Finished watching Hunter's episodes about the auction and the flea market, and a little wave of nostalgia came over me for the days when I had a pop-up stall and was a happy seller of old junk, though in my case the splendid things usually went for far be

Finished watching Hunter's episodes about the auction and the flea market, and a little wave of nostalgia came over me for the days when I had a pop-up stall and was a happy seller of old junk, though in my case the splendid things usually went for far below their real price, not quite as in those noisy tales of priceless flea-market finds, but still. Remember?

One of the 200 copies of the United States Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 (about 25 survive) was bought at a flea market in Pennsylvania for $4.

An authentic painting by the abstractionist Ilya Bolotowsky went for $6 at a secondhand shop, and ended up bringing its owner $34,375.

An oil painting bought for $7 at a flea market in Virginia turned out to be an authentic Renoir, "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine".

A Fabergé golden egg with a Vacheron Constantin watch was bought for $14,000 by a dealer in precious metals, for scrap, who then decided to google "egg watch Vacheron". In the end the treasure was sold for $33 million.

A bowl bought for $4 at a secondhand shop in Sydney turned out to be a 17th-century rhinoceros horn cup. It was sold at Sotheby's for $75,600.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Finished watching Hunter's episodes about the auction and the flea market, and a little wave of nostalgia came over me for the days when I had a pop-up stall and was a happy seller of old junk, though in my case the splendid things usually went for far be

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s