When dumpster diving pays off — big time

A Silicon Valley recycling centre is still searching for a woman who dropped off a first-generation Apple computer worth $200,000 US. 

But other tales of lost-and-found treasures abound, from priceless artworks to winning lottery tickets to precious musical instruments. They include:

Long-lost van Gogh

A masterpiece-in-the-attic story actually played out in 2013 when a Vincent van Gogh painting was identified as authentic after languishing for years in Norway because it was thought to be a fake. 

The Van Gogh Museum said the landscape Sunset at Montmajour was authenticated by the Dutch master's style, his correspondence and the materials used. It was the first painting identified as a van Gogh since 1928, and was painted in 1888, during the same period as the famous Sunflowers.

The museum did not reveal how the painting ended up in the attic of a Norwegian man, who had believed it was not a real van Gogh. The painting, which depicts a scene at Arles, France, was sold in 1901 and disappeared for over 100 years.

Mystery Pollock painting

In 2008, a Jackson Pollock painting made international headlines after a retired truck driver who had never heard of the artist, bought a painting for $5 in a California thrift store. 

• Controversial Pollock for sale in Toronto

Teri Horton, who bought the painting as a gag gift, was later the subject of a documentary Who the #$%& is Jackson Pollock? that followed her unsuccessful attempts to authenticate the 1.7-by-1.2-metre painting in America's auction houses. When it was authenticated later by a Montreal expert, Horton decided to sell the painting through a Canadian gallery, where its value was estimated at $50 million.

"Do I personally think it's worth [$50 million]? Hell no," Horton said in 2008. "It's worth the $5 I gave for it. It's ugly."

The painting remains for sale. 

Declaration of Independence

A flea market in Adamstown, Pa. produced multi-million-dollar find when a first printing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence was discovered, reportedly tucked inside a picture frame. The buyer paid just $4 for the document, but it sold at Sotheby's auction house for $2.48 million US in 1991. 

According to the New York Times, the man bought the torn painting because he liked the frame and found the copy — one of around 25 remaining prints made by John Dunlap in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, to spread news to the colonies that the Declaration had been signed — hidden in the backing. 

Winning lottery ticket

An 83-year-old man found a winning "Hold 'em Poker" scratch ticket worth $1 million US in 2005 while searching through a trash can outside a convenience store in Blackstone, Mass., hoping to find a discarded winner. 

His windfall was challenged by a local man who said he had bought every "Hold 'em Poker" ticket that day and didn't realize he had won. He was eventually awarded $140,000 of the winnings in a settlement, according to NBC News. 

More priceless art

An abstract work by Mexican artist Rufino Tamaya sold for over $1 million US at a 2007 auction, after it was recovered from a Manhattan dumpster. 

• Tamayo painting found in dumpster sells for more than $1M

New York writer Elizabeth Gibson found the painting during her morning stroll. After a lengthy search, she found the painting's rightful owner, who decided to sell the piece. The work, titled Tres Personajes, had been stolen from a Texas warehouse in 1987. It remains unclear how the painting wound up in the garbage. 

Ancient artifacts

A New York junk removal operator found ancient Mexican artifacts five years after he brought them home in a barrel he thought was garbage. The 60 figurines, bowls and jugs were made between 300 B.C. and A.D. 500, according to a New York Daily news story in 2009, and remained in storage in a warehouse for years before the barrel was opened. 

The estate of a SoHo artist paid the junk removal company to clean out the artist's apartment after he died.

The artifacts were reportedly valued around $16,500 in total. Nick DiMola, who runs the junk removal company, donated several pieces to be auctioned off for charity. 

Centuries-old violin

The tale is a bit convoluted, and there's a bit of family lore involved, but in the 1970s, a woman claimed to have found a violin case on a California freeway. She passed it onto her son, who gave it to his wife in a divorce settlement. In the 1990s, it wound up at a repair shop, where a dealer recognized the Stradivarius inside — and found it was listed as stolen from the University of California, Los Angeles, according to a 1994 story in the Wall Street Journal. 

A UCLA violinist lost the violin, known as the Duke of Alcantara, in 1967 when it was either left it on the roof of his car or was stolen from the trunk in 1967. The instrument, one of about 600 that remain, was built in 1732.