. Jack Nicholson's character wanders maniacally around the
00:47halls of this hotel holding this axe. Rock and roll riches rescued from a dumpster.
00:53I mean, these are Led Zeppelin's drum heads. How cool is that? The estate sale find worth
01:01nearly half a billion dollars. This thing is as historically significant as the Mona Lisa
01:08itself. So the real question, what's hiding in your backyard? So sit back and let me tell
01:15you the stories behind some of history's greatest picks.
01:27Back in the day, two kids in L.A. were playing in their backyard and dug up a 1974 Ferrari
01:33Dino
01:34GTS. You heard me right. And a couple in Sierra Nevada unearthed a huge amount of gold coins
01:41worth an estimated 10 million bucks. And then there's the guy who had something hiding in his
01:47woodshed for the better part of 40 years.
01:56Here's the story. This guy has this land he wants to clear. For this, he's going to have
02:00to chop some trees down. He's going to need an axe. It just so happens that where he works
02:04is having an auction, like a second-hand sale. And one of the lots is an axe just like the
02:11kind that he needs.
02:13So he puts in a bid of five pounds for the axe, which is about $7. And guess what? He
02:20wins
02:20it. And then, like so many other homeowners, he eventually never gets to this project where
02:26he was going to cut down all this wood on his property. He puts the axe in his garden shed
02:31and forgets all about it. It would stay in that shed with the blade unused for decades.
02:38It's in exactly the same condition as it was when it was used by its previous owner.
02:47Now, the thing you've got to know about this axe is the guy who used it first.
02:56It's been a 12-month-long, brutal schedule of filming that they've been through on Stanley
03:01Kubrick's latest effort, which is a psychological thriller, a horror film.
03:05And the lead role is played by Jack Nicholson. His character is named Jack Torrance, and the
03:11film, of course, is The Shining.
03:14In this movie, Jack Nicholson's character becomes this homicidal maniac, and he wanders
03:20maniacally around the halls of this hotel, looking for his family, looking to murder them,
03:25holding this axe.
03:28The most famous scene in the whole movie of The Shining is when Jack Nicholson takes the
03:33axe and smashes it through the door, sticks his head through the door, and says,
03:38Here's Johnny!
03:41And this makes the axe almost as much of a star as Jack Nicholson himself.
03:48For the wide shots, they can use a prop axe made of foam painted to look like the real
03:53thing.
03:54But for close-ups, Kubrick needs a real axe. He can't, you know, have a homicidal maniac
03:59using a prop. It's got to be the real deal.
04:02The props department custom makes the hero axe. So they make a genuine fire axe that's 35 and
04:09a half inches long. The axe head is 11 and a half inches wide.
04:14And the blade is ground to make it shine on camera. And it's also very, very sharp.
04:22In the famous scene where Nicholson chops through the bathroom door with the axe, they use a fake
04:30prop door at first.
04:32In a previous life, Nicholson had been a volunteer firefighter in the California Air National
04:36Guard. So even though he wasn't a murderous psychopath, he's still pretty darn good with
04:42an axe.
04:42So this prop door won't hold up.
04:45So a real wooden door is substituted and Nicholson swings the axe.
04:51And the axe got a little worn. It was a little wear and tear on it.
04:57At the conclusion of shooting, the film production does what film productions do. They clear out
05:02all the props and everything has to be disposed of and sold.
05:07The props have served their purpose. The movie's over and they would just end up in the trash
05:11unless someone wants to take them.
05:13All the props are auctioned off. And this is where this guy gets this axe for $7.
05:20The guy never used the axe to chop anything. And that means it remains in the exact same
05:27condition of the last time that it was used by Jack Nicholson when he chops through the
05:31door during The Shining.
05:35As movie member Philly goes, it's really valuable.
05:40In 2019, one of the fake foam axes is put up for auction. By now, The Shining has achieved
05:46classic cult horror status and it sells for $57,000. When the real hero axe hits the auction block
05:54later that very same week, it sells for just over $200,000, which isn't bad for an initial
06:01investment of just $7.
06:08You never know what might be hiding in your garbage. Like the guy who found the equivalent
06:15of a small fortune.
06:23Al Aronowitz has a houseguest.
06:27This houseguest is up doing something throughout the night.
