All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E01.National.Treasures.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.H264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Mysteries can be
buried anywhere.

Under the earth,
beneath the sea,

or even right
under our own feet.

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

Tonight, lost national treasure.

From a grand slam
score at a garage sale-

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.

To an
American masterpiece

sealed behind a secret wall-

He's afraid of
losing the painting

in the settlement so he secretly

makes a copy.

Even the staff at
the Norman Rockwell Museum

thought they had the original.

To a discarded
piece of Hollywood history.

This thing is
incredibly detailed

and it doesn't really
seem like a

trash can at all.

It gets Todd thinking,

could this be a prop from the
actual, "Star Wars" movie?

Join us now, because
nothing stays hidden forever.

Everyone knows

flipping houses
comes with risks,

but for one man, a
routine renovation

leads to something unexpected,

a discovery that blows the
roof off his expectations.

In 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.

He's a house flipper,

and while the house has
good bones, that's about it.

He begins demo on
the investment property,

but he soon notices something
strange within the walls.

The house isn't
insulated like you would expect.

It's not foam or fiberglass.

There's a lot of crumpled
newspapers in between the studs.

Now for David, this s
just another day at the office

so 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.

He pulls it out from the
newspapers and realizes

it's a comic book, and on
the cover is none other

than the man of steel
himself, Superman.

The comic is
showing its age.

It's beat up on the
corners, it's yellowed,

but David immediately
notices something startling.

The date on the
cover, June, 1938,

the same year the
house was built.

David isn't a
comic book collector,

but he obviously
knows that Superman

is one of the most iconic
comic book heroes of all time.

So he figures a really
old Superman comic

has to be worth something.

David leaves
the newspapers in a pile

and jumps online.

What he finds nearly
knocks him off his feet.

In David's hands is,
"Action Comics" number one.

This is the holy
grail of comic books.

This comic isn't just
the origin story of Superman.

It's like the big bang for the
modern day superhero genre.

Without action one,
you don't get Batman,

you don't get Wonder Woman,
you don't get Spider-Man,

you don't get all of DC
comics, Marvel comics,

you don't get superhero
comics at all.

But before it
kick started a billion dollar

superhero empire, "Action
Comics" number one

was just another novelty
on the newsstand.

Back in 1938 when,
"Action Comics" number one

was released, it was selling
for about 10 cents a copy,

which in today's money's
around two bucks.

At the time, nobody
would've thought anything of its

worth beyond its inherent
entertainment value.

You read it, you enjoy
it, you throw it out,

or in this case, stuff it
inside the walls of a new house.

Around 200,000
copies were originally printed,

and today, only about 100
are believed to still exist.

So David could be
sitting on a gold mine

worth far more than
the house flip.

Needless to say,
the man is thrilled.

And so, he brings it home

and he wants to show
it off to his family,

and they're all just as excited.

They 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.

She grabs, "Action
Comics" number one

and starts waving it around.

David attempts to grab it back.

In the
chaos of the moment,

the back cover rips.

Damaged or not, this is
still one of the most sought

after comic books in the world,
so David puts it away

for safekeeping until he can
put it up for sale at auction.

Even in less than
perfect condition,

it sells for a
whopping $175,000.

But experts think that
the tear cost David

anywhere between 50 and $75,000.

So without that tear,

this copy of, "Action
Comics" number one

could have sold for a
quarter of a million dollars.

Thanks, auntie.

It 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.

All in all, it's
a much better return

than any house he
could have flipped.

Meanwhile, in
the heart of Iowa,

another sharp eyed citizen
makes a major league discovery

hiding in plain sight.

In 2013, Bruce
Kapaki visits a garage sale

in Des Moines, Iowa.

He's a history buff
and he likes to see

if there's anything
of historical value

that he can then resell
for pocket money.

He's not looking for
anything in particular,

but as he comes to the
table full of sports gear,

he spots something interesting.

It's an old beaten up
wooden baseball bat

tucked underneath a
few other metal ones.

The price tag for
this bat is a dollar.

