A documentary revealing hidden treasures found in ordinary backyards. #film #history #documentary #series #episode #engsub #viral #video #education #show
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00:08I'm Mike Wolfe and I've spent my life traveling the world chasing forgotten
00:13objects and the histories behind them. People everywhere are turning up
00:19artifacts every day often by chance and if you're lucky some of these finds can
00:26be worth serious money. Tonight on history's greatest picks. Not all treasures are
00:36buried away in some far-off place. Some might be hiding in your very own
00:42backyard. We're talking epic movie history forgotten in a woodshed. Jack
00:48Nicholson's character wanders maniacally around the halls of this hotel holding
00:53this axe. Rock and roll riches rescued from a dumpster. I mean these are lead
00:58zeppelins drum heads. How cool is that? The estate sale find worth nearly half a
01:05billion dollars. This thing is as historically significant as the Mona
01:11Lisa itself. So the real question what's hiding in your backyard? So sit back and
01:18let me tell you the stories behind some of history's greatest picks.
01:30Back in the day two kids in LA were playing in their backyard and dug up a 1974
01:36Ferrari Dino GTS. You heard me right. And a couple in Sierra Nevada unearthed a huge
01:43amount of gold coins worth an estimated 10 million bucks. And then there's the guy
01:49who had something hiding in his woodshed for the better part of 40 years.
02:00Here's the story. This guy has this land he wants to clear. For this he's gonna have to chop some
02:04trees
02:04down. He's gonna need an axe. It just so happens that where he works is having an auction like a
02:09second-hand sale. And one of the lots is an axe just like the kind that he needs.
02:17So he puts in a bit of five pounds for the axe which is about seven dollars.
02:22And guess what? He wins it. And then like so many other homeowners he eventually never gets to this
02:29project where he was gonna cut down all this wood on his property. He puts the axe in his garden
02:35shed
02:35and forgets all about it. It would stay in that shed with the blade unused for decades.
02:42It's in exactly the same condition as it was when it was used by its previous owner.
02:50Now the thing you've got to know about this axe is the guy who used it first.
02:59It's been a 12-month long brutal schedule of filming that they've been through on Stanley Kubrick's latest
03:05effort which is a psychological thriller, a horror film. And the lead role is played by Jack Nicholson.
03:12His character is named Jack Torrance and the film of course is The Shining.
03:18In this movie, Jack Nicholson's character becomes this homicidal maniac and he wanders maniacally around
03:24the halls of this hotel looking for his family, looking to murder them, holding this axe.
03:32The most famous scene in the whole movie of The Shining is when Jack Nicholson takes the axe
03:37and smashes it through the door, sticks his head through the door and says, here's Johnny.
03:45And this makes the axe almost as much of a star as Jack Nicholson himself.
03:52For the wide shots, they can use a prop axe made of foam painted to look like the real thing.
03:58But for close-ups, Kubrick needs a real axe. He can't, you know, have a homicidal maniac using a prop.
04:04It's got to be the real deal.
04:06The props department custom makes the hero axe. So they make a genuine fire axe that's
04:1235 and a half inches long. The axe head is 11 and a half inches wide.
04:17And the blade is ground to make it shine on camera. And it's also very, very sharp.
04:25In the famous scene where Nicholson chops through the bathroom door with the axe,
04:32they use a fake prop door at first. In a previous life, Nicholson had been a volunteer firefighter in
04:39the California Air National Guard. So even though he wasn't a murderous psychopath, he's still pretty
04:45darn good with an axe. So this prop door won't hold up. So a real wooden door is substituted,
04:51and Nicholson swings the axe. And the axe got a little worn. It was a little wear and tear on
04:58it.
05:00At the conclusion of shooting, the film production does what film productions do. They clear out all
05:06the props and everything has to be disposed of and sold. The props have served their purpose.
05:12The movie's over and they would just end up in the trash unless someone wants to take them.
05:17All the props are auctioned off. And this is where this guy gets this axe for seven dollars.
05:24The guy never used the axe to chop anything. And that means it remains in the exact same condition
05:31of the last time that it was used by Jack Nicholson when he chops through the door during The Shining.
05:38As movie member Feely goes, it's really valuable.
05:43In 2019, one of the fake foam axes is put up for auction. By now, The Shining has achieved classic
05:50cult horror status, and it sells for $57,000. When the real hero axe hits the auction block later that
05:58very same week, it sells for just over 200 grand, which isn't bad for an initial investment of just
06:05seven bucks. You never know what might be hiding in your garbage, like the guy who found the equivalent
06:18of a small fortune.