06:31When Al gets up in the morning, he goes to see what he's been up to.
06:35Next to the typewriter, the ashtray is overflowing and there's a completely filled
06:41waste paper basket next to it.
06:44And this, by the way, is one of the big advantages of a typewriter over a computer because with
06:49a typewriter, you've got artifacts.
06:51He smooths out some of the sheets of paper and he sees a song or a poem starting to take
06:58shape.
06:59So he goes, I'm going to keep a couple of these as a souvenir.
07:03It would prove to be a very profitable thing to do because the houseguest was a guy by the
07:10name of Bob Dylan.
07:16In spring of 1964, Bob Dylan had just broken up with his longtime girlfriend, Suze Rotolo.
07:24She's the one famously pictured on the album cover of the freewheeling Bob Dylan.
07:30After the split, Bob Dylan spent some time staying with his friend Al.
07:35Now, Al is a music journalist and he knows better than anyone what a rare talent Bob Dylan
07:42has.
07:42And maybe it's his intuition as a journalist, but you have to think that when somebody's
07:47going through something like that and they're an artist, maybe some greatness is being created
07:53in those moments.
07:53Usually his songwriting process is a rush of inspiration and it's done.
08:00But this one he's laboring over and Aronowitz notices in these sheets, one, two, three different
08:08versions of the same song.
08:10And the song is Mr. Tambourine Man.
08:19You cannot overstate the importance of the song.
08:22Mr. Tambourine Man, when covered by the birds, single-handedly ignites the folk rock movement.
08:29It shoots to number one.
08:31The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a resurgence of folk music.
08:36Bob Dylan was at the spearhead of this movement, but all of a sudden, when it moves to Southern
08:42California and it gets this injection of rock music, it hits the mainstream.
08:47Now it's played on radio.
08:49It's Bob Dylan's only number one hit and he did not record it.
08:54And there it is, found in a waste paper basket.
08:58Al's a music journalist.
08:59I mean, he's part of that 1960s music scene.
09:03He was the original manager of the Velvet Underground.
09:05He introduced Dylan to the Beatles.
09:08According to friends and family, Al always used to tell the story of how he rescued the
09:13original lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man out of the trash.
09:17It's part of the family lore.
09:23When Al dies in 2005, his son Miles cannot find Mr. Tambourine Man.
09:30He knows that his father filed them.
09:33Were they lost?
09:34Was this story made up?
09:35Were they stolen?
09:36Al leaves an archive that is just vast.
09:40It's 250 bankers boxes full of documents.
09:45It takes his son Miles literally years to sort through all of the archives, paper by paper by
09:52paper.
09:53But eventually, he finds them.
09:57The lyrics rescued from Al's archives are sold at auction in 2025 and are snapped up for
10:03$508,000.
10:04That's a profit of half a million dollars for scraps of paper originally tossed into the garbage.
10:18We all know how the story goes.
10:20A woman walks into a thrift store and buys a painting for $30 to cover a hole in her wall.
10:25And then it turns out to be the lost masterpiece that sells for over a million bucks at an auction.
10:30It's a true story, just like the next one.
10:33Except this time, we're not talking about a painting worth a mere million bucks.
10:37We're talking hundreds of millions.
10:46It's 1958 and a couple are on a trip to London.
10:50Warren and Minnie Kuntz from New Orleans are small-time art collectors.
10:56Just before they head back to the States, they do what any good collector does.
11:00They just poke their head into an auction house just to see what's happening.
11:04There's a collection of 136 paintings up for sale.
11:09One of the lots is called Salvatore Mundi.
11:15It's a Renaissance-era painting attributed to Giovanni Peltroffio.
11:21Who was a student of Leonardo da Vinci.
11:24It shows Christ holding an orb in one hand and giving a blessing with the other.
11:28The painting is showing its age. Its varnish is cracked. I mean, it's 500 years old.
11:33And not only that, at some point the face was retouched or restored, but it was done so badly that
11:42one critic says it looks like a drug-crazed hippie.
11:45But this doesn't dissuade Warren and Minnie. They have an eye for old art, so they decide to place a
11:52bid.
11:52No one else puts in a bid, so they snatch up the Bultroffio painting for 45 pounds, the equivalent of
11:59$120 back then.
