What is it about Brits that makes them love shows like Antique Roadshow so much? Oh look, Archibald found a spoon worth £2 500 – if he doesn’t want to retire and move to South Africa with his new-found wealth he should flog it to a fellow spoon collector.

They’re not alone in that obsession with finding hidden gems, shows like Pawn Stars showing that the rest of the world also gobbles this stuff up. Every so often, of course, someone does find something that is pretty nifty, a hidden treasure trove of olden-day goodies that gets people talking.

Take for example this finding in a Chicago storage facility, pieces of the actual building that played host to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. This fair was significant for a number of reasons, it being the first to bring together wonders of engineering, the latest technologies and consumer products, and music and art from far-off lands.

Let’s hope they weren’t paying through the roof to keep it there, something you need not do either.

Anyway, more reasons as to why this find has excited historians from Gizmodo below:

…the three beautifully carved Japanese sliding doors, called fusuma, were long thought to be lost along with so much of the fair’s original art and architecture…

So what do we know about the building from which these remarkable painted doors came? Well, they were made by a Japanese artist named Hashimoto Gaho, who contributed to the art inside the 1893 pavilion. Japan was one of many countries that built structures on the grounds of the fair to show off their local art, architecture, and progress in general—but Japan’s contribution must have been one of the most beautiful.

Funnily enough this isn’t the first time such a discovery has been made:

In the 1970s, workers discovered a series of intricately-carved Japanese panels beneath the bleachers of Soldier Field, seemingly put there during the fires for safe-keeping. Those carvings are now on display at the Art Institute.

What’s the moral of the story here? If you have something valuable that’s worth keeping, burying it in a field might not be your best option. You might not have something that future generations will write articles about (the good kind) but storage isn’t as expensive as it used to be.

How does R1 a month sound, is that within your budget range? The folks over at Stor-Age are still running the crazy 2OV promotion on your first month’s storage, and there’s no obligation to extend beyond that point. They also offer a free van service and a full range of packaging items.

[source:gizmodo]