Now, 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.

The grip of this bat
is very distinctive.

It has a thick handle and
base with a unique knob.

And that's
when it hits him.

He's seen a bat
like this before.

Bruce is a baseball
nut.

He 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.

Excitedly, he approaches
the woman running the sale,

Sue McKinney.

He asks for a pencil,
she hands one over

and Bruce gently rubs the pencil
over the barrel of the bat.

Suddenly, something
extraordinary happens.

As if by magic, a name slowly
appears, Jackie Robinson.

In the '40s and '50s, Jackie
Robinson played 10 seasons

in Major League baseball.

He was a Lifetime 313
hitter, a World series champion,

and now a hall of famer.

But today, he's much more known

for breaking all
kinds of barriers.

Jackie Robinson was
the first Black American

to play major league
baseball in the modern era,

so he changed not only baseball,
but the country forever.

Robinson's
legacy is legendary.

So how did his bat end up
at a Midwestern garage sale?

Turns out Sue's Uncle,
Joe Hatten, also known as Lefty

Joe pitched for the Brooklyn
Dodgers from '46 to '51.

When Bruce discovers
Jackie Robinson's name on the

bat, Sue starts to
connect the dots.

Her 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.

The two weren't just
teammates, they were friends.

They even roomed
together on the road,

something a lot of
Jackie's white teammates

wouldn't do at the time.

Sometime in
their playing days,

he must have been gifted
the Jackie Robinson bat

or traded for it, because
he ended up with it.

It seems crazy,
but Sue just assumed

that this was just one
of Uncle Joe's old bats.

She even let her kids
use it to hit balls

and rocks around when
they were younger.

Thankfully,
all that backyard batting

didn't take a hit on its value.

Sue gets the bat
appraised and the result is a

grand slam. In its current
condition, it's worth about

$20,000. But it could
be worth even more

if she has it
professionally restored.

Sue has no plans to
sell the bat saying,

"It's something that
belongs to our family."

It's incredible to
think how close she was

to parting with this
precious artifact.

But thanks only to the
kindness of a stranger

who was doing the right thing,

this American treasure
remains in her family's hands.

Sometimes the
most valuable finds

are the ones we overlook.

Take this next story about a
rare piece of American history.

March, 1962,
56-year-old George Walton

is driving in heavy
rain in North Carolina,

when his car collides head
on with another vehicle.

Tragically, he doesn't
survive the crash.

The police arrive
and it's a mess.

There's glass, there's metal,

there's just debris everywhere.

But there's something unusual
scattered around the highway.

Dozens upon dozens of coins,

but these aren't just
regular nickels and dimes.

The coins look old

and really unfamiliar to the
officers, so they pick them up

along with George's
other belongings.

George was a bachelor,

and so his estate gets
managed by his siblings

and ultimately,

his coins get sent to an
auction house to sell.

It turns
out George's quiet hobby

is worth a fortune,

and his collection sells
for a staggering $875,000.

But not all the
coins are sold.

One of them is a
1913 Liberty nickel,

one of the rarest
coins in history.

This 5
cent piece is engraved

with a likeness of Libertas,

also known as the
Goddess of Liberty,

whose image originates
from ancient Roman coins.

Liberty nickels
officially stopped being

released in 1912, but in 1913, a
mint employee named Samuel W.

Brown ended up secretly
striking five of these

to sell on the black market.

Over the years, four
of them have been located,

but the elusive fifth liberty
nickel has yet to be found.

The nickel
has all the markings

of a historic discovery until
experts take a closer look.

Unfortunately, the
coin is determined to be a fake.

George's siblings take the
forgery, put it in a closet

and forget about it.

Dismissed
and forgotten,

the nickel stays
buried for decades

until a 2003 coin
convention in Baltimore

puts it back in the spotlight.

The main attraction is
that this coin convention

is featuring the
1913 Liberty nickel.

The organizers of the
show put out a call to the

public hoping that someone might
come forward with the final

coin, and that's when George's
family starts to wonder.

