All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E20.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can
be buried anywhere:

under the Earth,

[volcano booms]

beneath the sea,

[plane whooshes]

or even right
under our own feet.

[coins jingle]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes, what we find
can change history.

[mysterious music]

Tonight,

a look back at some of the
most valuable discoveries

we've ever featured,

from a lost royal masterpiece...

- These things sell for
millions of dollars,

but there are eight of
them that are missing.

- When he looks at this
photograph of this

lost golden egg,

it seems like a dead ringer

for what's in his
kitchen cabinet.

- [Danny] ...to a
super secret stash...

- In David's hands is the
Holy Grail of comic books.

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

- [Danny] ...to an astonishing
national treasure.

- There's something wedged

between the painting
and the wood backing.

He takes it to Sotheby's
to have it examined,

and their experts
know immediately,

he's found something special.

- Join us now, because
nothing stays hidden forever.

[tense music]

Antiques, old clothes,
dusty heirlooms,

that's all one woman
thought she'd find

while cleaning out
her dad's house.

But what she uncovered

turned out to be worth far
more than just memories.

[tense music]

- It's 2004 in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana,

and Susan Hendry-Chiro is
going through the belongings

of her late father,
Basil Hendry Sr.

They're going through
antiques and old clothing

and some religious artwork
that he had collected.

- Susan keeps a few paintings
that have sentimental value

and then assigns
the rest to a pile

that she's willing to sell,

including a dark, old, gloomy
painting of Jesus Christ.

- So a year passes,

and Susan finally gets around

to having these
paintings appraised.

The appraiser isn't really
blown away by any of them,

but he thinks that
that one of Jesus

could maybe get $750
from the right collector.

- [Danny] But when the painting
hits the auction floor,

something happens
that shocks everyone.

- The bidding starts low,

but several paddles go up,
blasting past the $750 mark.

- [Adam] They start going
above $2,000, $3,000,

and eventually,
this painting sells

for roughly $10,000.

- [Danny] Susan
pockets the money

and doesn't really
think much more about it

until a few years later

when her phone starts
ringing off the hook.

- Out of nowhere, members of
the media begin calling Susan,

asking her about
this Jesus painting

that she sold at auction.

They asked, "Where
did you find it?"

"Where did it come from?"

And most importantly, "Did
she know what she had?"

- [Danny] To most, it looked
like just another old painting.

But as the new owners embark
on a skilled restoration,

a very different
story comes to light.

- [Austin] As they clean it up

and remove the dark layers
of paint on the surface,

a new, different image
starts to be revealed.

- [Geoffrey] The group
takes infrared photographs

to get a better look at this
image that's peeking through.

They see what's
called a pentimento,

which is basically a
tracing of an earlier piece.

- [Kavitha] There's a version
underneath the painting

where Jesus' thumb is straight

instead of in a curved position.

- [Danny] Based on this,
the new owners believe

they've uncovered a lost work

from one of the most
famous artists of all time:

Leonardo da Vinci.

- [Kavitha] As it's
carefully restored,

the piece becomes
easily recognizable

as a missing da Vinci
known as "Salvator Mundi,"

which translates to the
"Savior of the World."

- [Danny] The revelation
sparks a flurry of headlines.

How did such an
important work of art

end up in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana?

- [Austin] Susan believes that
her father acquired the painting

from her Aunt Millie,

but no one ever mentioned

that this painting was
anything overtly special.

- [Danny] With little to go on,

experts dig deeper to
better connect the dots.

- [Kavitha] Researchers
track down records

from a Sotheby's auction in 1958

featuring the estate
of James Cook,

the grandson of famous
British art collector,

Sir Francis Cook.

- Sure enough, there's
a record of Aunt Millie

buying this painting
for 45 pounds,

roughly 120 bucks.

- [Danny] Once it's
fully restored,

the "Salvator Mundi" goes
back up for auction in 2017.

- Sold!
[crowd cheers]

- This time, a member of
the Saudi Royal family

buys it at auction

for $450 million,

making this once
discarded painting

the most valuable piece
of art in world history.

