Treasure Trove: Honus Wagner Baseball Card

the Find
A rare Honus Wagner Baseball Card, printed around 1909 to 1911.  Honus Wagner was known as "The Flying Dutchman" because of his speed.  He played in the National League for 20 years, most them as a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates .  Inducted in 1936, he was one of the first five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Baseball cards back then, were printed and distributed along with tobacco packs to appeal to young boys.  Honus didn't like the idea and put a stop to the production of his card. Today, there are only 57 known copies of the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card. It is one of the rarest and most expensive in the world.  A near-mint copy sold for $2.8 million last 2007.

the Lucky
The nuns from School Sisters of Notre Dame in Baltimore

the Place and the Time
The card was found in a safe-deposit box, with a note that said, "Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!". Heritage Auction Galleries sold it last year, November 2010.

How in the world!?
One of the nuns' brother left all his possessions to the convent when he died in 1999. His lawyer found the card in his safety deposit box and informed the nuns about it. It sold for $262,000, even though the card was in poor condition-- it had creases, had been laminated and one of the borders had been cut. The money will be used to help the order's ministries in more than 30 countries.

"It just boggles your mind," one of the nuns, Sister Virginia Muller told AP. "I can't remember a time when we have received anything like this."


Sources:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honus_Wagner
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5732365
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T206_Honus_Wagner

Treasure trove: the Original Mile High collection

the Find
Around 18,000 to 22,000 comic books most in mint condition, all printed between 1939 - 1953. One of these is the very first edition of Action Comics, where Superman makes his grand debut. This copy alone costs $1,000,000.

the Lucky
Chuck Rozanski, owner of the comic book store Mile High Comics.

the Place and the Time
Mile High Comic store in Boulder, Colorado; mid-January, 1977

How in the world!?
Chuck's friend received a call from a Realtor explaining that they needed to sell a house, but the house was full of "junk". This junk was a hoard of comics, periodicals and posters collected by Edgar Church, an artist who used the images for his work.

So Chuck drove down to the house and was amazed to find about 60 stacks in the basement, 75-100 comics deep. It wasn't just that, there was even a walk-in closet overflowing with comics. Even luckier, the owners weren't particular with how much they were going to get, they just wanted to get rid of the stuff and go on and sell the house.

Here's a transcript from his website, milehighcomics.com, about how he felt the moment he saw the collection:

"...It wasn't until the negotiations were over, and the surprise closet full of Golden Age was opened, that I was finally overwhelmed with emotion. My mouth became so dry that I asked for a glass of water. When it arrived, I was staring at the closet, while leaning against the basement wall for support. I couldn't take my eyes off that closet, and became so transfixed that when I tried to take a drink from the glass, I ended up missing my mouth entirely, and poured most of the glass of water right down the front of my shirt. Fortunately, no water spilled on any of the comics.

Believe it or not, what was going through my mind as I was looking at the closet was fear. Not just a fear that the deal would get screwed up somehow, but also a realization that my life was about to radically change. It's one thing to have slowly built up a small business over a period of many years, and quite another to suddenly win the lottery. I could see very clearly that discovering this collection was going to completely change my life, and that nothing would ever again be the same. I was excited at that prospect, but also very trepidatious. Radical change can be good, but it can also destroy much of that which you hold most dear..."

Sources:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg12.html
http://listsoplenty.com/blog/archives/6717
http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin/2007/03/edgar_church_and_chuck_rozansk.html
http://scrimbrown.wordpress.com/2010/08/page/2/

Treasure Trove: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

the Find
An original 1776 print of the American Declaration of Independence

the Lucky
An unidentified financial analyst from Philadelphia

the Place and the Time
A flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. 1989.

How in the world!?
The document was folded inside an old painting, between the canvas and wood backing. The buyer bought the painting for $4, because he liked the frame. When he tried to remove the picture, the frame broke and the rest.. is history.

His discovery is one of the very first 500 copies printed by John Dunlap in 1776. Today, there are only 27 in existence and this one was found to be in good condition. It was auctioned for $2.42 million at Sotheby's.

Sources:
http://www.snopes.com/luck/declare.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunlap_broadside

Treasure Trove: magnolias on gold velvet cloth

Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth by Martin Heade from duke.edu

the Find
"Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth", a painting by Martin Johnson Heade, purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts for $1,250,000.

"This is an important rediscovery, and the painting is a magnificent example of Heade's work at its best,'' said Theodore E. Stebbins Jr., author of the 1975 catalogue raisonne of Heade's works.