Should they give the
fake coin one last look?

So 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.

And it turns out the so-called
fake is actually real,

and one of the most sought
after coins in history.

In the 1940s, George
purchased the coin for $3,750.

He held onto it for years,

and in 1962, he packed it
up alongside his collection

and drove them to
a coin convention.

Sadly, he never made it,
dying in that fatal car crash.

In
2013, George's family

puts the Liberty
nickel up for auction

and it sells for $3.2 million.

All told, George's
collection brings in over $4

million. A nickel that everyone
thought was worthless

turns out to be priceless.

So as they say, don't
take any wooden nickels,

but buy all the
rare ones you can.

Not all treasures
shine.

Some are hiding
on a dusty shelf,

just waiting for the
right person to find them.

On February 19th, 1988,

a fisherman wanders into
a New Hampshire book barn.

It's basically an old rustic
shop full of used books.

Amid all the mundane
stacks of old and used whatever,

he finds a beaten up
old copy of, "Tamerlane

and other poems."

But strangely, the author
is not listed by name.

It says it was written
by a Bostonian.

It just so happens
that the fisherman had recently

read about, "Tamerlane,"

which happens to be one of Edgar
Allan Poe's earliest works.

So he figures for 15 bucks,

he might as well own
this 40 page poem.

Back 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?

There can't be two 40 page
epic poems called, "Tamerlane."

So he starts doing a
little bit of digging.

When 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.

He 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.

By 1988, there are
only 11 known copies to exist.

Later 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."

Could
it be possible

this is one of those
rare first editions?

The fisherman
doesn't know for sure,

but the book looks old

and his research has
been exciting him.

So he calls the
Sotheby's Boston office.

Their response is immediate.

They dispatch an
armored car to his house

and take the book to their
New York City headquarters.

The Sotheby's experts
meticulously compare his version

with the other 11
known versions.

They check the paper
quality, the topography,

even the binding,

and when they're done,
the verdict is clear.

This is the genuine real deal,

authentic rare first
edition of, "Tamerlane."

This is massive.

We 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.

So the fisherman
decides to put his 150-year-old

copy of, "Tamerlane"
up for auction,

and that fisherman's little old
$15 book sells for $198,000.

Now that is a really good catch.

Imagine you're
cleaning out your father's

estate with your brother,
sorting through years of

memories, then hidden among it
all, you find something

that doesn't belong here,

something that should be
hanging on a museum wall.

In 2006, Dave and Don
Trachte

are sorting through some things
in their late father's home.

Their father, Donald Trachte
Sr. was a well-known cartoonist

and they're just going
through his estate

to see what they want to keep
and what they wanna sell.

They've been
through these rooms hundreds of

times, but as they're talking
about their dad's life

and reminiscing, something
odd catches their eye.

It's a bookcase tht
their father built himself,

but it looks a little off.

The brothers notice a gap
in the wood paneled wall

behind it, and when
they press into it,

the wall slides open.

Behind the false wall,
they find paintings.

And not just any paintings,
these are by artists

that were very prominent
in publications like,

"The Saturday Evening Post."

You're talking about
artists like Mead Schaeffer,

George Hughes, Gene Pelham,

and while those paintings
are interesting,

there's one piece in particular

that stops the brothers cold.

It's, "Breaking
Home Ties" by Norman Rockwell,

one of America's
most renowned artists

from the middle of
the 20th century.

The brothers are
confused,

they're very familiar
with the painting,

and they know that
it's supposed to be

at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

And that's because
back in the 1970s,

their dad donated it to them

and it's been on
display ever since.

To
solve the mystery,

the brothers turn to experts
and what they uncover

raises more questions
than answers.

After testing and
brushstroke analysis,

it's determined
that the painting

in their father's secret
room is authentic.

The brothers are
stunned.

They work with investigators

to try to put the
pieces together,

and soon a picture
starts to emerge.

Back in the
1950s, their father,

a cartoonist that was known
for his comic strip, "Henry"

lived in Arlington, Vermont.

