Steelworker Ian Lewis had a shock when a Banksy graffiti appeared on his garage in Port Talbot, Wales, in December 2018. The piece named Seasons Greetings was sold to art dealer John Brandler a few months later, for an undisclosed "six-figure sum" which is known to have been upwards of £100,000 ($123k). He had turned down higher offers in order to keep the piece in the town, although it might be moved to a new street art museum in Port Talbot in two to three years.
University student Collin Goff from South Carolina received a pretty exciting Christmas gift in 2018 making him $125,000 (£102k) richer. His grandmother had bought each of her grandchildren scratch-off tickets for the festive season, and his turned out to be a winner. The student said it would be nice to start 2019 on a positive note following a major brain surgery the year before, though he didn't have any big plans for the money yet.
South African student Sibongile Mani was erroneously given a payout of ZAR14 million ($740k, £601k) in June 2017 instead of her monthly meal allowance of ZAR1,400 ($74, £60). Mani spent large chunks of the money on parties, cigarettes and alcohol, before the government caught up with her a few months later. After being arrested on fraud charges, her trial was set for December 2018 but was postponed until 2019 due to exams. Since returning to court in January 2020, she has been out on bail.
Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati made a very expensive blunder in 2013 when it awarded a $1 million (£811k) cash prize to the wrong person. Announcing the winner of the prize draw, the casino called for Kevin Lewis to collect his cheque. It wasn't until the cheque had already been given and staff had moved onto the next part of the verification process that they realised the wrong Kevin Lewis had claimed the prize. The casino admitted it was at fault and therefore awarded both men with the same name the full amount.
The chances of getting your big breakthrough in a supermarket is very unlikely. However, that's exactly what happened to 12-year-old Mason Ramsey, who became a star after a video of him yodelling in an Illinois Walmart went viral in 2018. Ramsey has since performed at music festival Coachella, Nashville’s Nissan Stadium and the Grand Ole Opry, and has even signed a record deal with Atlantic Records. Not only that, but the budding young star has also received a college scholarship worth $15,000 (£12.2k) from Walmart. His net worth is rumoured to be between $500,000-$1 million (£406k-£811k).
Rancher Oscar Stohler and his wife Lorene had lived on their North Dakota land for decades without realising they were sitting on millions of dollars. But in 2007 they were approached by oilmen who wanted to drill on the property. The result made Oscar and Lorene overnight millionaires, thanks to the hefty oil royalty payments they received. They remain humble though, with Lorene telling NBC News: "We got enough now to buy new stuff, but we like our old stuff."
Loren Krytzer had fallen on hard times in 2017. After losing his leg in a car crash, he lost his job as a carpenter and was living in a small shack in California. However, his fortunes were about to change. He discovered that a 19th century Navajo blanket he'd had tucked away in his wardrobe for seven years was actually worth a fortune. He'd only taken the family heirloom as no-one else had wanted it, but it turned out to have a value of $1.5 million (£1.2m), changing his life forever.
Read more about this story and other people who found priceless treasures in their homes
Back in 1998, research scientist Philip Ozersky was enjoying a baseball game between the Cardinals and the Expos at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. After Cardinals player Mark McGwire had a home run, which gave him the home run record with 70 in total, the ball bounced over to the stands and into Ozersky's hands. Cardinals officials insisted he hand it over, and offered him a signed bat, ball and jersey, but Ozersky's request that he meet McGwire was turned down by the player. And so Ozersky didn't give the ball back. Three months later he sold it at auction for $3 million, taking home $2.7 million after commission, which is the equivalent to $4.3 million (£3.5m) today.
Christine Jiaxin Lee received the gift that every 22-year-old student dreams of – an unlimited overdraft. Westpac bank made the error when the Sydney University student opened an account in 2012, though it wasn't until 2014 that she realised. The next year Lee withdrew a total of A$4.6 million ($2.9m/£2.4m), spending the money on designer clothes, bags and jewellery. Two years later she was arrested and returned most of it. The charges against Lee were dropped in December 2017.
In 1989, a financial analyst took a shine to an old painting at a flea market in Pennsylvania. Mainly wanting the frame it was in, he bought the piece for $4. However, when he tried to remove the frame from the painting, he found an old folded document hidden inside. It turned out to be a copy of the Declaration of Independence dating back to 1776. The rare document was sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1991, and fetched $2.4 million for its owner, equivalent to $4.6 million (£3.7m) in today's money, making quite the return on his $4 investment.
