Treasures people didn’t know were hiding in their homes

Remarkable treasures found in ordinary homes

Incredible treasures aren't always found in abandoned gold mines or at the bottom of the sea. As these amazing discoveries attest, they're sometimes found hiding much closer to home...

From 'lost' paintings to a million-dollar blanket, read on to discover 16 jaw-dropping treasures uncovered in people's homes. All dollar amounts in US dollars and currency conversions correct at the time of valuation.

Paul McCartney demo found in a record collection

Simon White, the nephew of the late British singer Cilla Black, was searching through his father’s record collection when he came across some demo discs. He took them to The Beatles Shop in Liverpool to have them valued, and store manager Stephen Bailey was ecstatic to discover one of the discs featured McCartney singing a song called It's For You, which he'd given to Black to record her own version of.

Mr. White's father had assumed it was Cilla Black's own version of the track, but White was amazed to discover it was the original recording by Sir Paul from 1964. The demo sold for £18,000 ($22.3k) at auction in 2016.

Royal commemorative coins found in a cottage

Auctioneer John Rolfe was searching a remote cottage in Gloucestershire, England, when he noticed something shiny glinting in the cupboards. He discovered a collection of valuable commemorative coins, including a set of gold coins minted for the Queen's jubilee in 2002 and a collection created to mark the 150th anniversary of the Duke of Wellington's death.

The coins sold for a grand total of £80,000 ($100k) at auction in February 2020. Speaking of the find, Rolfe said: “I’ve spent my whole life pricing up house clearances. I’ve never done anything like it. I may never see anything like it again.”

Sultan’s treasures wrapped in newspaper in attic

A British couple got a big surprise when they unwrapped a bundle of Indian weapons in their attic. The artefacts were taken from the Tipu Sultan’s palace (pictured) after he was defeated in battle by the Duke of Wellington in 1799. 

The treasures included the rifle clad in gold and silver that Tipu used in his final fight against the British. The items were sold at auction in Oxfordshire on 26 March 2020, fetching the handsome sum of £107,000 ($132k).

The dining room Rembrandt nobody liked

An unassuming New Jersey home is the last place you'd expect to find a painting by Dutch Old Master Rembrandt van Rijn, so brothers Ned, Roger and Steven Landau could be forgiven for overlooking the masterpiece that had hung in their parents' dining room for decades. After their parents passed away, the brothers decided to get a valuation of the artwork and called on an auction house in Bloomfield, who immediately recognised it as a lost Rembrandt. 

The painting of an unconscious youth being administered smelling salts was bought by New York financier Thomas Kaplan in September 2016 for a cool $870,000 (£586k) and has since featured in an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. 

The Titanic violin in the attic

The son of an amateur musician caused a storm in the antique world when he unearthed Titanic bandmaster Wallace Hartley's violin in his attic. Hartley was playing the violin when the Titanic sank in 1912, and it's claimed it was recovered in a leather case strapped to his body.  

The violin was given to Hartley by his fiancé Maria Robinson and was returned to her following his death. It was then given to a local Salvation Army citadel before being passed on to the amateur musician in the early 1940s. Although the violin’s authenticity was contested, tests proved it was the real thing. The violin fetched £1.1 million ($1.4m) at auction in 2013. 

Grandma's million-dollar blanket

Life was not going well for Californian native Loren Krytzer when he showed up at John Moran Auctioneers in Monrovia in December 2011 with a tired old striped Navajo blanket. The former carpenter was penniless and living in a shack after losing a leg following a car accident two years before.

Krytzer had inherited a Navajo blanket from his grandmother and had left it largely forgotten in a closet. It wasn't until he chanced upon an episode of TV show Antiques Roadshow (pictured), which featured a similar Navajo textile that was valued at half a million dollars, that he decided to get it appraised. Luckily for Krytzer, the blanket, which dates from 1840, sold for $1.5 million (£1.2m).

The ancient bowl on the mantlepiece

When a New York family bought a small bowl for $3 at a flea market in 2007, they had no idea of its illustrious history. It wasn’t until 2013 that they realised their mantelpiece decoration was a 1,000-year-old Ding bowl from the Northern Song Chinese dynasty. 

The bowl sold for $2.2 million (£1.8m) at auction in March of that year, exceeding Sotheby's' initial valuations of $200,000-$300,000 (£160k-240k). Just one other bowl of the same type is known to exist today.

The Constable hanging under the stairs

Sotheby's specialist Julian Gascoigne had a career-defining moment when he happened to spot a long-lost Constable oil painting casually hanging under the stairs in a client's home. The painting was the first sketch for Constable's acclaimed The Opening of Waterloo Bridge.

Needless to say, the owner was entirely in the dark about the artwork's origin. The painting was sold by Sotheby's in December 2017 for a cool £2.3 million ($2.8m). 