And his neighbor was none other

than renowned Americana
artist, Norman Rockwell.

The two men became
friends and at one point,

Trachte bought, "Breaking Home
Ties from Rockwell for $900.

It then hung proudly in
the family home for years,

alongside other works the
cartoonist had collected.

But in 1973,
Trachte and his wife

go through a
contentious divorce,

and he's afraid of losing the
painting in the settlement.

So as a talented artist
in his own right,

he secretly makes a
copy, a near perfect one.

Even though Trachte
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.

So 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.

His copy was so
good

that even the staff at
the Norman Rockwell museum

thought they had the original.

That is until the
Trachte brothers

discovered that hidden
space up in Vermont.

In late 2006,
the Trachte family

decides to sell the
original painting,

and it nets an amazing
sum of $15.4 million.

It's certainly an
American story,

just not the type
that Rockwell painted.

Next, another work of
art

uncovered in an even more
unlikely place, church.

In the fall of 2022, a
carpenter named Paul Brown

is walking through an old
church in West Philadelphia.

It's being renovated
by new owners

and they're gutting the place,

getting rid of many of the
building's old fixtures.

Brown's attention
is immediately drawn

to two large stained
glass windows.

They're covered in grime
and encased in the wall,

but even under all that dirt,

there's something about
them that speaks to him.

The 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.

Back 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.

They tell him he
didn't just buy some pretty

windows. He now
owns custom pieces,

handcrafted by
Tiffany and Company.

Founded in 1837 by
Charles Lewis Tiffany,

the company becomes an iconic
name in American luxury.

While Charles was known
for his glitzy jewelry,

his son Lewis Comfort Tiffany
developed a particular knack

for crafting stunning
stained glass lamps.

What's
not as well known

is that Tiffany also
crafted church windows

during America's gilded age.

In 1901, as
Philadelphia's St. Paul's

Presbyterian church was under
construction, they turned to

Tiffany to create two eight foot
rose shaped windows.

But over the ensuing
decades, the special origins

of these windows get
completely forgotten.

By 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.

But the Lord works
in mysterious ways.

After the Tiffany
attribution is confirmed,

Brown sells the windows
for over $250,000,

and he ends up donating
a portion of the proceeds

back to the very church that
almost threw the windows away.

For one woman, a
regular morning stroll with her

dog turns into something wild

when she picks up what
she thinks is trash.

In the summer of
2022, an account named Maria

Carrillo takes her daily break
to walk her dog.

She steps out the back
door of her Anaheim office

and into the alley behind.

Now, normally this
alley is sort of full of

squatters and she also uses te
opportunity while walking the

dogs to straighten up and take
care of any of the trash

that they might've left behind.

As she stops to
clean up after her dog,

she spots something
on the ground.

It's a crumpled
up McDonald's bag,

something that she's seen
a number of times before

and just thrown away.

She picks it up to
take it to the nearest trash

can, but she realizes
something's off,

this bag is much heavier
than it should be.

Curious, she
uncrumples the bag and looks

inside. This is no
leftover Big Mac,

there, beside some
ketchup packets

and leftover french fries
is something that's gold.

Maria pulls it
out and she reads it

and she can't believe her eyes.

Etched into the side, it says,
"Games of the 32nd Olympiad,

Tokyo 2020," a real deal,
authentic Olympic gold medal.

Maria calls her
husband

and asks what he
thinks they should do,

and they have a friend
who works for the Anaheim

Police Department, so they
decide they should call him.

It turns out,
this is the break Anaheim PD

has been waiting for
because four weeks earlier,

an Olympic gold medal
was reported stolen.

But the story of
how it got there

and who earned it is
even more surprising.

In the 2020 Tokyo
Olympics,

the US women's indoor volleyball
team took home the gold

for the first time in
the program's history.

It's an incredible achievement,

and Jordyn Poulter dubbed the
best setter of the tournament,

was a huge part of
the team's success.

When Jordan got home,
everyone wanted to see, and

touch, and hold an authentic
Olympic medal.

