7 Priceless Treasures From the East Hiding in Normal Homes (One Sold for $69 Million)

You almost donated it! That old vase gathering dust on a shelf. During a house clear out in London, someone found one exactly like it. And it sold for 69 million dollars. Sounds crazy, right? It's true. Today we're counting down 7 treasures from China and Japan hiding in ordinary homes right now. Worth way more than you'd ever guess. Drop your city below in the comments. I read every single one. And stick around, because the very last item on this list might be the biggest number you've ever heard for something sitting in someone's living room. Let's start at number 7. The Celadon pottery piece. The pale green, almost jade-colored pottery bowl or vase, usually mistaken for ordinary glazed ceramic. Most people see a plain green dish and assume it's decorative pottery from a home goods store decades ago. The glaze is the whole story here. Genuine Celadon gets its soft green color from iron in the glaze, fired in a very specific way, a technique perfected in China and Korea centuries ago, and never fully replicated by mass production. A common later Celadon piece is honestly modest, typically 40 to 150 dollars. But early, thinly potted pieces with a crackled glazed surface and no chips have sold for well over a thousand dollars at specialist Asian art auctions, and museum-quality early Korean Celadon has crossed into six figures in rare cases. Number 6 looks like ordinary painted porcelain until you flip it over. The ginger jar. The round-shouldered lidded jar, usually blue and white or covered in painted flowers, that ended up as a decorative catch-all on a shelf. Most people see a ginger jar and assume it's the same mass-produced decor piece sold in furniture stores everywhere. What separates a decor store ginger jar from a genuinely old one is the base. A rain mark painted or stamped on the underside, combined with a hand-painted rather than printed design, signals real age. A common decorative ginger jar sells for 25 to 60 dollars. Genuinely old, hand-painted examples with a period rain mark have sold for 300 to over a thousand dollars, and matched pairs in excellent condition have brought considerably more than double a single jar's value. Number 5 is small enough to slip into a coat pocket and easy to mistake for a paperweight. The jade carving. The smooth, cool stone carving. A small animal, a pendant, a scholar's object, sitting in a jewelry box or on a shelf. Most people can't tell real jade from dyed glass or a similar-looking stone, and that uncertainty is exactly why so many pieces get sold for pennies at estate sales. Color, translucency, and carving quality are what separate a tourist souvenir from a serious piece. Modest 20th century carvings sell for 20 to 100 dollars. Genuine, antique Chinese jade with fine, detailed carving and good provenance regularly sells for several thousand dollars. And the extraordinary cases are genuinely extraordinary. A jade water buffalo carving, inherited by a woman in England and stored untouched in a bank vault chest for decades after she assumed the box-held porcelain, sold at a London auction for 6.6 million dollars once she finally opened it. If you're finding real value in this list, hit subscribe now. I go through a new home and a new region every week, and you don't want to miss the one that matches something sitting on your own shelf. Most people see the busy decoration and assume it's a decorative reproduction, since so many later copies exist. Age and painting quality are everything in this category. Later, mass-produced Satsuma-style pieces from the 20th century are common and modest, typically 30 to 80 dollars. Genuine Meiji-period Satsuma from the late 1800s, with fine reticulated or pierced detail and an artist's signature, is a different world entirely. One reticulated Meiji-period Satsuma vase sold at a Kutoini auction in New York for just over 14,000 dollars and signed, exceptional examples from top Meiji-era workshops have sold for tens of thousands. The metal vase, or box, covered in colorful enamel sections separated by thin metal wire, giving it a stained-glass-like appearance. Most people see the bright colors and assume it's a modern decorative import, since cloisonné is still produced today in large quantities. Weight and wire detail are the tell. Modern mass-produced cloisonné is lightweight with simple wide enamel sections. Chinese cloisonné, particularly from the Qing dynasty, is noticeably heavier, with far finer wirework and more intricate patterns. Common modern cloisonné sells for 25 to 75 dollars. Genuine antique pieces with fine wirework and no significant enamel loss have sold for 400 to over 2,000 dollars, with exceptional imperial-quality pieces going considerably higher at major auction houses. The porcelain plate, bowl, or vase decorated in a distinctive soft pink and rose-colored enamel palette, often with detailed floral or figural scenes. Most people see delicate pink flowers and assume it's Victorian European China, rather than Chinese porcelain. The enamel technique itself is what makes this category valuable. It was developed in China in the early 1700s and required a level of skill that took decades to perfect. Later reproductions with printed rather than hand-painted decoration are common, typically 40 to 125 dollars. Genuine hand-painted famel rose porcelain from the Qing dynasty, with a rain mark on the base and fine detailed brushwork, has sold for 1,000 to several thousand dollars at Asian art auctions, and rare imperial-quality pieces have reached well into six figures. One left, and it's the biggest number on this entire list, the blue and white porcelain vase. The classic white porcelain painted in cobalt blue, usually floral or scenic designs, sitting on a mantle or tucked in a closet as just an old vase. This is the single most famous category in Asian antiques, and the stories behind it are not exaggerated. A common blue and white vase, mass-produced in the 20th century, is honestly modest, typically 30 to 80 dollars. Genuinely old pieces from the Ming or Qing dynasty are an entirely different story, and the real examples are almost hard to believe. A blue and white bowl bought for 35 dollars at a yard sale near New Haven, Connecticut, turned out to be a 15th century Ming dynasty piece, and sold at Sotheby's for 721,800 dollars. An 18th century vase found in a family home in New England, sold at a Boston auction house for 1.6 million dollars against a pre-sale estimate of just 5,000. A vase found during a routine house clearance in Clarence, New York, sold for 1.55 million dollars after a bidding war between a Shanghai dealer and a London dealer. And in London, a vase discovered while clearing out a house, sold for 69.3 million dollars, at the time believed to be a world record for any piece of Asian art at auction. This whole list comes back to one idea. Value doesn't hide behind glass in a museum somewhere. It hides in the ordinary stuff. The green bowl in the cupboard, the jar on the shelf, the vase that's been sitting on the mantle so long nobody's looked at it twice, seven treasures down, and one of them might be sitting in your own home right now. Go check your shelves and cabinets tonight, and drop a comment below telling me what you found and where you're watching from. I read every single one, and your find might be next week's video.