Photo: Dukes Auctioneers
John Webber's grandfather gave him this golden cup to play with when he was just a child back in 1945. When John was moving house last year, he discovered it in a shoebox under his bed and on a whim decided to get it valued. And a good thing that he did, because it turned out to be a rare piece of ancient Persian treasure worth a million bucks!
Webber, 70, told The Guardian newspaper that his grandfather had a "good eye" for antiques and picked up "all sorts" as he plied his trade in the town of Taunton in south-west England.
"Heaven knows where he got this, he never said," he added, revealing that as a child, he used the cup for target practice with his air gun.
Link - via Boing Boing
He could be trying to establish a fake provenance for this item, which happens with many recent illegally-excavated artworks.
For example, if you see a Greek vase in a museum with "provenance unknown", 99% it was excavated illegally sometime after 1970.
The Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Getty Museum in California have quite a few of these.
woooow.
I'm confused as to why the grandfather gave it to John as a toy though, even if he didn't know what it was really worth :P I mean... a cup? What could you possibly do with a cup?
:D