Amazing! Man pays $35 for blue-and-white porcelain bowl, auction doubles 20,000 times

A celadon bowl purchased by a Connecticut man for $35 ended up selling at Sotheby’s for a sky-high price of about $720,000.

A man in the United States bought a blue and white porcelain bowl at a yard sale for $35 that turned out to be a 15th century Ming Dynasty antique and ended up selling it at Sotheby’s for a whopping $720,000, a price increase of about 20,000 times.

According to the Associated Press, the man bought the 6-inch diameter (about 15 centimeters) blue and white porcelain bowl at a yard sale in the New Haven, Connecticut, area last year.

The appearance of this celadon bowl like a chicken heart or lotus seeds. The bottom of the bowl is decorated with a green and blue circle and four leaves surrounded by flowers. The outside of the bowl is painted with lotus, peony, chrysanthemum and pomegranate flowers.

The man sent a photograph and information about the bowl to Sotheby’s, asking the company to identify and value it. The company estimated the price of the artwork at between $300,000 and $500,000.

However, at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on March 17, the bowl was sold for $721,800, exceeding the firm’s original estimate.

Angela McAteer, head of Sotheby’s Chinese art department, said the blue and white porcelain bowl dates back to the 1400s, during the reign of Ming Emperor Zhu Di.

McAteer noted that the blue and white porcelain bowl is “extremely smooth and glazed like silk” and was made in such a way that it could not be successfully copied by future dynasties or artisans.

McAteer told the Associated Press that it was astonishing that such a treasure had come from nowhere. She doesn’t know how it ended up on a Connecticut yard sale, and it’s possible it was handed down from generation to generation by the same Family, but they don’t know its value.

McAteer added that only six other known blue and white porcelain bowls are known to be preserved worldwide, most of which are in museums, including the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, the British Museum in England, and the National Museum of Iran (National Museum of Iran).