Could you blame 'em?

So she started toting
it around with her

to show off and
show her friends.

I mean, honestly,
who can fault her?

This is a generational
achievement,

the first women's volleyball
medal for the United States

and your part of that success?

But one day, she left
it in her car and forgot to lock

it, and someone stole all her
belongings from the console,

including the gold medal.

A few weeks later,

the perpetrator is
found and arrested,

but not with the medal.

Police believe that
he was attempting

to sell the gold medal at
a pawn shop down the street

from Maria's office, but
when he was turned away,

he abandoned it in the alley.

Thankfully, this
story has a happy ending.

For Jordyn and her
teammates, that medal is

priceless. She's so grateful
to have it back,

she actually gives Maria and
her husband a $1,000 reward.

And very wisely, she
says, from then on,

she's gonna keep
the medal at home.

2,000 miles away,
another golden discovery is made

at an equally odd place.

This time, buried in a field.

In early 2023,

a Kentucky farmer is finishing
up a hard day's work.

As he walks back to his truck,
he looks out across the dirt

as he's done countless
times before.

But this time, the setting
sun throws up a glint

of something in the ground.

He walks over and he
sees a small, round,

yellowish shape in the dirt.

He picks it up, wipes it off,

and he realizes it's
a gold half dollar.

The farmer
tosses the coin in his pocket

and keeps walking,

but that's when he sees another
glint coming from the dirt.

It's another gold
coin.

And then he keeps walking
and he finds another one,

and another one,
and another one.

There's a trail of shiny
little dots in the dirt.

This is the
most insane thing ever.

And look, I'm still
digging 'em out.

There's 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, six more coins.

After about 45 minutes,
he's found more than 700 coins

all dated from between
the 1840s and the 1860s.

He reaches out to a
coin dealer named Jeff Garrett.

Garrett is astonished.

Most of the coins
are $1 gold pieces

known as Indian
Princess Dollars.

But mixed in, are also 20
$10 Liberty Head Eagles

and eight $20 Liberty
Double Eagles.

The
Liberty Double Eagles

are especially unique.

Minted in 1863,
fewer than 150,000 double eagles

were ever created, and most
of them were never circulated

due to widespread hoarding.

So today, they're
exceptionally rare

and highly sought
after by collectors.

The
discovery becomes known

as The Great Kentucky Hoard.

But no one's sure
how it got here.

Some speculate that the
coins might have been hidden

by a landowner who
didn't trust the security

banks of the time could provide.

Remember that in the early
1860s, the Civil War is raging.

Kentucky declares
itself a neutral state,

but it's caught between
union and confederate forces.

Kentucky'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.

Others think that it
could have been raiders

themselves who
buried the treasure.

It could have even been the
infamous Confederate General,

John Hunt Morgan, notorious
for his violent raids

in Kentucky and other states.

Luckily, the coins now
belong

to the farmer who found them.

And it turns out,
these gold dollars

are worth more than
a pretty penny.

They have a face
value of $1,200,

but when he puts
them up for auction,

they net him over 3 million.

Now that's a remarkable find.

When most people
move into a new house,

they hope they don't find
the last owner's trash.

But what one Long Island
man finds is priceless.

It's 1994, and a
machinist named, Bruce Campbell

is cleaning out the basement
of a cabin on Long Island

that he's just purchased.

It's a mess filled with the
former owner's belongings.

As he's cleaning out
the basement, he comes across a

box that's filled
with what to him

first looked like
old home movies,

but on closer inspection,
these turn out to be Amertape.

This is a reel-to-reel
audio technology

used in the early 20th century.

With 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.

Bruce takes them over
and together they have a listen,

but the audio that
comes outta the speakers

is not what Campbell
was expecting.

The audio starts with
whizzing airplanes, yelling,

gunfire and the
occasional explosion.

Cutting through it
all is a steady voice

describing the horrific scenes

of a beach front
invasion and battle.

Bruce has stumbled
upon an original recording

of radio correspondent,
George Hicks's D-Day reporting

from the coast of Normandy.

