Antiques Facts

A family bought a small white bowl for $3 at a yard sale in upstate New York in 2007 and kept it on their living room shelf for six years. It turned out to be a 1,000-year-old Northern Song Dynasty "Ding" bowl - one of only two known to exist. It sold at Sotheby's for $2.2 million. The other one is in the British Museum.

Jessica Vincent paid $3.99 for a swirled glass vase at a Goodwill in Hanover County, Virginia. She recognized the "Venini" signature on the bottom and posted it to an Italian glass collecting Facebook group - experts identified it as a rare Carlo Scarpa Pennellate vase from 1942, one of only two known in that color. It sold at Wright auction in Chicago for $107,100.

Luigi Lo Rosso, a junk dealer from Capri, found a rolled-up canvas in a villa cellar in 1962 and hung it in his family’s living room. His wife called it “horrible.” Experts now believe it may be a genuine Picasso - a portrait of Dora Maar created between 1930 and 1936 - and have valued it at up to €6 million.