A true precious object went unnoticed for years in a house in Romania, even by burglars who broke into the place. A 3.5-kilogram amber nugget was used for decades as a door weight in the house of an elderly woman.
When the house was broken into by thieves who stole gold jewelry, the stone also went unnoticed. However, the item is valued at approximately 1 million euros — the equivalent of BRL 5.6 million. It was only in the 1990s that they decided to investigate the piece and discover its real value.
The woman found the reddish stone in the bed of a stream near the village of Colți, in southeastern Romania, and took it home. For years, its use was exclusively as a door weight in the residence. When the owner passed away, one of the heirs began investigating the origin and value of the item.
The heir sent the stone for assessment and discovered that it was a rarity: one of the largest intact pieces of amber. This is tree resin fossilized over millions of years. Unlike common gemstones, it has an organic origin and is not a mineral.
The amber stone can reveal a lot about life on the planet millions of years ago. Analyses carried out by specialists from the Kraków History Museum, in Poland, estimated that the age of the piece in question is between 38.5 million and 70 million years old.
Thus, the nugget became the property of the Romanian state and classified as a national treasure. The stone has been under the care of the Buzău County Museum since 2022.