- [Kavitha] You'd think
if you were spending

almost a half a billion
dollars on a painting,

you'd wanna show it off,

but nobody's seen
it since the sale.

- [Adam] The rumor is that it
is in a high-security vault

somewhere in Switzerland.

And with the history
of the "Salvator Mundi"

of appearing and disappearing,

we may never see it again.

Or maybe we will.

- Some treasures hang on
the wall in plain sight.

Others turn up in the
backyard, buried in dirt,

like this next story.

[tense music]

- In 1940, the Jones family
of Peterstown, West Virginia

is internationally famous.

- Grover and Grace Jones
are the equivalent

to modern-day celebrities,

and that's because
they have 15 children.

But here's the kicker,
all of them are boys.

- [Andrew] According to
Ripley's Believe it or Not,

this is a world record.

- [Danny] But incredibly,

this won't be the
family's biggest moment.

That starts a decade earlier

when Grover finds
something unusual.

- Back in 1928, Grover
is playing horseshoes

with his eldest son,
whom they call "Punch."

During the game, one of Punch's
tosses goes way off course,

and so Punch goes off to
find the lost horseshoe.

- And he notices a
cool-looking rock

sticking out of the ground.

- [Andrew] To Punch
and his father,

this looks like a
interesting piece of quartz,

which is common in that
area of West Virginia.

So they put it in a cigar box,

put it on the shelf
in the family shed,

and forget about it.

- [Danny] 14 years later,

Punch develops an
interest in rocks

and remembers the piece of
quartz he found with his dad.

- Punch reaches out to a geology
professor named Roy Holden

at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute.

- [Sami] So Holden pulls
out his magnification loop,

and when he gets a closer look,

he's stunned at what he finds.

This rock is not a
piece of quartz;

it's an actual diamond.

- [Danny] More specifically,

it's a 34-carat
alluvial diamond,

and it's the largest ever
discovered in the United States.

- Alluvial diamond is the
term we use for diamonds

that have been dislodged
from their point of origin.

Erosion over millions of
years washes them away

and then they settle
in riverbanks

or on the ocean floor.

- [Danny] But alluvial
diamonds this size

are found almost
exclusively in Africa.

So, how did it find its way
to a West Virginia backyard?

- Back in the 1920s, a
circus comes to Peterstown.

And along with the bearded lady

and the carnival barker,
was an African elephant.

- Perhaps the diamond was
embedded in the elephant's foot

back in Africa,

then dislodged later in the US,

where it eventually winds up
in Punch and Grover's backyard.

- [Sami] Bottom line, it's
as good a guess as any,

because even Holden,
the geologist,

can't seem to figure
out this mystery.

But regardless of that, it's
an incredibly lucky find.

- [Danny] Lucky or
not, a rock like that

isn't gonna stay
secret for long.

Word gets out, and soon,
buyers are lining up.

- [Andrew] The diamond sells
for just over $200,000

in today's currency.

It's purchased by an
anonymous Asian buyer.

- [Don] There's not
much known about 'em,

and for the last four decades,

the Punch diamond has gone
completely underground.

- Nobody knows where it is,
nobody knows who has it,

and nobody knows if
we'll ever see it again.

- What begins as a casual
stroll through a local swap meet

turns into the discovery of
a lifetime for one lucky man.

[tense music]

- [Don] In 2004, a Midwestern
scrap metal dealer

is at his local flea market,

hoping to find some
undervalued materials to flip

and make a few bucks.

- In one stall,

he finds a 3-inch tall
ornamented oval piece

that has a clock embedded on it,

and it sits on a small stand.

- He can tell that the
item's made of real gold,

so he estimates the weight
and decides to take a gamble.

He pays 13,000 for it.

That's a lot of money for him,

but he decides to
take the chance.

Maybe he could sell it and make
a few hundred bucks profit.

- [Danny] Back home, the man
weighs the egg-shaped find

and realizes he's overestimated
the amount of gold.

Unwilling to take the loss,

he puts it in his
kitchen cupboard,

and it sits there
for nearly a decade.