On June 6th, 1944,
Hicks was aboard USS Ancon,

just off the coast of Normandy.

He speaks into a
primitive tape recorder

called, a record graph,

reporting on the D-Day
invasion as it happened.

Amid the chaos of
war, Hicks delivers a gripping

play by play in a
calm, clear voice.

His report was just 13
minutes and 29 seconds long.

But when the recording
hit the American airwaves

later that night,

it conveyed the intensity of the
fighting

to the American home front.

The press hailed it as the
greatest recording of the war.

It's been decades

since anyone has heard
these recordings.

So how did the originals
end up in the basement

of a cabin in Long Island?

Bruce does some
digging through property records

and discovers that
the former owner

was once an executive at
a record graph company.

That's the recording system

that the reporter Hicks
used on that fateful day.

The executive was
a bit of a collector,

and it turns out he'd been
using his cabin as storage

for old recordings

and relics from the
record graph industry.

When he passed away in 1992,

the collection just
remained in the basement

waiting for the
next owner to find.

In 2019, Bruce
donates the tapes

to the National D-Day
Memorial Foundation,

ensuring that the
sounds and voices

from one of the war's
most important battles

will continue to be heard
and never forgotten.

I guess one man's
trash is another man's treasure,

which is literally the
case in our next story.

In 1993, Todd Frankln
and a couple of his buddies

are walking through this
country western music venue

in Missouri.

The venue is closing down,
it's going out of business,

so everything inside
is up for sale.

Among the clutter,
Todd spots a trash can

that he just can't
take his eyes off.

It's overflowing with garbage,

but the bin itself looks
a lot like the Death Star.

Every, "Star Wars" fan
knows what the Death Star is,

the famous moon sized
planet killing weapon

that Luke Skywalker and
the other rebels blow up

at the end of, "Star Wars."

Todd is quite the sci-fi buff,

and while he is seen a lot
of, "Star Wars" merchandise

over the years,

he's never seen a Death
Star trash can before.

So he approaches the
owner and buys it.

When he gets it
home, he takes a closer look.

This thing is
incredibly detailed

and it doesn't really seem
like a trash can at all.

While it does have
a small opening,

the inside isn't
completely empty.

There is all these
metal cross beams

to keep it perfectly spherical.

So not only does this
make it a pretty ineffective

trashcan, but it
gets Todd thinking.

Could this be a prop from the
actual, "Star Wars" movie?

Todd reaches
out to the one place

that can tell him
for sure, Lucas Film

the producers of, "Star Wars."

When he finally
gets someone on the phone,

they tell him that the
props were stored offsite

in a warehouse, but after
production finished,

they didn't wanna continue
paying storage fees,

and so they had
everything thrown out.

Lucasfilm tells
him he must be in possession

of some sort of replica.

They don't think much of it,
so they're like, "Bye, Todd."

Regardless,
Todd hangs on

to the strange object
as a conversation piece.

A few years later,
Todd attends a lecture

by Mark Thorpe,

a model maker from
Industrial Light and Magic.

This is the company
George Lucas used

to make the props
and special effects

for the, "Star Wars" films.

After the lecture is
over, Todd approaches Mark

and tells him about
this Death Star model

that he has in his possession.

Now, Mark has
firsthand knowledge

of how the Death Star was built

and the details surrounding
this replica sound very similar.

Todd tells Mark that
Lucas Film insisted that

all the props were destroyed
at the end of production,

but Mark's not so
sure about that,

and he thinks the
Death Star trash can

might be the real deal.

Mark recalls that
there were these rumors

that there was an
employee at the Warehouse

who allegedly took the
Death Star model home.

Instead of destroying it, he
kept it for nearly a decade.

Then in the late 1980s,
he moved to Missouri

and stored the prop in
his mother's antique shop.

There, it stayed for years

until the owner of the
music venue bought it.

Fueled
with new information,

Todd decides to give
Lucas Film one more call.

This time, they
are shocked.

Now, even they believe

that Todd has the
actual Death Star model

from the original movie.

