Antiques Roadshow

After church today I was watching the Antiques Roadshow as I am wont to do on Sunday afternoons when we are between Netflix movies and have seen most of the stuff in the Redboxes around town and I don't really have any plans to get off the couch. Most of the stuff that was presented by the good people of the Houston area brought a $15k-30k price tag. This got my brain wandering a bit. How do people end up with some of this stuff? I mean, I know the garage sale is a very important component here. There were a ton of people that had stuff from the 1700's or from the 1700's and from across the world. I just don't know how a piece of porcelain from the Ming Dynasty (but actually made by the Dutch in Japan) ends up in the hands of some wonderfully unsuspecting 80 year old gentleman in perfect condition in Houston, TX. Old things just fascinate me I guess. The other thing is, who are the people that pay such big dollar amounts for some of this stuff. There was a lady today that had a mug and plate collection that had bunnies all over all of it and it was appraised at $300-$500 a piece. I'm all for your animated ceramics but who buys a bunny ceramic collection for thousands? I have posted a video of the most valuable item ever appraised on the Antiques Roadshow below. Enjoy.