Sydney shopper’s A$4 cup turns out to be worth A$75,640

They say one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure. And that’s exactly what happened at a thrift shop in Sydney, Australia.A regular shopper at the store saw a cup. It had a large chip in it.Not a hairline flaw you'd need to squint to see. A proper chip, the sort that should have been enough to send a shopper on to the next shelf in a Sydney op shop. The cup was priced at A$4. The shopper bought it anyway.The specialist who later valued it explained that pieces like this "don't look immediately attractive to the untrained eye". But something about the cup caught the buyer’s attention.The rare cup was eventually auctioned for A$75,640.An ordinary op-shop circuit, an extraordinary findThe buyer, who chose to stay anonymous, used to do the rounds of local op shops, which means he had seen plenty of shelves. But this one made him stop. He thought the cup looked a little special. He bought it. After the purchase, the man sent photographs to Ann Roberts, a Sotheby's consultant and specialist in Asian art, The Age reported.Roberts knew the cup was rare and valuable. The buyer had a one-of-a-kind cup. It was a Chinese libation cup carved from rhinoceros horn, catalogued as a ‘Magnolia ...