So Todd decides that
now would be the time

to sell his prized discovery.

Generously, he offers
Lucasfilm the first shot

at purchasing it from him.

They offer him a tour
of the Lucas Ranch

and an autographed
picture of George Lucas.

It's a cool offer to be sure,

especially if you're
a, "Star Wars" fan,

but Todd is convinced that
somebody is going to pay him

a whole lot of cash
for this model.

So he declines.

So eventually, in
1999, he sells the prop

to mega fan, super
collector, Gus Lopez.

While the details of the
sale are never released,

some estimate that the value
of the Death Star model

could be as high as
a million dollars.

But Gus doesn't
keep it for himself,

He loans it to the Museum
of Pop culture in Seattle.

So now, it can be enjoyed
by aspiring Jedi, Wookies,

and storm troopers for years

We've all walked
into a thrift store

not expecting to find much
more than a small bargain,

but one find turns
out to be a relic

tied to the birth of a nation.

In 2022, workers at a
Goodwill in Washington DC

do what they do day after day,

they sort through
incoming donations.

As the workers dig
through a bag of donated

clothes, they find a dusty old
torn up rag with red trim.

They're about to toss it.

When someone notices a piece
of paper attached to it,

they glance at it and see
a name, George Washington.

This gets their
attention and they look closer

and see it is a handwritten note

indicating that
this piece of fabric

is a fragment of a tent used
by the Revolutionary War hero

and first president
of the United States,

George Washington.

It seems
hard to believe,

but the workers save the
cloth from the trash heap.

They decide to
put it up for sale

on a Goodwill auction site

where people can bid on items
found in Goodwill stores

across the United States.

And that's where
it catches the eye

of an American history
buff named, Richard Moore.

He decides to take the gamble
and he buys it for $1,700.

But he's so uneasy about it

that he hides the
purchase from his wife.

The prospect of
owning a piece of a tent

used by George Washington
is very compelling,

but Moore is unsure
since a handwritten note

is not exactly rock solid
documentation that this is real.

Anxious
to figure out

if the fabric is the
real deal, Moore contacts

Philadelphia's Museum of
the American Revolution.

They tell Moore that
Washington used two main tents

during the war.

There was a large tent that
he used as both his office

and sleeping quarters, and
that's on display at the museum.

And then there was a
smaller dining tent,

which is currently stored at
the Smithsonian in Washington.

Moore sends this
piece of cloth

to the museum in
Philadelphia for analysis.

When it's compared to the
tent that's on display there,

it turns out it's not a match.

Holding onto hope, he sends
the cloth to the Smithsonian,

and when they compare it to
Washington's smaller tent,

it turns out to be
a perfect match.

Moore is thrilled,

but now that it's authenticated,

everyone still wants
to know how a piece

of George Washington's
dining tent

ends up in a Goodwill store.

After Washington's
death, the tent was passed down

to his family and they would
often display it publicly.

In 1907, the tent was
put on display in Norfolk,

Virginia to celebrate the
300th anniversary

of the founding of Jamestown.

It was there that
someone named John Burns

allegedly cut a six inch
piece of fabric from the tent

and attaches a note
explaining its origin.

Historians believe
that the piece of cloth

that Burns cut from
the tent is the same

as the one that Richard Moore
purchased from Goodwill.

But to this day,

nobody knows how it got
from Burns to Goodwill.

The value of the tent
piece has been estimated

to be in the tens of
thousands of dollars,

but for Moore it's a
piece of family history.

Moore could trace
his family tree

back to a revolutionary
war soldier

who served under
Washington at Valley Forge.

This means that the
fragment of cloth was part of a

tent that his ancestor may
have seen or even dined in

during the war that
won America's freedom.

A mysterious stash of
buried civil war coins,

a relic that belonged to our
country's first president,

and a hidden artistic
masterpiece worth a fortune.

These incredible finds

really are surprising
national treasures.

I'm Danny Trejo, thanks for
watching, "Mysteries Unearthed."