06:26Al Aronowitz has a house guest.
06:30His house gets up doing something throughout the night. When Al gets up in the morning,
06:36he goes to see what he's been up to. Next to the typewriter, the ashtray is overflowing and
06:43there's a completely filled waste paper basket next to it. And this, by the way, is one of the big
06:50advantages of a typewriter over a computer, because with a typewriter, you've got artifacts.
06:55He smooths out some of the sheets of paper and he sees a song or a poem starting to take
07:01shape.
07:03So he goes, I'm going to keep a couple of these as a souvenir.
07:07It would prove to be a very profitable thing to do, because the house guest was a guy by the
07:13name
07:14of Bob Dylan.
07:20In spring of 1964, Bob Dylan had just broken up with his longtime girlfriend, Suze Rotolo.
07:27She's the one famously pictured on the album cover of the freewheeling Bob Dylan.
07:34After the split, Bob Dylan spent some time staying with his friend Al. Now, Al is a music journalist,
07:41and he knows better than anyone what a rare talent Bob Dylan has. And maybe it's his intuition as a
07:48journalist, but you have to think that when somebody's going through something like that,
07:52and they're an artist, maybe some greatness is being created in those moments.
07:58Usually his songwriting process is a rush of inspiration, and it's done. But this one,
08:04he's laboring over. And Aronowitz notices in these sheets, one, two, three different versions of the
08:13same song. And the song is Mr. Tambourine Man.
08:22You cannot overstate the importance of this song. Mr. Tambourine Man, when covered by the birds,
08:28single-handedly ignites the folk rock movement. It shoots to number one.
08:34The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a resurgence of folk music. Bob Dylan was at the spearhead
08:42of this movement. But all of a sudden, when it moves to Southern California,
08:46and it gets this injection of rock music, it hits the mainstream. Now it's played on radio.
08:53It's Bob Dylan's only number one hit, and he did not record it. And there it is,
08:59found in a waste paper basket. Al's a music journalist. I mean,
09:03he's part of that 1960s music scene. He was the original manager of the Velvet Underground.
09:09He introduced Dylan to the Beatles. According to friends and family, Al always used to tell the
09:15story of how he rescued the original lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man out of the trash. It's part of the
09:21family lore.
09:27When Al dies in 2005, his son Miles cannot find Mr. Tambourine Man. He knows that his father
09:35filed them. Were they lost? Was this story made up? Were they stolen? Al leaves an archive that is just
09:43vast. It's 250 banker's boxes full of documents. It takes his son, Miles, literally years to sort through
09:53all of the archives, paper by paper by paper. But eventually, he finds them.
10:00The lyrics rescued from Al's archives are sold at auction in 2025 and are snapped up for $508,000.
10:09That's a profit of half a million dollars for scraps of paper originally tossed into the garbage.
10:21We all know how the story goes. A woman walks into a thrift store and buys a painting for $30
10:26to cover a hole in her wall. And then it turns out to be the lost masterpiece that sells for
10:31over
10:31a million bucks at an auction. It's a true story, just like the next one. Except this time,
10:37we're not talking about a painting worth a mere million bucks. We're talking hundreds of millions.
10:48It's 1958 and a couple are on a trip to London. Warren and Minnie Kuntz from New Orleans are
10:56small-time art collectors. Just before they head back to the States, they do what any good collector
11:02does. They just poke their head into an auction house just to see what's happening. There's a
11:07collection of 136 paintings up for sale. One of the lots is called Salvatore Mundi.
11:17It's a Renaissance-era painting attributed to Giovanni Paltrafio, who was a student of Leonardo da Vinci.
11:27It shows Christ holding an orb in one hand and giving a blessing with the other.
11:31The painting is showing its age. Its varnish is cracked. I mean, it's 500 years old. And not
11:36only that, at some point, the face was retouched or restored, but it was done so badly that one
11:44critic says it looks like a drug-crazed hippie. But this doesn't dissuade Warren and Minnie. They
11:50have an eye for old art, so they decide to place a bid. No one else puts in a bid,
11:56so they snatch up the Baltrafio painting for 45 pounds, the equivalent of 120 dollars back then.
