Man Buys ‘Timepiece’ At Flea Market, Learns It’s Far More Valuable Than He Thought

Was it impulsive? Perhaps. Something about the metal piece just stuck out to the wannabe tycoon. But after trying to sell the trinket to scrap metal dealers, his enthusiasm turned to panic. He may have overestimated the egg’s value.

Feeling like he ate nearly 14 grand, the man went to the one place that could maybe tell him more about the flea market find: the internet. He was desperate to find any information indicating the tchotchke was worth anything.

Rushing to Google, he typed “egg” plus the name engraved on the clock, “Vacheron Constantin,” into the search bar. The search took him to a 2011 article by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

According to the article, there was a “frantic search” for the golden relic, which turned out to be the Third Imperial Easter Egg, made by the renowned House of Fabergé for the Russian royal family. You can imagine the entrepreneur’s feelings of shock and joy.

Soon, he started imagining the new price tag. Now $13,302 sounded like a steal! Practically jumping for joy, the man contacted Fabergé expert Kieran McCarthy, then hopping on a plane to London to meet with him in person.

He visited Kieran McCarthy’s workplace, Wartski jewelers, in the upscale English district of Mayfair. “A gentleman had walked in wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and trainers. His mouth was just dry with fear,” Kieran told CNN.

“He handed me a portfolio of photographs, and there was the egg, the Holy Grail of art and antiques,” he continued. Kieran was stunned. Though he hadn’t gotten to see the Fabergé artifact during that visit, he knew it was the real deal.

This time it was Kieran who would take a journey, trekking it to the American Midwest to see the golden beauty in person. “It’s almost an affirmation of his existence that this happened to him,” Kieran said of the finder.

The man’s miraculous 3.2-inch find sat on an elaborate gold stand with tiny lion paw feet. It boasted three sapphires and a diamond. Upon opening the egg, a Vacheron Constantin watch hidden inside was revealed. She was a real beaut.

When Kieran could observe and handle the egg up close, he noted that the egg finder did, in fact, overestimate the physical value of the piece, but underestimated its value as a work of art.

“He didn’t look upon a work of art at all. He saw that it was pretty and it was nice, but he was buying on intrinsic value. He bought and sold […] This was quite a considerable outlay for him,” Kieran explained.

“The essence of Fabergé’s work is craftsmanship. It’s the beauty of design and the conceiving of that object,” he continued. Apparently, in pre-revolutionary Russia, the tsar and tsarina had everything they wanted and more, making it difficult to impress them with anything of physical value.

“Their daily lives were lived at such a height of luxury that you couldn’t really excite them with anything of intrinsic value. It was always about the craftsmanship. This is what that object is about, this craftsmanship and demonstration of skill,” Kieran detailed. Yes, basic diamonds and jewels were a bore.

Kieran explained that when people imagine the iconic Fabergé eggs, they picture them larger than life, as if they were “the size of the Empire State Building, with diamonds the size of footballs.” People often forget their value in terms of art collecting.

Fabergé’s egg creations were meant to be little celebrations of Easter, as well as love tokens. Right up until the 1916 overthrow of the tsar, the Fabergé jewelry workshop made a total of 50 eggs for the Russian Royal Family. According to Fabergé “the only prerequisite being that they contained a surprise.”

The man’s flea market egg is thought to be Tsar Alexander III’s 1887 Easter gift to his wife, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. Exactly 42 of the 50 have known locations, in private collections and museums, and the 43rd has finally been found.

It’s thought that there are two more original Fabergé eggs lurking somewhere around the globe, and that the other five were likely destroyed, as there was no mentioning or evidence of them existing succeeding the revolution.