- [Don] In 2012, he's
cleaning out his kitchen

and comes across
the gold ornament.

He thinks, "Okay, it's time
to get rid of this thing,

once and for all."

- [John] So he decides
to do a little research,

and he enters the word
"egg" into a search engine,

along with a name that he found

on the clock inside the
ornament, Vacheron Constantin.

When the results come back,
he can't believe his eyes.

- [Martin] One of the
first results that he gets

is an article in Britain's
"Daily Telegraph"

that questions,

"Is This £20 Million Nest
Egg on Your Mantelpiece?"

- [Don] It seems crazy,
but when he looks

at this old
black-and-white photograph

of this lost golden egg,

it seems like a dead ringer

for what's in his
kitchen cabinet.

- [Danny] The
resemblance is uncanny,

but could his flea market find
really be a rare Faberge egg?

- Faberge is one of
the finest makers

of jewelry in the world,

but what they're most famous
for is a series of jeweled eggs

that were made in the
late 1800s and early 1900s

for members of the
Russian Imperial family.

- [Don] Each one was a unique,
beautiful work of art

that took Faberge's jewelers
over a year to make.

Only 69 of them were ever made.

The most famous
were a group of 50

known as the
Imperial Easter eggs

that were made for
the Russian czars

to be given as Easter gifts

to their mothers and wives.

- [John] These things sell
for millions of dollars.

They're certainly
not the kind of thing

you'd expect to find
at a flea market.

Most of them have
been accounted for,

but there are eight of
them that are missing,

and that makes them
even more valuable.

- [Danny] Eager to find
out if this is, in fact,

one of the missing
Imperial Easter eggs,

the scrap metal
dealer flies to London

to meet with expert
Kieran McCarthy.

- [Martin] As soon as this
American pulls out his artifact,

McCarthy's jaw hits the floor.

This is an actual lost
Imperial Easter egg

from Czar Alexander III.

- [Danny] So, how could
such a priceless treasure

end up at a Midwestern
flea market?

- [Martin] Initially, the egg
belonged to the Romanov dynasty

before it was overthrown
by the communists

in the October 1917 Revolution.

[explosion booms]

- Most experts believe
that the egg was stolen

sometime after the revolution

and fell into the hands
of some western collector.

But after that, the
story gets really cloudy.

- [Danny] Then, in 2011,
the egg resurfaces.

- A Faberge researcher
found a photo of the egg,

which, in 1964, in New York,

was sold at an auction
for the Rena Clark estate.

It went for $2,450.

Not much is known about Clark,

and there's no information
on whoever bought the egg.

- We do know that the
egg was only described

as "gold watch in
egg-form case."

It's likely the
person who bought this

had no idea about the
artifact's actual value.

So when that person passed away,

it went into a donation pile.

- [Danny] From there, the egg
slips through unknown hands

until it turns up
at that flea market.

When it's finally put
up for sale in 2014,

it's bought by a private dealer.

- [Don] While we don't
know the exact amount

our scrap metal dealer
got for his egg,

insiders believe that this
$13,000 flea market find

could've sold for as
much as $33 million,

which would make it
the most expensive

Faberge egg ever sold.

- That royal egg shows us
how far treasures can travel.

Our next find proves
sometimes, a big payday

can be hiding much
closer to home.

[tense music]

- [Sami] 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.

[jack hammer whirs]

- [Kavitha] He begins demo
on the investment property,

but he soon notices something
strange within the walls.

- [Steve] 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.

- [Sami] Now, for David, this is
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.

- [Austin] 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.

- [Danny] David leaves
the newspapers in a pile

and jumps online.

What he finds nearly
knocks him off his feet.

- [Sami] In David's hands
is "Action Comics #1."

This is the Holy
Grail of comic books.

- [Steve] This comic isn't just
the origin story of Superman,

it's like the big bang for the
modern-day superhero genre,

- [Danny] But before
it kickstarted

a billion-dollar
superhero empire,

"Action Comics #1"

was just another novelty
on the newsstand.