12:04They're not big art dealers. Nobody knows about them in the art world, so this doesn't make a huge splash.
12:09And so it goes back to Louisiana with Warren and Minnie.
12:13Warren and Minnie pass the painting on to a nephew who hangs it in a stairwell in his house in
12:20Baton Rouge.
12:21And it sits there collecting dust for years.
12:26When the nephew passes, the painting by Bultroffio hits the auction block in 2005 for a second time.
12:33This time, it sells for just over $1,000 to a couple of art dealers from New York.
12:40The art dealers know that there are at least 30 different versions of Salvatore Mundi attributed to Leonardo's workshop,
12:48including this one by Bultroffio. This is how it worked in the Renaissance.
12:53The masters, the Michelangelo's and the Leonardo's at the time, did not work in isolation.
12:58They had teams of young artists who came as apprentices and would often finish and assist the master with their
13:08own works.
13:09It's all about the brush strokes. You can't emulate the brush strokes.
13:16It's like a signature. It's like a fingerprint.
13:19Once you identify the brush strokes of the master, it's unmistakable that this is not of a student.
13:29The dealers want to find out a little bit more about this work, so they take it to Diane Modestini,
13:35an expert in Renaissance art.
13:38Her job is to clean it, stabilize it, and see what's underneath all those years of grime and cracked varnish
13:46and that horribly done touch-up.
13:48The restoration process is slow and painstaking. It takes months or even years.
13:55A moment comes when Diane tries to retouch some damage on the figure's upper lip, but she can never quite
14:01get it right.
14:02So, as a guide, she's going to take inspiration from the master himself.
14:07She puts it side by side with a copy of the Mona Lisa.
14:12It's then, for the first time, that she sees the remarkable resemblance.
14:19As she looks at the lip of her restoration of Salvatore Mundi and looks at the lip of Mona Lisa,
14:26these are a one-to-one match.
14:29She suddenly believes that what she's looking at isn't a copy of a Leonardo. It is an original Leonardo.
14:36This thing is as historically significant as the Mona Lisa itself.
14:44What follows rings like a thunderclap through the art world.
14:51There are only so many Leonardo da Vinci paintings in existence.
14:58For another one to come on the scene is earth-shattering.
15:12What follows is years of analysis, radiography, x-rays to ensure that its provenance of the hand of Leonardo himself
15:24is verified.
15:26And there are claims and counterclaims.
15:29Some say it's not a Leonardo.
15:31Others say it's partly by Leonardo.
15:34And others still say it's a Leonardo masterpiece.
15:41Even though no one agrees, it still heads to auction.
15:50When it reappears back at auction in 2017, a bidding war breaks out.
15:54190 million.
15:56Give me 200.
15:57200.
15:57200 million is big.
15:59These guys are throwing down.
16:00264 million.
16:01300.
16:02300 million.
16:05370 million.
16:06We're still not done.
16:06And when the gavel drops.
16:08Sold.
16:09It sells for.
16:10Get this.
16:13450 million.
16:15300,000 dollars.
16:23It's always important to pay attention to your surroundings because you never know what you might be stepping over.
16:29Like the two guys that were on a hike in the mountains when they spotted a metal box poking out
16:34of the ground.
16:35Inside were nearly 600 gold coins worth $340,000.
16:41Or the guy in the next story who discovered a silver mine and some unexpected treasure within.
16:52The desert of Nevada contains hundreds of abandoned silver mines.
16:57Time capsules locked up from the day hundreds of years ago when the very last prospector picked up his shovel
17:04and left.
17:05Michael Allen Harris is a bit of a mine archaeologist.
17:08And over the years he has visited dozens of these abandoned mine sites.
17:12He's found newspapers dating to the 1800s.
17:15He's found handwritten letters, even hand-drawn crude pornography.
17:20He's even found old whiskey bottles from that time period which collectors will pay upwards of $100 for.
17:28But as he claws through the dirt in the back of one mine, he finds this heavy fabric just caked
17:34in dirt and dried in mud.
17:36He keeps digging until he finally reveals a pair of worn and torn blue denim pants.
17:44They're a little frayed, the hems are a little busted, but they're mostly intact.
17:51On the back right hip is a label.
17:54Although faded over time, it can still be read.
17:57Levi Strauss and Company, copper riveted clothing.
