Million $ artwork sold for $164

The University of California at Berkeley sold a piece of art made for the California School for the Deaf and Blind valued at over one million dollars - for practically nothing. Celebrated artist Sargent Johnson designed the natural-world, 22-foot relief during the 1930s to cover organ pipes at the old location of the California School for the Deaf and Blind in Berkeley. It was secured to a wall until 1980. The University of California at Berkeley took over the building and the art was moved into storage during a renovation. But it was never put back up and forgotten. Eventually, someone in the school came across the piece and sold it in 2009 for just $164.63. It was resold for an estimated one million dollars and is now on display in California's Huntington Library in San Marino. Berkeley says the school now regrets the “error of ignorance.”