- Back in 1938 when "Action
Comics #1" was released,

it was selling for
about 10 cents a copy,

which in today's money
is around two bucks.

- [Austin] 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.

- [Kavitha] 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.

- [Sami] 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.

- [Austin] 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 #1"

and starts waving it around.

David attempts to grab it back.

- [Danny] In the chaos of the
moment, the back cover rips.

- [Sami] 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.

- [Austin] 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.

- [Sami] So without that tear,

this copy of "Action
Comics #1" could've sold

for a quarter of a
million dollars.

Thanks, auntie.

- [Kavitha] 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've flipped.

- Most people come to
Yosemite for the trees,

but in the '70s,

some folks came looking
for greener treasure.

[tense music]

- [Adam] In the winter of 1977,

a man named Ron
Lykins and his friends

were all waiters at the
famous Ahwahnee Hotel

in Yosemite National Park.

They decide, on their day off,

that they are going
to go snowshoeing

into the frozen tundra of
the Yosemite backcountry.

- [John] About six
miles into their hike,

they spot something surprising.

It's a debris trail.

And then, suddenly, they
encounter an airplane wing

just sitting out
there in the snow.

They head back and report
it to the park rangers,

and before along, officials
from four government agencies

swarm to the area.

- [Adam] They follow
the debris trail

and eventually come to a twin
engine plane in a frozen lake.

- [Danny] Officials
fire up chainsaws

and start cutting
it out of the ice.

When they cut open
the cargo hold,

they see something incredible.

- They find marijuana,
literally tons of it.

They estimate there are 6,000
pounds of weed in the hold.

Authorities spend the
next week hauling

bundles of it out of
the Yosemite Valley.

- [Danny] Unfortunately,
their work is cut short

when a huge snow storm rolls in.

- A full wintertime
salvage operation

would be too hazardous,

so the feds have to press
pause on the entire operation

and wait for the spring.

- Before they leave
for the season,

they run the tail
number to ID the plane.

It belongs to a guy
named Jon Glisky,

who's been on the DEA's
radar for a while.

He's a former army
helicopter pilot in Vietnam,

and now a full-time smuggler.

- [Danny] Authorities
contact Glisky's wife,

and she shares what she knows.

- She confirms that
about a month earlier,

on the night before the crash,

he loads up three tons of weed

at a dusty airstrip in Baja

and, under the
cover of darkness,

flies it into the United States.

- [Danny] But the
run ends in disaster.

[alarm blares]

Glisky's plane goes
down in Yosemite,

[plane crashes]

leaving both men dead

and three tons of
marijuana entombed in ice.

- Some people overhear
off-duty DEA agents at a bar

talking about how they had to
leave this wreck until spring

with tons of drugs still inside.

- Among those who hear it
are three anonymous hikers

who race to the
scene days later.

When they reach the plane,

one of them sticks his arm
into a hole next to the cockpit

and pulls out a
plastic-wrapped bale.

- [Danny] Now word
spreads like wildfire,

and in the days that follow,

a stream of hikers brave the
elements to get to the goods

at what they're
calling Dope Lake.

- [Adam] Dozens and
dozens of hikers

make the 32-mile round trip.

Some of them carry out
200-pound loads of marijuana

worth about $50,000 at the time.

In just one week,

over a half a million dollars
of marijuana goes missing

at the hands of opportunistic
Yosemite hikers.

- [Danny] Rangers
launch a surprise raid

but only nab two hikers.

All of the true culprits
are never identified,

and the crime slowly
fades from memory.

- It's one of the
wildest forgotten stories

in American crime history.

But for a brief
window in the '70s,

Dope Lake turned Yosemite

into the most lucrative
hiking trail on the planet.

- 5,000 miles away, in the UK,

another machine hides a
hoard even more valuable.

[tense music]

- [Andrew] British
businessman Nick Mead

has an unusual enterprise,

a company called Tanks a Lot.

[metal squeaking]

- They purchase
decommissioned military tanks

from all over the world,

and they rent them out
for special events,

weddings, kids'
birthday parties.

And for $3,000,

he'll even give you a
guided tour around London.

