The most expensive “garbage”: valuable things that ended up in a landfill due to someone’s stupidity (6 photos)

Many people throw old and unnecessary things into the trash, without thinking about what value they may sometimes represent. Of course, there are also simple mistakes. However, it is worth remembering the saying that goes something like this: “What is one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” And these stories are proof of that.





One American, whose name is unknown, planned to buy a violin as a gift for his wife, however, to his surprise, he found what he wanted in the trash. The man took the working musical instrument to an antique exhibition, where he planned to find out its value for further possible exchange.

True, he abandoned this idea after learning that a violin made by the Italian master Giuseppe Pedrazzini in 1922 fell into his hands. This instrument was valued at approximately 50 thousand dollars. It is still unknown who threw away the real work of art.



Just like the identity of the woman from California who decided to throw away the Apple I computer, of which only 200 were manufactured in 1976, is unknown. But apparently she didn’t see any value in it, since she brought it to the Recycling Center in April.





The find was also appreciated there, because the cost of a rare computer today is 200 thousand dollars. However, according to the law, the mysterious woman is now required to pay 50% of the profits.

Nigel Reynolds deserves to be on the list of losers, because he sent the first edition of the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” to the trash, the price of which at auction reached an outrageous 471 thousand dollars. By the way, this is a record price for commercial publications of the 20th century.



How did this happen? One day he was lucky enough to interview Rowling, who gave him the book as a thank you. True, then this work was not such a hit. The most interesting thing is that he didn’t even read it, simply declaring that the novel was not worthy of attention. Ironically, a year later Reynolds was already queuing up to purchase the next edition, signed by the writer, for his son.

But Elizabeth Gibson can rightly be called lucky, because she was lucky enough to find a painting worth $1 million in a trash can in 2003. While out for coffee, she discovered a colorful canvas left between bags of trash. Despite the fact that there was nowhere to hang it, the girl took the painting home.



She probably would not have known what fell into her hands if she had not watched the BBC program Antiques Roadshow two years after the discovery of the painting. It was there that they said that this was the creation of the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, painted in 1970 and disappeared in 1987. Who would have thought that the place where he was found would be a garbage dump somewhere in New York.

The undisputed loser can rightfully be called the British James Howells. In 2009, an IT engineer began mining, which brought him 7.5 thousand bitcoins. True, at that time cryptocurrency was clearly not a priority, which is why in 2013 the man calmly threw the hard drive in the trash.



Imagine his surprise when he saw the growth of Bitcoin. Even now, Howells is confident that he can return the disk, but Newport authorities do not allow a search of the landfill, where $280 million now rests.

Have you ever encountered random valuable finds in your life? Or perhaps there were times when you threw something away and then really regretted it?