A Californian couple walking their dog came across buried treasure on their own property in 2014. The haul, thought to be the biggest lot of buried treasure ever found in the US, was a series of old tins filled with 1,400 coins from the 19th century. The lucky couple opted to keep their identities anonymous, and that was probably a good idea considering their mysterious find was worth an estimated $10 million (£8.1m).
Hui "Leo" Gao couldn't believe his luck when an employee at Westpac bank accidentally gave his failing service station business an overdraft of $10 million in 2009, equivalent to $12 million ($9.7m) today, instead of the intended $100,000. Gao fled his residence in New Zealand and became a fugitive for over two years, living the high life and spending large chunks of cash in casinos until he was caught in 2011. The 'runaway millionaire' was eventually sentenced to four years and seven months in prison for theft.
When Walmart acquired online retailer Jet.com for $3.3 billion (£2.7bn) in 2016, there was a rather unexpected beneficiary. Eric Martin had won Jet.com's 2015 contest to get the most new signups for premium memberships. He did so by spending a total of $18,000 (£14.6k) on ads, resulting in over 8,000 new signups. His prize? 100,000 shares of Jet.com stock, which were estimated to be worth between $10 million and $20 million (£8.1m-£16m) at the time.
At 68 years old Eva Paole made a startling discovery when she learned that she was the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Rufino Otero had had an affair with Paole's mother, who had worked as a maid for him. Despite locals in her small town in Argentina knowing her true paternity, Paole remained in the dark until the discovery in 2008. She finally managed to prove her right to the $40 million (£32m) fortune – even though her father's corpse had recently been stolen – thanks to DNA samples from her real grandmother's grave.
When Charlie Ayers won a cook-off against 25 other chefs in 1998, he became Google's 53rd employee. But with little tech knowledge he had no idea just how huge the company would become. The chef went from cooking for 40 people when he first started to preparing 10,000 meals every single day by the time he left. Thankfully, he followed many of his colleagues' leads and bought stocks in the company. He sold them in 2005 for a reported $40 million, equivalent to $53 million (£43m) today, and fulfilled his dream of opening his own restaurant.
Filipino nurse Hadassah Peri had no idea when she was randomly assigned a new patient how it would change her life forever. Her new patient Huguette Clark was an extremely wealthy heiress who had become reclusive in her later years. From 1991 to 2011 Peri was at Clark's side practically every day, and the pair formed a strong bond. And so when the heiress died in 2011 Clark left her longtime nurse $30 million (£24m), along with her treasured doll collection. That's on top of the estimated $31 million (£25m) that Peri and her family received in gifts from Clark throughout her life.
In 2006 Lawrence Joseph and Thomas Schultz bought a cottage in Long Island with the aim to fix it up and sell it for a profit. However, it turned out they had invested in something far more valuable than the house. It came with a collection of over 7,000 works from deceased artist Arthur Pinajian, whose family had been the home's previous owners. Despite the artist's relatives telling the new owners they should throw the art away, they decided to keep it – and it's since been valued at $90 million (£73m).
In 1945 naval engineer Richard James from Philadelphia was trying to find a way to suspend fragile devices on a ship that would allow them to move around in the rough seas but still hold them together. When he accidentally dropped one of his new springs, he saw the way it 'walked', and the idea for a new children's toy was born. Selling them for Christmas 1945, he priced 400 models at $1 each, equivalent to around $14 (£11.60) today, and they sold out in less than two hours. After mass producing the toys, a further 300 million units were sold. It's estimated that James made the modern equivalent of $1 billion (£810m) in revenue.
Brothers Zsolt and Geza Peladi had had a very unusual and tough upbringing. In fact they were living in a cave outside Budapest when their luck suddenly changed in 2009. The brothers had been abandoned by their mother and were selling junk they found on the street in order to get by. However, when their long-lost grandmother died in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, the brothers became entitled to a share of her fortune thanks to German laws, which was estimated to be $7 billion (£5.7bn) in 2010. Lawyers carrying out genealogical research found out about the brothers' existence, who learnt of their change of fortune from charity workers in Hungary.
Now read about valuable vintage computer consoles and video games you might have at home