- So it's fair to say
that Nick's a tank guy

and he's always on the
lookout for something new

to add to his fleet.

- [Alex] One day while
he's browsing online,

Nick comes across a real score.

It's an ex-Iraqi military
Type 69 main battle tank

that was used in the Gulf War.

- [Geoffrey] This is a
tank with a lot of power,

that has 100-millimeter main gun

and a 12.7-millimeter
machine gun.

And believe it or not,

Nick gets it for
less than the price

of a lot of new cars, $37,000.

- [Andrew] When the
Iraqi tank arrives,

Nick and his mechanic
dive right in.

And when they get
to the gas tank,

they find it's remarkably heavy.

- They're excited, but
also very cautious.

- If you can lift a bit...

- What's in there?
- What is it?

- What the--
- No.

- Inside the fuel tank,
there are five gold bars

with an estimated cash
value of $2.4 million.

- [Danny] Oil has been
called liquid gold,

but how did actual gold
end up in this tank?

- In August of 1990,
during the first Gulf War,

[explosions booming]

Iraqi troops storm into Kuwait

and loot almost
everything inside.

They steal the gold bath
fixtures from the Emir's palace.

They take computers,

they take rare antiquities
and Islamic art.

They even take animals
from the Royal Zoo.

[horns honk]
[people cheering]

- [Alex] But their
celebration is short-lived.

US forces intervene and liberate
Kuwait in February 1991.

And the return of the
looted merchandise

becomes a crucial part of
the peace negotiations.

- [Geoffrey] Six months after
the end of the conflict,

the Iraqis returned about
3,200 gold bars to Kuwait

under UN supervision,

and that gold was worth
a whopping $700 million.

- [Danny] But it seems not
everything is sent back.

- [Alex] The Iraqi
troops do their best

to hide their plunder,

and the gas tank of
an armored vehicle

seems as good as any
place to hide their loot.

- [Martin] Then, eventually,
the vehicle makes its way

to Great Britain,

where it's purchased
by a young mechanic

who puts new tracks on the
vehicle and repairs the engine,

but he never checks the gas
tank before selling it to Nick.

- To his credit, when he
discovers the gold bars,

Nick reports them
to the authorities.

British authorities show up,
they take the gold bars,

and they give Nick a receipt.

- [Martin] This is all
done with the explanation

that they're going to
find the rightful owner

and return the gold
bars to that owner,

but it's been over
seven years now,

and as far as Nick knows,

the gold bars have
not been returned

to their original owner.

- [Andrew] He even
tells reporters

that he regrets turning
the gold over to the cops

and feels that he should,
at the very least,

have got a finder's fee.

- At a flea market, one
man spends four bucks

on an old frame.

What he finds inside

is a priceless piece
of American history.

[tense music]

- [Martin] While browsing
at a local flea market

in Adamstown, Pennsylvania,

a man spots a dull and worn
painting of a country scene.

But he's not interested
in the painting;

he's interested in the
frame that's around it.

- It's gilded and
ornately carved,

and he wants it for a different
picture he already has.

So this guy plunks
down $4 and buys it.

- [Danny] The man takes it home

and begins to remove the
painting from the frame.

That's when he sees
something strange.

- [Alex] There's
something wedged

between the painting
and the wood backing.

It's about the size
of an envelope.

He unfolds it and he realizes

it's the Declaration
of Independence.

- [Don] He doesn't think
much of this at first.

I mean, it's the
Declaration of Independence,

and there are copies
of this everywhere,

but it looks like
a pretty old copy.

- [Danny] Curiously,
this copy contains

no signatures by the
Founding Fathers.

- [Martin] He has a friend
who's a bit of a history buff

who encourages him to
go and get it appraised,

just in the off chance

that this might be
something valuable.

- [Alex] He takes it to
Sotheby's to have it examined,

and their experts
know immediately,

he's found something special.

- [Danny] It's not just any copy

of the Declaration
of Independence,

it's a pristine first edition.

- When we think of the
Declaration of Independence,

we think of the signed
version of the document.