12:06They're not big art dealers. Nobody knows about them in the art world, so this doesn't make a huge
12:11splash. And so it goes back to Louisiana with Warren and Minnie. Warren and Minnie pass the painting on to
12:18a nephew who hangs it in a stairwell in his house in Baton Rouge, and it sits there collecting dust
12:26for
12:26years. When the nephew passes, the painting by Baltrafio hits the auction block in 2005 for a second time.
12:35This time, it sells for just over a thousand dollars to a couple of art dealers from New York.
12:42The art dealers know that there are at least 30 different versions of Salvatore Mundi attributed to
12:49Leonardo's workshop, including this one by Baltrafio. This is how it worked in the Renaissance. The
12:56masters, the Michelangelos and the Leonardos of the time, did not work in isolation. They had
13:02teams of young artists who came as apprentices and would often finish and assist the master with their
13:10own works. It's all about the brush strokes. You can't emulate the brush strokes. It's like a signature.
13:20It's like a fingerprint. Once you identify the brush strokes of the master, it's unmistakable that this is
13:28not of a student. The dealers want to find out a little bit more about this work, so they take
13:37it to
13:37Diane Modestini, an expert in Renaissance art. Her job is to clean it, stabilize it, and see what's
13:44underneath all those years of grime and cracked varnish and that horribly done touch-up. The restoration
13:51process is slow and painstaking. It takes months or even years. A moment comes when Diane tries to retouch
14:00some damage on the figure's upper lip, but she can never quite get it right. So as a guide, she's
14:06going to take
14:07inspiration from the master himself. She puts it side by side with a copy of the Mona Lisa.
14:15It's then for the first time that she sees the remarkable resemblance as she looks at the lip of
14:24her restoration of Salvatore Mundi and looks at the lip of Mona Lisa. These are a one-to-one match.
14:31She suddenly believes that what she's looking at isn't a copy of a Leonardo. It is an original
14:39Leonardo. This thing is as historically significant as the Mona Lisa itself. What follows rings like a
14:49thunderclap through the art world.
14:54There are only so many Leonardo da Vinci paintings in existence. For another one to come on the scene
15:05is earth shattering.
15:14What follows is years of analysis, radiography, x-rays to ensure that its provenance of the hand of
15:26Leonardo himself is verified. And there are claims and counterclaims. Some say it's not a Leonardo.
15:35Others say it's partly by Leonardo. And others still say it's a Leonardo masterpiece.
15:44Even though no one agrees, it still heads to auction.
15:52When it reappears back at auction in 2017, a bidding war breaks out.
15:57190 million. Give me 200. 200 million is bid.
16:01These guys are throwing down. 264 million. 300 million.
16:07370 million. We're still not done. And when the gavel drops,
16:11it sells for, get this, $450,300,000.
16:24It's always important to pay attention to your surroundings because you never know what you might
16:30be stepping over. Like the two guys that were on a hike in the mountains when they spotted a metal
16:34box
16:35poking out of the ground. Inside were nearly 600 gold coins worth $340,000. Or the guy in the next
16:45story
16:45who discovered a silver mine and some unexpected treasure within.
16:53The desert of Nevada contains hundreds of abandoned silver mines.
16:58Time capsules locked up from the day hundreds of years ago when the very last prospector picked up
17:05his shovel and left. Michael Allen Harris is a bit of a mine archaeologist. And over the years he has
17:12visited dozens of these abandoned mine sites. He's found newspapers dating to the 1800s. He's found
17:18handwritten letters, even hand-drawn crude pornography. He's even found old whiskey bottles from that time
17:25period, which collectors will pay upwards of $100 for. But as he claws through the dirt in the back of
17:32one
17:32mine, he finds this heavy fabric just caked in dirt and dried in mud. He keeps digging until he finally
17:40reveals a pair of worn and torn blue denim pants. They're a little frayed. The hems are a little busted,
17:50but they're mostly intact. On the back right hip is a label. Although faded over time, it can still be
17:58red. Levi Strauss and Company, copper riveted clothing. Patent, May 20th, 1873.
