A Cracked Jug Sold For $440,000

A cracked 19th-century French claret jug that was expected to sell at auction for £200 fetched more than a thousand times its guide price. Two buyers became locked in a bidding war at Lawrence’s auction house in Somerset, pushing the price to £220,000. The jug was presented in a fitted box of Morel á Sevres, and one auctioneer suggested that this could be the mark of the French goldsmith and lapidary Jean-Valentin Morel. Some people think the auction was actually of two items. Collectors realised the box was worth a lot more than the jug.