Elderly Romanian woman used amber nugget worth over $1 million as a doorstop for decades

One of the largest known amber nuggets in the world, valued at around €1 million, has been found in the home of an elderly woman in Romania. The woman, who found the 3.5-kilogram (7.7 lb) stone in the bed of a stream in Colti, a village in the southeast of the Eastern European country, used it as a simple doorstop for decades without anyone realizing its value, not even the jewel thieves who broke into her home, the local media reported. The information has been confirmed to EL PAÍS by Daniel Costache, director of the Provincial Museum of Buzau, where the object is currently being kept.

The extraordinary fossil resin caught the eye of a relative of the homeowner, who died two years after the fall of the communist dictatorship in 1989. Having inherited what he first considered to be just a rock, he examined the piece of amber more closely and deduced that it could be a semi-precious stone of great value. And he was right. He sold the unique find to the Romanian state, which promptly classified the piece as a national treasure.

The Romanian authorities handed the nugget over to specialists from the Museum of History in Krakow (Poland), which has a section dedicated to the study of semi-precious stones. Polish experts immediately confirmed the authenticity of the amber stone and estimated that it could be between 38.5 and 70 million years old. “Its discovery represents a great significance both at a scientific level and at a museum level,” explains Costache, who believes that its value is incalculable. The expert claims that it is one of the largest pieces in the world and the largest of its kind.

Members of the owner’s family reported that the old lady was the victim of a break-in in which only a few pieces of gold jewelry of little value were stolen, while the amber nugget was completely ignored. “In their frantic search for valuables, they overlooked the real treasure that was there before their eyes,” they said.

Romania is among the countries with the most significant deposits of amber, with Buzau County being one of the areas where this semi-precious stone is found in abundance. Due to the particularities of the country’s deposits, geologist Oscar Helm named them “rumanit,” more commonly known as “Buzau amber,” according to the World Record Academy, the world’s leading record-certifying organization.

The region is home to a nature reserve where various amber nuggets have been discovered, of considerable value both in terms of quality and due to the more than 160 shades of predominantly dark colours, from red to black. Some of them contain a wealth of fossil remains of arachnids, beetles, flies, crustaceans, reptiles, bird feathers and animal hair, among others. In addition, the protected area contains the old Stramba amber mine, known as one of the most productive during the first half of the 21st century, but which was closed down by the communist regime as it was considered unprofitable.

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