But that version
was actually signed

and completed on
August 2nd, 1776,

four weeks after

the original Declaration
of Independence was issued.

- [Don] You see, when
the Continental Congress

adopts the Declaration of
Independence on July 4th, 1776,

it has a Philadelphia
printer, John Dunlap,

print 200 copies that evening

to carry the news of
independence out to the people.

- Over the next few days,
they're distributed

to several colonial
assemblies and leaders,

including George Washington,

and they become known as
the Dunlap Broadsides.

- [Danny] But how did
this priceless document

end up behind a painting?

- [Alex] In 1776, the colonies
were still under British rule.

Having a copy of the
Declaration of Independence

in your back pocket
would lead to treason.

So some theorized that
the original owners

stashed it behind the frame
to hide it from the British.

- [Don] Most of the
Dunlap copies are owned

by institutions mostly in
America, a few in the UK,

but this is only the third
to be held in private hands.

So when it goes up for
auction at Sotheby's in 1991,

it sells for $2.4 million.

This is the highest
price ever paid

for a piece of
Americana at the time

and a heck of a return
on a $4 investment.

- This next valuable find

holds the words of
another American original.

[tense music]

- [Sami] In 1990, Barbara Testa
is going through some old boxes

and bags in her attic.

As she digs and rummages
through the clutter,

she comes across some
old family letters

and some of her grandmother's
handwritten poems

in an old steamer trunk.

- But then, Barbara pauses.

Tucked between the familiar
stories and memories are pages

in a handwriting she
doesn't recognize.

- [Sami] As she's
reading the pages,

they appear to be a
part of a manuscript,

and the words are becoming
more and more familiar.

"Right is right
and wrong is wrong,

and a body ain't got
no business doing wrong

when he ain't ignorant
and knows better."

- [Danny] Barbara's uncovered
a handwritten manuscript

of Mark Twain's masterpiece,

"The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn."

- [Hugo] Barbara reaches
out to Sotheby's,

who sends an armored truck to
her home to collect the book.

- Sotheby's works with a
Mark Twain papers project

at UC Berkeley.

They compare the handwriting,
style, and structure

to other, authenticated
Mark Twain manuscripts.

- [Danny] Sure enough, the
handwriting matches perfectly,

but there's a twist.

It's only half the book.

The rest is missing.

- Barbara tells the researchers
that her grandfather,

James Frasier Gluck,

was the curator of a library
in Buffalo, New York,

and the man was a
zealous collector.

- Researchers discover that
back in the mid-1880s,

Gluck had contacted
Samuel L. Clemens,

better known as Mark Twain,

requesting the manuscript
for his collection.

- Twain, who was a former
resident of Buffalo, New York,

agreed to send Gluck the
handwritten manuscript

of a "Huckleberry Finn,"

but he only finds the
second half of the book.

So that's what he
sends over to Gluck,

which remains in the
library to this day.

- And that's where the
story is thought to end.

But it turns out, in 1887,

unbeknownst to everybody,

Twain did find the first half,
and he sent it to Gluck,

except for some reason,

it never makes it into the
Buffalo Library's collection

to join the second
half of the book.

- Twain lovers are ecstatic,

and so are Barbara
and her sister,

who plan on auctioning it
off to make a pretty penny.

- [Danny] But before
the bidding even starts,

they get a notice from the
Buffalo Public Library,

claiming they own the rights

to Barbara's half
of the manuscript.

- [Hugo] While Barbara
wants to sell the book,

the library wants to keep it

with the other half
in their collection.

After some legal back and forth,

the two sides
finally reach a deal.

- [Sami] Barbara and her
sister get a finder's fee

of $1 million,

and the library promises

to put Twain's complete
manuscript on display,

just as her
grandfather intended.

So all in all, everybody ends
up getting what they want,

114 years later.

- Sometimes, the
most valuable finds

are the ones we overlook.

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

[tense music]

- March 1962,

56-year-old George Walton
is driving in heavy rain

in North Carolina,

[horn honks]
[tires screech]

when his car collides
head-on with another vehicle.

Tragically, he doesn't
survive the crash.

