[quote]The woman, who found the 3.5-kilogram (7.7 lb) stone in the bed of a stream in Colti, a village in the southeast of Romania, used it as a simple doorstop for decades without anyone realizing its value, not even the jewel thieves who broke into her home. The stone, of great scientific interest, could be between 38.5 and 70 million years old and is one of the largest in the world.
[quote]The extraordinary fossil resin caught the eye of a relative of the homeowner, who died two years after the fall of the communist dictatorship in 1989. Having inherited what he first considered to be just a rock, he examined the piece of amber more closely and deduced that it could be a semi-precious stone of great value. And he was right. He sold the unique find to the Romanian state, which promptly classified the piece as a national treasure.