The painting was authenticated by the Kennedy Galleries in Manhattan. According to its president, Martha J. Fleischman, ''What sets this apart from his other magnolia painting is that there's a little bit of leaf mold on one of the leaves, like a beauty mark.''

the Lucky
He prefers to remain anonymous. The only information about him is he's from Indiana, about 30 years old and works in a tool-and-die company.

the Place and the Time
The painting was sent to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on March 1999, well preserved and still in its original frame. The museum's director called an emergency meeting with the board of trustees and the purchase was approved in less than an hour and a half.

How in the world!?



The previous owner bought it years ago for "next to nothing". He found it quite useful, using the painting to hide a hole in one of his walls. One day, he was playing the boardgame, "Masterpiece", and a piece that looked a lot like it came up.  He then contacted the Kennedy Galleries to have it authenticated.

It's interesting to note that there are other Heade paintings discovered this way:

• Thunderstorm on Narragansett Bay was found in an antiques store in Larchmont, New York in 1943.
• Magnolia Blossoms on Blue Velvet and Cherokee Roses were purchased at an estate sale in Arizona for $60 in 1996.
• Two Magnolias on Blue Plush was originally purchased for $29 at a rummage sale by a Wisconsin man in 1989
• Two Heade paintings were discovered in an attic, one in Boston last 2003 and the other in Massachusetts, 2006.

According to Stebbins, "One of the things that has always made the study of Heade's work exciting is the way his paintings continue to turn up in garage sales and other unlikely places all over the country, in a manner that the paintings of Frederic E. Church and John F. Kensett do not." He thinks this could be because of Heade's willingness to distribute his works and popularity with middle-class buyers.

Sources:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/30933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Johnson_Heade
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/04/arts/painting-packs-a-million-dollar-surprise.html?pagewanted=1
boardgamebeast.com

Treasure Trove: sewage gold

ottoman coins - http://www.presstv.com

the Find
A pot of gold coins dating back to the Ottoman Empire

the Lucky
Municipal workers in the village of Surekli in Southeastern Turkey. I don't think they got to keep it though. The area has been cordoned off and Mardin Museum archeologists were called to check it out.

the Place and the Time
The news came out Oct 4 2009. It was found 2 meters below the ground in (as mentioned earlier) the village of Surekli, in the southeastern province of Mardin, Turkey.

How in the world!?
By accident.  They were excavating the ground and laying down pipes for the village's new sewage system.

Sources:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=107933&sectionid=3510212
http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/200910072348/Pot-of-gold-found-in-Surekli-sewage.html

Treasure Trove: anglo-saxon gold hoard

http://news.nationalgeographic.com

the Find
About 1,500 pieces of gold & silver ornaments and other military artifacts, some are even decorated with precious stones. These treasures are of Anglo-Saxon origin and it dates back to 675 - 725AD, about the same time period as the poem "Beowulf". Experts believe that these belonged to a defeated king or a warlord and were collected during wars in the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Some of the objects were bent and twisted, and others appear to have been deliberately removed from where they were used to be attached.

The hoard has officially been declared a treasure and will be up for sale to a museum in Britain. According to Leslie Webster, former keeper at the British Museum’s Department of Prehistory and Europe, ‘This will change our understanding of the dates of early Christian manuscripts, our perceptions of seventh-century people and where power lay,’.

the Lucky
Terry Herbert, a 55-year old former coffin factory worker, previously unemployed, now a millionaire. The proceeds of the sale will be divided in half between him and the unidentified landowner. They could be in line for a "seven-figure sum."

the Place and the Time
Authorities wanted to keep the location secret to ward off looters but I was able to find a few articles that state exact location and the name of the landowner. It's an english farmland :). Herbert and the owner are friends and he signed a written contract to split anything that he will find 50-50. He found the first of the items on July 5 2009 and then spent the next five days looking all over the place for other pieces.

How in the world!?
By an 18-year old metal detector bought for £2.50. Herbert says, "I have this phrase that I say sometimes – “spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear” – but on that day I changed coins to gold. I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it. Maybe it was meant to be, maybe the gold had my name on it all along. I was going to bed and in my sleep I was seeing gold items.’

Terry is a metal detector enthusiast and is used to his hobby being mocked. ‘I’ve had people go past and go “beep beep, he’s after pennies”, he said. ‘Well no, we are out there to find this kind of stuff – and it is out there.’


Sources:
The field of gold: How jobless treasure hunter unearthed greatest ever haul of Saxon artefacts with £2.50 metal detector [dailymail.co.uk]
Huge hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure uncovered in UK [news.yahoo.com]
Highlights of Anglo-Saxon hoard [www.independent.co.uk]