18:01Patent, May 20th, 1873.
18:09The genes are a creation of two men.
18:11Levi Strauss, who gave them their name.
18:14And Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, who really created the structure and engineering of them.
18:20Since the start of the silver boom in the 1860s, thousands have flocked to Nevada in hopes of making it
18:27rich.
18:27And so they rush into it, but their big problem is that they have to be equipped for the rough
18:33experience of mining.
18:34And the rough experience of mining takes its toll on clothing.
18:38And so Jacob's repair business has never been busier because now there's suddenly more demand than ever as miners are
18:45flocking to places like Nevada in the search for silver.
18:48He's running a thriving business repairing clothing as it gets worn through the demanding physical conditions of mining.
18:58So he decides to come up with something tougher.
19:02A strong pair of work pants reinforced with copper rivets, the same technology used in saddle making that will give
19:10these miners a long lasting piece of work clothing.
19:14And he finds that it's a winning combination and that it works well.
19:18It really makes pants that hold up to the rigors of mining very effectively.
19:26They're an immediate success and orders explode.
19:30Davis is so paranoid that someone will steal his idea that he contacts his fabric supplier in San Francisco, Levi
19:37Strauss,
19:38and asks him to file a patent for copper riveted work pants.
19:44The vintage Levi's found by Michael Harris are a perfect time capsule of these old mining days,
19:52down to the copper rivets and even the wax stains from the candles that miners would use to light their
19:58way.
20:01But the question now is, just how old are they?
20:05They have suspender buttons, but no belt loops, which weren't introduced until 1922.
20:13And there's only one back pocket.
20:17The second pocket was introduced in 1902.
20:20So they're older than that.
20:22And there's one more disturbing clue as to how old these jeans are.
20:27He finds inside the left front pocket that there's a message printed and it says best value, best finish, best
20:36materials.
20:37And at the bottom, there's a message that's a little disturbing by today's standards.
20:42It says made by white labor.
20:47Levi's added this line in 1882 after Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
20:55At a time when many people felt that there were too many Chinese laborers who were working for mining operations
21:02and on the railroad.
21:04It was a way of identifying that Levi's was not using Asian labor to produce its mining ware.
21:11But the company's policy eventually shifts and they abandoned using that message in the 1890s.
21:17So the date of these jeans can be narrowed down to a couple of years in the early 1890s.
21:24In other words, they're among the oldest Levi's known to exist.
21:31In 2022, Harris decides it's time to turn history into cash and he sends them to auction where they fetch
21:39a staggering $88,000.
21:41And apparently they're still wearable.
21:49Hidden treasures can be found absolutely anywhere and maybe even in your backyard.
21:58For the last 15 years at this small market town in England, there have been these two figures standing at
22:07the bottom of this couple's garden.
22:08They're instantly recognizable though, they're basically mini models of the Sphinx.
22:13The famous Sphinx from Egypt.
22:16Now the couple had originally bought these at a country house sale for 300 pounds, which is the equivalent of
22:22around 500 US dollars today.
22:24So you look at these and yeah, they're not terribly remarkable.
22:31So they're maybe like two feet high, maybe like three feet in length.
22:35Eh, you're not even that big.
22:37They show their age.
22:38One of them, the head became detached and it's been stuck back together with cement.
22:45So there comes a point when the couple are downsizing and they're going to take these two Sphinxes along with
22:51a lot of other things from their home and they're just going to take them to the local auction house
22:54and try to raise some money.
22:56In the auction catalog, they've listed this as a pair of 19th century carved stone garden models of Egyptian Sphinx.
23:06They have an estimated value of somewhere between 300 and 500 pounds and the opening bid is 200 pounds.
23:14And this is where it gets interesting because this auction is online and people in the know have been sniffing
23:21around the auction catalog and they've smelled a bargain.
23:26Slowly, the price begins to creep up and then it creeps up again and it creeps up again and again
23:33and again.
23:34And a bidding war breaks out.
23:37The auctioneer and the couple have had no idea what's been sitting at the bottom of their garden for the
23:43last 15 years, but some of the bidders clearly do.
23:48Among the bidders are international gallery owners, antiquity dealers, people who know their stuff.
23:56The clues have been staring them in the face all along.