Comic collection in the basement

Michael Rorrer was clearing out his late great aunt's home in Virginia when he stumbled upon a collection of 345 comics in the basement. The collection belonged to his late uncle, Billy Wright, who had never told anyone about his hobby before his death in 1994. The carefully arranged collection included rare items such as Detective Comics No 27, the first comic to star Batman (pictured).

The impressive collection also contained the first comic that featured Superman, stunning the comic book world. Unsurprisingly, the rare editions fetched a whopping $3.5 million (£2.8m) at auction in New York in 2012.

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Bugatti in the garage

When collector Dr Harold Carr passed away in 2009, he left his house in Newcastle, England, to his relatives. But it was in the garage that his habit of collecting really paid off. Inside was a 1937 Bugatti Type 57S, originally owned by British racing driver Earl Howe. 

The eccentric doctor had bought the car for £895 in 1955. But over 50 years later, Dr Carr's relatives sold the vehicle for a whopping £3 million ($3.7m). The discovery startled his family, even though it had long been rumoured that Dr Carr owned it. As his nephew said: "It was a bit of local folklore that he had a Bugatti, but no one knew for sure. It's worth so much because he hasn't used it for 50 years. It was one of the original super cars." 

The Billy the Kid photo hanging on an Airbnb wall

Lucky Frank Abrams picked up some pictures at a flea market to decorate a room he was renting out to Airbnb guests. Little did he know, the tintype he purchased for $2 was a rare photograph of notorious outlaw Billy the Kid with Pat Garrett, the man who shot him dead. 

When a similarly rare photo of Billy the Kid was valued at $5 million (£4m) in 2015, Abrams revisited his find. Although the tintype has been verified and would be expected to reach a similar price at auction, Abrams reportedly doesn’t want to sell his piece of history just yet.

The museum-quality Japanese chest used as a TV stand

In 2013, the family of a French engineer who lived in London's South Kensington became overnight multimillionaires when the Japanese chest their late relative had used as a TV stand fetched an eye-watering £6.3 million ($7.8m) at auction.

The Frenchman had acquired the 17th-century chest in 1970 for a bargain £100 and was none the wiser about its true value. At one point, he even used the ultra-rare piece of furniture as a drinks cabinet.

The Keith Haring mural hidden in a wall

In 2010, architect Todd Ernst was renovating an 8,000-square-foot apartment in the Tribeca neighbourhood of New York. During the renovations, he discovered an original Keith Haring mural behind one of the walls. Haring's unmissable black doodle-like squiggles are now incorporated into the decor.

The American Thread Co. building where the mural was found has an artistic past. The building regularly held exhibitions with the School of Visual Arts, where Keith Haring was a student. The apartment – along with its original art – sold in January 2015 for $10 million (£8.1m).

The Norman Rockwell painting hidden behind a wall

Curators at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, had always been suspicious of their copy of his painting, Breaking Home Ties. The artwork, lent to them by owner Don Trachte’s children, seemed different to the original. But it wasn’t until the Trachte brothers found a hole in the wood panelling of their father’s former home that the real painting was discovered.

When Don and his wife Elizabeth decided to divorce, Don hid the painting in the panelling of his home to ensure he got to keep it. The picture the museum had was simply a copy. Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4 million in 2006, equivalent to $23.5 million (£18.6m) in today's money. When Elizabeth found out what Don had done, she simply replied, “Doesn’t surprise me.”

The exquisite Ming vases used as umbrella stands

Exceedingly valuable Ming vases masquerading as ordinary umbrella stands seem to be a thing. In 2010, a retired couple from Dorset, England, took their battered umbrella stand into Duke's auction house for valuation. It was revealed to be an 18th-century Ming vase worth £765,000 ($942k).

Unbelievably, it wasn't the only Ming vase that had lived a second life as an umbrella stand discovered that year. During a house clearance in London, an umbrella holder was found to be a Ming vase from the Qianlong period. The historically significant item realised a record auction price of £43 million ($53m). Christie's London reported a similarly spectacular find in 2016. A valuer appraising objects in a client's home stumbled upon an 18th-century Dragon vase that was also being used to store umbrellas. The treasure went on to sell for $20 million (£16.2m) at auction in Hong Kong. 

A lost Botticelli found in an Italian home

This painting of the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ by the 15th-century master Sandro Botticelli was recorded as missing back in the 1980s. The work had hung in a Neapolitan church for around 80 years before it was entrusted to a local family for safekeeping. Authorities regularly checked in to assess its condition, but at some point, these checks stopped – and an apparent administrative error meant the painting was listed as 'lost' in the culture ministry's inventory.

"The last time the authorities had inspected the private residence where the Botticelli painting was kept was over 50 years ago. Since then, inexplicably, the painting had been forgotten," said Commander Massimiliano Croce, who assisted with the recovery. In 2023, the painting was found in a poor state, having been passed down from generation to generation. It's thought the artwork will take at least a year to restore, after which it will be displayed in one of Naples' national museums. The rediscovered masterpiece has been valued at a cool €100 million ($108m/£86m).

Now take a look at some ancient marvels hiding in plain sight

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