When my mom died, we were cleaning out her garage for a weekend sale. Well, my older brother and I decided to play catch with this old metal vase. My sister-in-law took it after we had dropped it 'alot' of times and she was going to practice tole painting on it. When she got it home, she looked closely at it and it was pure silver. Needless to say, my brother and I are still in the dog house over this one. So the moral of the story, be careful with our parents 'junk'.
Reminds me of a story back in the 70s in SoCal. Seems this guy hit a flea market and picked up this 5 lb. lead statue of an eagle, painted black. Cost him $5 or so. He bought it because it reminded him of the bird in the movie "The Maltese Falcon".
Got it home and began cleaning it up. Found a piece of paper taped to the bottom that said the bird was made up of the first gold taken from the "Eagle" mine. Turned out he had bought five pounds of refined gold for $5.00.