The following story is an absolute windfall for this unnamed retired Swedish lumberjack - perhaps he could rub some of his luck off this way!!?
The elderly man was downsizing to a new home, so after cleaning up an decluttering, he decided to send several boxes of unwanted items to a small auction house in Stockholm... one of the items was a painting, which had been left to him by his late wife. It had been hanging on his wall for almost 10 years, and he considered it worthless.
A note that accompanied the boxes of unwanted goods, stated, "Will you accept these things? Sell what you can and leave the rest to the Red Cross!"
The 'worthless' painting was then put up for auction on the internet - starting price around S$1,500-S$2,000, however the piece quickly well exceeded what was expected.
The owner of the Auction house then called in Uppsala Auction House, which has access to experts in Russian art.
Next thing you know, Mr Knut Knutson of the auction house, decided that he should visit the retired lumberjack in person to deliver the news that the 'worthless' painting had in fact, been authenticated as an original masterpiece from 1858, by Russian master Ivan Aivazovsky - entitled "The Battle of Bomarsund".Knutson, was interviewed by 'The Local'. He was reported as saying to the owner, "We are thinking of a starting price of five or six..." before he was interrupted with, "surely, you don't mean five or six hundred thousand (kronor) do you?"
Knutson proudly replied, "No, actually I mean five or six million..." - the moment of truth!
The painting finally sold Tuesday just gone by to a Russian collector, for a staggering 7.6 million kronor (almost SGD 1.5 Million)!
There you go - as the saying goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" - in this case, it was really, "one man's trash is the same man's treasure" - something that was almost given away to charity, created an instant millionaire!
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