18:10The jeans are a creation of two men. Levi Strauss, who gave them their name, and Jacob Davis, a tailor
18:18from Reno, who really created the structure and engineering of them. Since the start of the silver
18:23boom in the 1860s, thousands have flocked to Nevada in hopes of making it rich. And so they rush into
18:31it,
18:31but their big problem is that they have to be equipped for the rough experience of mining. And
18:36the rough experience of mining takes its toll on clothing. And so Jacob's repair business has never been
18:42busier because now there's suddenly more demand than ever as miners are flocking to places like Nevada
18:48in the search for silver. He's running a thriving business repairing clothing as it gets worn through
18:56the demanding physical conditions of mining. So he decides to come up with something tougher,
19:04a strong pair of work pants reinforced with copper rivets, the same technology used in saddle making,
19:11that'll give these miners a long lasting piece of work clothing. And he finds that it's a winning
19:18combination and that it works well. It really makes pants that hold up to the rigors of mining very
19:23effectively. They're an immediate success and orders explode. Davis is so paranoid that someone will steal
19:35his idea that he contacts his fabric supplier in San Francisco, Levi Strauss, and asks him
19:41to file a patent for copper riveted work pants. The vintage Levi's found by Michael Harris are a perfect
19:50time capsule of these old mining days down to the copper rivets and even the wax stains from the candles
19:58that miners would use to light their way. But the question now is just how old are they?
20:07They have suspender buttons, but no belt loops, which weren't introduced until 1922.
20:15And there's only one back pocket. The second pocket was introduced in 1902. So they're older than that.
20:24And there's one more disturbing clue as to how old these jeans are.
20:29He finds inside the left front pocket that there's a message printed and it says best value, best finish, best
20:37materials.
20:39And at the bottom, there's a message that's a little disturbing by today's standards.
20:43It says made by white labor. Levi's added this line in 1882 after Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
20:57At a time when many people felt that there were too many Chinese laborers who were working for mining operations
21:03and on the railroad.
21:05It was a way of identifying that Levi's was not using Asian labor to produce its mining ware.
21:12But the company's policy eventually shifts and they abandoned using that message in the 1890s.
21:18So the date of these jeans can be narrowed down to a couple of years in the early 1890s.
21:26In other words, they're among the oldest Levi's known to exist.
21:33In 2022, Harris decides it's time to turn history into cash and he sends them to auction where they fetch
21:40a staggering $88,000.
21:43And apparently they're still wearable.
21:51Hidden treasures can be found absolutely anywhere and maybe even in your backyard.
22:00For the last 15 years, at this small market town in England, there have been these two figures standing at
22:08the bottom of this couple's garden.
22:10They're instantly recognizable, though. They're basically mini models of the Sphinx.
22:15The famous Sphinx from Egypt.
22:18Now, the couple had originally bought these at a country house sale for 300 pounds, which is the equivalent of
22:23around 500 U.S. dollars today.
22:26So you look at these and, yeah, they're not terribly remarkable.
22:32Some of them may be like two feet high, maybe like three feet in length.
22:37Eh, you're not even that big.
22:38They show their age. One of them, the head became detached and it's been stuck back together with cement.
22:47So there comes a point when the couple are downsizing and they're going to take these two Sphinxes along with
22:52a lot of other things from their home and they're just going to take them to the local auction house
22:56and try to raise some money.
22:57In the auction catalog, they've listed this as a pair of 19th century carved stone garden models of Egyptian Sphinx.
23:08They have an estimated value of somewhere between 300 and 500 pounds and the opening bid is 200 pounds.
23:15And this is where it gets interesting because this auction is online and people in the know have been sniffing
23:23around the auction catalog and they've smelled a bargain.
23:27Slowly, the price begins to creep up and then it creeps up again and it creeps up again and again
23:34and again and a bidding war breaks out.
23:39The auctioneer and the couple have had no idea what's been sitting at the bottom of their garden for the
23:45last 15 years.
23:46But some of the bidders are international gallery owners, antiquity dealers, people who know their stuff.
23:58The clues have been staring them in the face all along.
24:01For one thing, they're made of a limestone that is consistent with ancient Egyptian artifacts.
24:07But then the other thing is that all that weathering might look like it's from decades of English weather, but
24:14it's actually from centuries of desert weather.
24:18The clincher is the size of the head relative to the rest of the body.
24:22When you look at it from the side or head on, it looks weirdly big, like the head is swollen.
24:27But that's exactly how the ancient Egyptians would build these things because they usually have them sitting in a way
24:33that people would look up at them.
24:34And when you look up from an angle, the head looks just right.
24:39So get this.
24:40The bidding, which begins at 300 bucks, reaches 200,000.
24:45And after 15 minutes of this back and forth, the Sphinxes are sold to an anonymous museum for their final
24:52selling price of 300 grand.
25:02We 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.
25:11You 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.
25:35Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, The Hood, Deep Purple.