24:00For one thing, they're made of a limestone that is consistent with ancient Egyptian artifacts.
24:06But then the other thing is that all that weathering might look like it's from decades of English weather, but
24:12it's actually from centuries of desert weather.
24:17The clincher is the size of the head relative to the rest of the body.
24:21When you look at it from the side or head on, it looks weirdly big, like the head is swollen.
24:26But that's exactly how the ancient Egyptians would build these things because they usually have them sitting in a way
24:31that people would look up at them.
24:33And when you look up from an angle, the head looks just right.
24:37So get this.
24:39The bidding, which begins at 300 bucks, reaches 200,000.
24:43And after 15 minutes of this back and forth, the Sphinxes are sold to an anonymous museum for their final
24:50selling price of 300 grand.
25:01We all know the old saying, one person's trash is usually another person's trash.
25:07But against all odds, this next guy proves that wrong.
25:10You just got to be in the right place at the right time.
25:20In the east end of London, there's a transport and logistics company called Edwin Shirley Trucking, or EST.
25:27They're known for transporting equipment and stages and things.
25:31Their client list is sort of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
25:34Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Deep Purple.
25:39They don't just supply the trucks for the tours, they provide storage space for the equipment that goes on the
25:46trucks.
25:46And after years and years of this business, things coming in and out, there comes a point where they've got
25:5250,000 square foot of storage, but it's all full up.
25:56To them, at this point, it's just trash.
26:03A team of workers is now cleaning out all these abandoned shipping units and storage containers.
26:08And their instructions are, if no one's claimed it, just get it out of there and burn it.
26:14So that's what they do.
26:15Classic bits of theatrical rock shows like Alice Cooper's guillotine are being broken down and thrown on a bonfire.
26:24They eventually get to the road cases associated with Led Zeppelin.
26:28And when they pull them out, they find that some of the cases contain drum heads.
26:33The skins that go over the drum, they're still left over from Led Zeppelin's last tour.
26:39I mean, these are Led Zeppelin's drum heads.
26:43How cool is that?
26:45So one of the guys on these crews, he plays drums himself.
26:49He's like, hey, do you mind if I just take these?
26:51And they're like, sure.
26:53This isn't just a cool discovery.
26:55It will prove to be a valuable one.
26:59What makes this one so special?
27:04Let's rewind to 1971 and the release of One of Rock's greatest albums ever.
27:11Led Zeppelin's third studio album receives mixed reviews from the critics.
27:15So going into the fourth album, Led Zeppelin decides they're going to have a little bit of fun with the
27:20critics.
27:20So this album, when it comes out, it doesn't have a title.
27:24It doesn't list the band members' names or the band's name.
27:28It doesn't even have a catalog number.
27:31The only identifying marks on this entire album cover are just these four symbols.
27:36And each one of them has been chosen by a different member of the band.
27:41The band was built on mysticism and the occult.
27:47Led Zeppelin was this mythical, magical rock and roll band.
27:51The band's drummer, John Henry Bonham, decides to use symbols called the borrow me in rings.
27:57And it's an ancient symbol that dates back thousands of years.
28:00But since 1971, it's only been associated with one thing.
28:04And that is one of the greatest drummers in rock and roll history.
28:10John Bonham was the driving force for Led Zeppelin.
28:14And this album is the most successful Zeppelin album ever.
28:18This album will include songs that will become classics, like Black Dog, Stairway to Heaven.
28:24Stairway to Heaven will become everyone's final prom song for the next, I think, 30 years.
28:28From 1971 to 1975, they are playing to sellout crowds in stadiums around the world,
28:34including the now legendary gigs at Earl's Court in London.
28:39It's a whole unique setup. You have to build stages, all custom made.
28:43Each tour is different than the one before.
28:45And these guys do it better than anyone.
28:47They work with the biggest acts in the world.
28:50Bonham plays with a translucent orange drum kit that is centered around a 26-inch bass drum
28:57that has on the front skin a borrow me in ring symbol.
29:02This tour is the only time in his career that he uses the drum head with the rings on it.
29:08When John Bonham dies in 1980, at the age of 32, the rest of the group decides to disband.
29:16And seven years later, their old equipment is thrown out, except for Bonham's drum heads.
