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The Consumerist
March 8 2013
It's A Good Day When You Find $30M Worth Of Rare Art In The Attic
By Mary Beth Quirk March 8, 2013
It's always nice if you can afford to buy say, a nice little cottage
on Long Island, a getaway to escape reality and just enjoy the peace
and quiet. One man spent $300,000 to buy just such a bungalow out in
Bellport, N.Y. and found his reward for doing so would be more than
some R&R - it'd be about $30 million worth of art.
Back in 2007, the home's new owner discovered quite a cache of art in
the garage and attic of the bungalow, reports News 12 Long Island. The
works are all by obscure Armenian-American abstract impressionist
Arthur Pinajian and include thousands of paintings, drawings and
journals.
Apparently when Pinajian died, he left instructions for the entire
collection to be dumped in the Brookhaven landfill, but his family
never did so. Maybe they just got busy or perhaps they forgot,
resulting in this extreme and literal case of `one man's trash is
another man's treasure.'
The man who bought the house also purchased that art for $2,500 and
set about restoring, framing and cataloguing it. It's been valued at
$30 million, and some pieces have already been sold for prices as high
as $500,000. While many of the works are stored in the cottage owner's
gallery in Bellport, 50 of Pinajian's works are on exhibit now at
Manhattan's Fuller Building.
As always with these `Surprise! You're rich!' stories, I'm going to
take one last look around in the basements and attics of family
members. Because goodness knows there's nothing hiding in my
storage-bereft apartment.
http://consumerist.com/2013/03/08/its-a-good-day-when-you-find-30m-worth-of-rare-art-in-the-attic/
March 8 2013
It's A Good Day When You Find $30M Worth Of Rare Art In The Attic
By Mary Beth Quirk March 8, 2013
It's always nice if you can afford to buy say, a nice little cottage
on Long Island, a getaway to escape reality and just enjoy the peace
and quiet. One man spent $300,000 to buy just such a bungalow out in
Bellport, N.Y. and found his reward for doing so would be more than
some R&R - it'd be about $30 million worth of art.
Back in 2007, the home's new owner discovered quite a cache of art in
the garage and attic of the bungalow, reports News 12 Long Island. The
works are all by obscure Armenian-American abstract impressionist
Arthur Pinajian and include thousands of paintings, drawings and
journals.
Apparently when Pinajian died, he left instructions for the entire
collection to be dumped in the Brookhaven landfill, but his family
never did so. Maybe they just got busy or perhaps they forgot,
resulting in this extreme and literal case of `one man's trash is
another man's treasure.'
The man who bought the house also purchased that art for $2,500 and
set about restoring, framing and cataloguing it. It's been valued at
$30 million, and some pieces have already been sold for prices as high
as $500,000. While many of the works are stored in the cottage owner's
gallery in Bellport, 50 of Pinajian's works are on exhibit now at
Manhattan's Fuller Building.
As always with these `Surprise! You're rich!' stories, I'm going to
take one last look around in the basements and attics of family
members. Because goodness knows there's nothing hiding in my
storage-bereft apartment.
http://consumerist.com/2013/03/08/its-a-good-day-when-you-find-30m-worth-of-rare-art-in-the-attic/