25:40They don't just supply the trucks for the tours.
25:43They provide storage space for the equipment that goes on the trucks.
25:47And after years and years of this business, things coming in and out, there comes a point where they've got
25:5350,000 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, and their instructions are,
26:10if no one's claimed it, just get it out of there and burn it.
26:14So that's what they do.
26:16Classic 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.
26:29And when they pull them out, they find that some of the cases contain drum heads.
26:34The 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.
26:44How 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?
26:52And they're like, sure.
26:54This isn't just a cool discovery.
26:56It 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.
27:21So this album, when it comes out, it doesn't have a title.
27:25It doesn't list the band members' names or the band's name.
27:29It doesn't even have a catalog number.
27:31The only identifying marks on this entire album cover are just these four symbols.
27:37And each one of them has been chosen by a different member of the band.
27:42The 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.
27:58And it's an ancient symbol that dates back thousands of years.
28:01But since 1971, it's only been associated with one thing.
28:04And that is one of the greatest drummers in rock and roll history.
28:11John Bonham was the driving force for Led Zeppelin.
28:15And this album is the most successful Zeppelin album ever.
28:19This 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.
28:29From 1971 to 1975, they are playing to sellout crowds in stadiums around the world, including the now legendary gigs
28:38at Earl's Court in London.
28:40It's a whole unique setup.
28:41You have to build stages, all custom made.
28:44Each tour is different than the one before.
28:46And these guys do it better than anyone.
28:48They 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 that has on
28:59the front skin a Borrow Me in Rings symbol.
29:03This tour is the only time in his career that he uses the drum head with the rings on it.
29:09When John Bonham dies in 1980 at the age of 32, the rest of the group decides to disband.
29:17And seven years later, their old equipment is thrown out, except for Bonham's drum heads.
29:26So this young guy, he's got these drum heads.
29:28He's taken them home, but eventually he stops playing the drums, and he's got these things packed away.
29:35So it's only after 37 years that he really opens up this case and decides to look at these drum
29:42heads.
29:43And he picks one up.
29:47And he sees the unmistakable symbol of John Bonham.
29:54The drum head has dents on it that match photos from their iconic tour.
29:59They're even visible in their film performance.
30:02The song remains the same.
30:05In 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.
30:17And once their true value is recognized, there is nowhere to go but up.
30:21One year later, the drum head is flipped.
30:24One of the most iconic rock artifacts that has ever crossed the auction block.
30:29We're looking for $75,000.
30:32And this time, it goes for a whopping $87,500.
30:45If you're planning a renovation, you've got to be prepared to find something unexpected, something old, and maybe, hopefully, something
30:56of value.
31:02The Redland Hotel is up for renovation.
31:05The 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.
31:18They get to the honeymoon suite, and there's this old four-poster bed, and it's junk.
31:23It's in the way, so they unceremoniously rip it apart, throw it in the big junk pile out front with
31:29everything else.
31:30A local man is walking by, and this catches his eye.
31:34The bed looks special.
31:37But he's not just any passerby.
31:39He's an auctioneer.
31:41So, he rescues it from the trash pile, and he puts it up for auction, and he builds it as
31:46a profusely carved Victorian four-poster bed with armorial shields.
31:56Ian Coulson is a collector.
31:57He sees this auction online for this bed that looks amazing.
32:01He wins it without even seeing it in person.
32:04And as it turns out, he wins it for 2,200 pounds, about $3,000.
32:08When 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.
32:16But 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.
32:35This is even older than that.
32:39So, 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.
32:50And not just any European oak.
32:52It's a subspecies that is typical of the finest slow-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.
33:09And back in the day, ultramarine was considered more precious than gold.
33:14This bed's not Victorian.
33:16It's medieval.
33:17So, 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?
33:40There are also these other ornate carvings.
33:43You've got Adam and Eve.
33:44You've got a dragon.
33:45You've got a lion.
33:47You've got acorns.
33:48Those are a symbol of fertility.
33:50And critically, the Lancastrian rose.
33:57In the 15th century, during the War of the Roses, these roses are symbols of the competing claims for the
34:04English throne.
34:05The Lancastrians are represented by the red rose, the Yorkists by the white.
34:11In 1486, the two houses are united under Henry VII, the Lancastrian king, who weds Elizabeth of York.
34:21And they adopt the Tudor rose symbol of the two roses blended together.
34:29As Ian digs through the archives, he 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.