29:25So this young guy, he's got these drum heads, he's taking them home, but eventually he stops playing the drums,
29:31and he's got these things packed away.
29:34So it's only after 37 years that he really opens up this case and decides to look at these drum
29:41heads.
29:43And he picks one up, and he sees the unmistakable symbol of John Bonham.
29:53The drum head has dents on it that match photos from their iconic tour.
29:59If they're even visible in their film performance, the song remains the same.
30:04In 2024, he decides to sell with a reserve price of 3,000 pounds.
30:11They end up selling for 10 times that much, the equivalent to $40,000.
30:16And once their true value is recognized, there is nowhere to go but up.
30:21One year later, the drum head is flipped.
30:23One of the most iconic rock artifacts that has ever crossed the auction block.
30:28We're looking for $75,000.
30:31And this time, it goes for a whopping $87,500.
30:46If you're planning a renovation, you've got to be prepared to find something unexpected,
30:52something old, and maybe, hopefully, something of value.
31:02The Redland Hotel is up for renovation.
31:06The builders are in and demolishing every room to update it.
31:11All the fixtures and furniture are being removed and tossed in the parking lot.
31:19They get to the honeymoon suite, and there's this old four-poster bed.
31:22And it's junk.
31:23It's in the way.
31:24So they unceremoniously rip it apart, throw it in the big junk pile out front with everything else.
31:30A local man is walking by, and this catches his eye.
31:35The bed looks special.
31:37But he's not just any passerby.
31:40He's an auctioneer.
31:41So he rescues it from the trash pile, and he puts it up for auction,
31:45and he builds it as a profusely carved Victorian four-poster bed with armorial shields.
31:56Ian Coulson is a collector.
31:58He sees this auction online for this bed that looks amazing.
32:02He wins it without even seeing it in person.
32:04And as it turns out, he wins it for 2,200 pounds, about $3,000.
32:09When it arrives, he sees it's in even worse shape than it looked in the online pictures.
32:14The thing is crusty and covered in rot.
32:17But he immediately realizes that it's older than anyone imagined.
32:21The deep oxidization of the bedposts would have taken centuries to develop.
32:25And there are saw marks on the wood that show that this has been cut with manual tools,
32:31not the kinds of mechanized tools that existed in the 19th century.
32:36This is even older than that.
32:40So he brings in historians and scientists to analyze this bed further.
32:46So they do a DNA analysis of the timber, and they can show that it's European oak.
32:51And not just any European oak, it's a subspecies that is typical of the finest,
32:56slow-grown oak used by master craftsmen in the Middle Ages.
33:01They discover traces of ultramarine on the bed.
33:05It's an ultra-blue pigment that was used hundreds of years ago.
33:10And back in the day, ultramarine was considered more precious than gold.
33:14This bed's not Victorian. It's medieval.
33:18So now things get very interesting.
33:23It's got three lions and three fleur-de-lis.
33:27This is the royal coat of arms of the kings of England.
33:32On the one hand, somebody could have faked it.
33:36On the other hand, what if it truly is the royal coat of arms?
33:41There are also these other ornate carvings.
33:43You've got Adam and Eve. You've got a dragon. You've got a lion.
33:47You've got acorns. Those are a symbol of fertility.
33:50And critically, the Lancastrian rose.
33:58In the 15th century, during the War of the Roses,
34:01these roses are symbols of the competing claims for the English throne.
34:06The Lancastrians are represented by the red rose,
34:09the Yorkists by the white.
34:11In 1486, the two houses are united under Henry VII, the Lancastrian king,
34:19who weds Elizabeth of York.
34:21And they adopt the Tudor rose symbol of the two roses blended together.
34:30As Ian digs through the archives,
34:33he finds records of the bed in the medieval palace of Westminster.
34:38That same exact bed was in the palace on January 18, 1486.
34:45Now that is the exact same date as Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York.
34:53This is the royal bed,
34:55which means honeymooners at Redland Hotel for $150
35:02were sleeping in the same bed
35:04where future kings of England were conceived,
35:08including Henry VIII.
35:13This bed was built to be taken apart
35:16so that it could follow the king and queen
35:17as they traveled around their kingdom.
35:19They wouldn't have to stay in different beds.
35:21No, they could stay in their nice, comfy bed.
35:23It was the original flat-packed furniture.
