Rare Treasure Bought for Scrap
Get downloadable PDF.
Get downloadable PowerPoint presentation.
What Happened:
Several years ago, an American scrap dealer bought what he thought was a piece of gaudy junk. It wasn’t worthless, he knew: It was dotted with diamonds and sapphires, and figured the gems alone made it worth the $14,000 purchase price. So he bought the thing, figuring he’d sell it again for a quick profit.
Whenever he showed the egg-shaped sculpture to other scrap dealers, they refused to cough up the cash. They told the new owner the thing wasn’t worth nearly that much. So the egg sat in the guy’s kitchen for years.
Then one day, the buyer noticed a name etched on the timepiece inside the egg—Vacheron Constantin. So he decided to Google him.
The search returned something totally unexpected: an article from London’s The Telegraph that featured a picture of his kitchen paperweight under the title, “Is This £20 Million Nest-Egg on Your Mantelpiece?” As it turns out, this diamond-studded piece of junk was actually a lost Fabregé egg.
In 1887, the Russian Tsar Alexander III gave this very egg to his wife for Easter. Fabregé made 50 such eggs for the royal family, and the 43 left are extraordinarily valuable (£20 million translates to about $33 million in American dollars). This particular egg was last seen in 1902, and most folks assumed it was either lost or destroyed during the Russian Revolution.
In March, the egg was sold to a private collector for an undisclosed amount of money. Kieran McCarthy of the antique firm Wartski likened the discovery to “being Indiana Jones and finding the Lost Ark.”
Talk About It:
It’d be nice to be told that something we own is worth a fortune. We might find a priceless coin in our pocket or an ancient relic in our closet. The truth is, we can be surprised by the value of something all the time. Maybe a book given to us at Christmas turns out to be a treasure trove of inspiration. Maybe a person at school you didn’t like very much at first becomes a valuable friend. The true worth of something is often hidden.
When was the last time you were surprised by how much you valued something? Did you discover hidden worth in something you owned, watched or read? When was the last time a person surprised you with saying something really worthwhile that you weren’t expecting?
Have you expressed gratitude to the people worth so much in your life? How can you best thank them?
It’s appropriate that this unassuming egg was once an Easter gift. In a way, we’re the Fabregé eggs of the Easter story—so valuable to be worth Jesus paying the ultimate price. Chemically, we’re practically worthless. The elements found in us are worth about $160. Yet, in God’s economy, each one of us is truly priceless—a work of awesome beauty inside and out.
Do you sometimes feel worthless? Are you able to articulate when and why? Do you ever see yourself the way God sees you? Can it be hard to feel priceless sometimes?
What the Bible Says:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (Ps. 139:13-15).
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt. 6:25-26).
Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.