- [Steve] 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.

[coins jingling]

- 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.

- [Danny] It turns out
George's quiet hobby

is worth a fortune,

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

- [Adam] But not all
the coins are sold.

One of them is a
1913 Liberty nickel,

one of the rarest
coins in history.

- [Danny] 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.

- [Austin] Over the years, four
of them have been located,

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

- [Danny] The nickel
has all the markings

of a historic discovery,

until experts take
a closer look.

- [Austin] Unfortunately, the
coin is determined to be a fake.

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

and forget about it.

- [Danny] 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?

- [Adam] 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.

- [Austin] 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.

- [Danny] In 2013,

George's family puts the
Liberty nickel up for auction,

and it sells for $3.2 million.

- [Adam] 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 are hidden.

Sometimes, they stare
you right in the face

every night at dinner,

which is exactly what happened

to three brothers in 2015.

[tense music]

- The Landau brothers
hated the painting

that was in their dining
room in their childhood home.

They found it kind of creepy.

- [Andrew] It depicts an
unconscious young man

being tended to by two
people, one of whom

is trying to resuscitate the
youth with smelling salts.

- According to family lore,

the grandfather
bought the painting

before the Great Depression
at an estate sale

and handed it down from
generation to generation.

- [Andrew] In 2011, after
the brothers' parents die,

the painting ends
up in the basement,

where it's forgotten
for several years.

- [Danny] Then in 2015,

the brothers decide it's time
to clean out the basement.

And when they
rediscover the painting,

they reach out to a professional
appraiser, John Nye.

- [Andrew] Nye is not
impressed with the painting,

which he calls,
"remarkably unremarkable,"

but he thinks it might
be worth something.

- [Sami] So he goes,
"Okay, on a good day,

maybe we'll get 500 to $800."

So in 2015, Nye and company set
up the painting for auction.

- Now, the brothers
are not expecting

anything to come of this.

Their expectations
are, in fact, so low

that they don't
attend the auction.

- [Bryant] The auction
goes pretty much the way

Nye thought it would at first.

The bidding starts at $250,

then it goes to $500.

- [Danny] Then all
hell breaks loose.

- A French bidder
jumps in at $5,000.

Suddenly, we have
an international

bidding war on our hands.

8,000, 10,000.

- Now this painting is reaching
into six-figure region,

100,000, 200,000.

- [Andrew] The bids
continue to go up.

[gavel bangs]

- When the final gavel strikes,

a French dealer walks
away with this painting

for $1.1 million.

Needless to say, John Nye

is in complete shock.

- [Danny] It turns out, Nye
missed an important detail

on this work of art.

- In the upper right-hand
corner of the painting,

there appears to
be some writing,

but it's hard to make it out.

The dealers think the
writing is a monogram

that spells out RHF.

- [Sami] Rembrandt
Harmenszoon fecit,

which stands for "Rembrandt,
son of Harmen, made this."

- [Andrew] The French
dealer believes

that this is one of
Rembrandt's "Senses,"

a series that the artist
produced early in his career

when he was only 18 years old.

The five senses being a
popular theme at the time

for artists to depict,

this painting depicts
the sense of smell.

- [Bryant] The French
dealer gets the painting,

he has it authenticated,

and it turns out that it is
one of the missing Rembrandts.

- [Danny] That $1.1
million windfall

turns out to be nothing
compared to what happens next.

- The dealer now turns around

and sells it to Thomas Kaplan,

who is a collector of fine art

from the Dutch golden age.

And it's reported that Kaplan
buys it for around $4 million,

which is a profit of $3
million to the French dealer.

- For Kaplan, the
painting is invaluable.

He already has three

of the other Rembrandt
"Senses" paintings,

and the last one about
taste is still missing.

- [Andrew] So if you
have a creepy painting

hanging in your dining room

depicting a woman
tasting something,

might be worth having
that appraised.

[gavel bangs]

- A frame, a wall, a
backyard, or a flea market.

Keep your eyes open,

because sometimes,
valuable treasures

have a way of finding you.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching
Mysteries Unearthed.