Saturday, Aug 22, 2020, 10:12 am

By:Tony Williams

#1 TV Stand Seventeenth Century Japanese Box

In 1970, the largest of two seventeenth century Japanese Mazarin golden chests was thought to be lost. Anxious to bring the box back to the Victoria & Albert Museum with the smaller box, they searched everywhere for it, but a French engineer had purchased it for $160. He was using it as a TV stand for sixteen years, then used it as a bar when he later moved. In 2013, when he was ready to move again, he called upon auction specialist Phillippe Rouillac to appraise his estate, and to everyone's surprise it sold at auction for $9.5 million dollars.