Weâve all heard the stories of people finding lost paintings by Van Gogh in their attic and turning that painting into $11 million dollars. Or someone discovering what they think was their great-great-grandmotherâs wedding dress in the back of a closet, only to learn it is an ancient Mongolian ceremonial robe that rightly belongs in a museum in Asia. We hear about these things, but they never happen to us. At least, to me. Last year, a Connecticut man paid $35 for a porcelain bowl at a yard sale and later learned it is a rare, 15th-century Chinese artifact worth up to half a million dollars.