35:25Finally, the bed ended up in the northwest of England
35:29and centuries later served as the centerpiece of a honeymoon suite
35:34only to be tossed aside in a parking lot.
35:42Ian's restoration of the bed to its original glory takes 13 years,
35:47but it is worth it.
35:48Given its history, its provenance, and its beauty,
35:51the bed has now been valued upwards of $30 million.
36:02You can find George Washington's signature on his personal copy of the U.S. Constitution,
36:08which sold for nearly $10 million.
36:10And you can find Babe Ruth's signature on a baseball,
36:14which sold for nearly $400,000.
36:17But what about a set of signatures found at a demolition site?
36:21What value could they have?
36:28The old jail in Birmingham, Alabama, is being demolished.
36:34Inside the administration office,
36:36a worker is being told to go through all of the paperwork
36:39and just get rid of it.
36:40It's all destined for the landfill.
36:43Amidst all this, this pile of trash,
36:47he comes across an old hinge notebook and takes a look inside.
36:51It measures about seven by eleven and a half inches.
36:55The pages are manila and ruled in blue with handwritten entries.
37:00Each line records a letter or a package of something that was received at the jail.
37:05It's basically a log book.
37:07The demolition worker casually flips through this log book and it covers a time period that includes the month of
37:15April 1963.
37:18And there's one signature that just jumps off the page to him.
37:23So he's doing his job.
37:24He's told to throw all this stuff out and he does.
37:26But he pulls out two of these pages from the log book as a keepsake.
37:31Everything else goes in the junk pile.
37:35The thing you've got to know about Birmingham jail is that 25 years earlier,
37:41its most famous inmate had been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
37:49Birmingham, Alabama has become a flashpoint for the civil rights movement.
37:55A court injunction has banned protests, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has led a peaceful march through Birmingham protesting
38:03segregation.
38:04This will cause us to go out more determined than ever before to achieve our rights.
38:13Now he did this knowing exactly what would happen.
38:18He would be arrested.
38:25He spends the next eight days in jail with his only connection to the outside world being what he receives
38:31through the mail.
38:32And there's a real flurry of activity while MLK is incarcerated.
38:37On April 17th, he receives this special delivery.
38:41Two days later, he receives a Western Union telegram and a regular letter and he signs for both.
38:47Over the course of eight days, he signed the log book a total of 12 times.
38:53One of those packages contains a newspaper clipping and an open letter from eight white pastors who are writing King
39:01in protest of his actions.
39:05Essentially telling him to calm down.
39:07They were accusing him of being an outside agitator.
39:10They were basically telling him to stop it, tone it down, leave it alone.
39:17King decides to write an open letter in reply, but he has nothing to write on.
39:21So he starts to scribble on the margins of a newspaper that's been smuggled into him by a sympathetic guard.
39:28So all these bits and pieces which are smuggled out get compiled into what is known now as a letter
39:34from a Birmingham jail written by Martin Luther King Jr.
39:37In this letter, he essentially lays out his views on the purpose of peaceful civil disobedience.
39:48It is one of the fundamental documents of the American civil rights movement, never mind American history.
39:54It includes some of his most famous quotes like injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
40:01Or the quote that says, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
40:08So King is released after eight days and the letter gains wide circulation and a lot of traction, but no
40:17copy of the manuscript exists.
40:20So there's no wonder why one of the workers, when he saw this log book, decided to hang on to
40:26these pages for a keepsake.
40:29When he gets home, he gives the pages to the family patriarch, who's a bit of a history buff, but
40:34they're kept secret.
40:35And for decades, the rest of the world has no idea that these pages even exist.
40:41The only relic of King's time in the Birmingham jail are the bars from his cell, which are preserved in
40:48a museum.
40:49And these two pages torn from the log book.
40:53When they're revealed to the world in 2021, they sell at auction for a staggering $130,000 to an anonymous
41:01buyer.
41:03So there's no wonder why one of the workers, when he saw this log book, decided to hang on to
41:09these pages for a keepsake.
41:11This was invaluable.
41:13Good call.
41:15All of which goes to show if it can happen on a demolition site or in an abandoned silver mine
41:20or even in a woodshed,
41:23there's treasure to be found in anyone's backyard, maybe even yours.
41:30Good call.
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