34:52This is the royal bed, which means honeymooners at Redland Hotel for $150 were sleeping in the same bed
35:04where future kings of England were conceived, including Henry VIII.
35:13This bed was built to be taken apart so that it could follow the king and queen as they traveled
35:18around 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 and, centuries later, served as the centerpiece of a honeymoon
35:33suite,
35:34only to be tossed aside in a parking lot.
35:42Ian's restoration of the bed to its original glory takes 13 years, but it is worth it.
35:48Given its history, its provenance, and its beauty, the bed has now been valued upwards of $30 million.
36:01You can find George Washington's signature on his personal copy of the U.S. Constitution, which sold for nearly $10
36:08million.
36:08And you can find Babe Ruth's signature on a baseball, which sold for nearly $400,000.
36:15But what about a set of signatures found at a demolition site?
36:20What value could they have?
36:27The old jail in Birmingham, Alabama, is being demolished.
36:33Inside the administration office, a worker is being told to go through all of the paperwork and just get rid
36:38of it.
36:39It's all destined for the landfill.
36:42Amidst all this pile of trash, he comes across an old hinge notebook and takes a look inside.
36:50It measures about 7 by 11 1⁄2 inches.
36:54The pages are manila and ruled in blue with handwritten entries.
36:59Each line records a letter or a package of something that was received at the jail.
37:04It's basically a logbook.
37:06The demolition worker casually flips through this logbook, and it covers a time period that includes the month of April
37:141963.
37:16And there's one signature that just jumps off the page, George.
37:21So he's doing his job.
37:22He's told to throw all this stuff out, and he does.
37:25But he pulls out two of these pages from the logbook as a keepsake.
37:29Everything else goes in the junk file.
37:34The thing you've got to know about Birmingham jail is that 25 years earlier, its most famous inmate had been
37:41Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
37:48Birmingham, Alabama, has become a flashpoint for the Civil Rights Movement.
37:53A court injunction has banned protests, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has led a peaceful march through Birmingham protesting
38:01segregation.
38:03This has caused us to go out more determined than ever before, to achieve our rights.
38:12Now, he did this knowing exactly what would happen.
38:16He would be arrested.
38:24He spends the next eight days in jail with his only connection to the outside world being what he receives
38:30through the mail.
38:31And there's a real flurry of activity while MLK is incarcerated.
38:36On April 17th, he receives this special delivery.
38:40Two days later, he receives a Western Union telegram and a regular letter, and he signs for both.
38:45Over the course of eight days, he's signed the logbook a total of 12 times.
38:52One of those packages contains a newspaper clipping and an open letter from eight white pastors who are writing King
39:00in protest of his actions.
39:03Essentially telling him to calm down.
39:05They were accusing him of being an outside agitator.
39:09They were basically telling him to stop it, tone it down, leave it alone.
39:15King decides to write an open letter in reply, but he has nothing to write on.
39:20So he starts to scribble on the margins of a newspaper that's been smuggled into him by a sympathetic guard.
39:26So all these bits and pieces which are smuggled out get compiled into what is known now as Letter from
39:33a Birmingham Jail, written by Martin Luther King Jr.
39:36In this letter, he essentially lays out his views on the purpose of peaceful civil disobedience.
39:46It is one of the fundamental documents of the American civil rights movement, never mind American history.
39:52It includes some of his most famous quotes, like,
39:56Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
39:59Or the quote that says,
40:02Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
40:07So, King is released after eight days, and the letter gains wide circulation and a lot of traction.
40:15But no copy of the manuscript exists.
40:19So there's no wonder why one of the workers, when he saw this logbook, decided to hang on to these
40:25pages for a keepsake.
40:27When he gets home, he gives the pages to the family patriarch, who's a bit of a history buff.
40:32But they're kept secret, and for decades, the rest of the world has no idea that these pages even exist.
40:40The only relic of King's time in the Birmingham Jail are the bars from his cell, which are preserved in
40:46a museum.
40:48And these two pages, torn from the logbook.
40:51When they're revealed to the world in 2021, they sell at auction for a staggering $130,000 to an anonymous
41:00buyer.
41:01So there's no wonder why one of the workers, when he saw this logbook, decided to hang on to these
41:08pages for a keepsake.
41:09This was invaluable.
41:12Good call.
41:13All of which goes to show, if it can happen on a demolition site, or in an abandoned silver mine,
41:19or even in a woodshed, there's treasure to be found in anyone's backyard.
41:24Maybe even yours.
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