History Main / GrailInTheGarbage

Sometimes, priceless things can be found in the most unlikely places. Maybe the previous owner didn't realize what he had, maybe some higher power put it there for a reason, maybe it's just one of those unique chance encounters. For whatever reason, it's being treated as far less valuable than it really is, and it's ripe for the picking by an unsuspecting hero. If this sort of thing is actually the bread and butter of the place in question, then it's a BazaarOfTheBizarre or TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday.

* ''Literature/SixtyEightRooms'': The key, which not only is historic (it once belonged to Christina of Milan), but also can cause girls to shrink had been found by three children in an area behind the Thorne Miniature Rooms exhibist. Jack found it on the floor near some cleaning materials.

* In ''VideoGame/BarkleyShutUpAndJamGaiden'', Barkley at one point visits Spalding Building[[note]][[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding_%28sports_equipment%29 Don't ask]][[/note]], where he can find a character's InfinityPlusOneSword in one of the trash cans. He also lampshades it when he finds a powerful healing item in another can: ''"It's B-Ball Juice! Who the hell throws B-Ball Juice away?"''

* The original UsefulNotes/AppleII ''VideoGame/{{Prince of Persia|1}}'' source code, which Jordan Mechner had lost circa 1989, was found 20 years later on some floppy disks inside his dad's closet.

** And again in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', Harry hides the Prince's potions book in a room where lots of other students (and teachers!) have hidden things they didn't want found over the years. One, which Harry uses to mark the place where he hid the book, is [[spoiler:the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, and another of Voldemort's Horcruxes.]]

** Most games have the Leftovers, one of the most useful held items in the series, hidden in a trash can. It ''is'' just a small pile of half-eaten food... that just so happens to be able to regenerate itself, giving the Pokémon an infinite supply of free health. In ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', you even find it in the Celadon City restaurant's garbage can.

* DoubleSubversion in ''ComicBook/ArchieComics''. Jughead finds an old violin in the trash bin outside the pawnshop. When a suspicious man tries to steal it from him, Archie believes that it's a Stradivarius violin. He and Jughead head off to a music shop to get it appraised, only to learn that the violin is no Stradivarius, just a complete piece of junk. [[spoiler:On the other hand, it really is a lot more valuable than it seems, and not in the way that the gang thought it would be: the violin's bow is the cache for stolen diamonds.]]
* Happens at the end of the second ''ComicBook/{{Cerebus}}'' book, ''High Society'', where it turns out the priceless bird statue that Cerebus could have used earlier to unite the Church factions was given to him with a bunch of other random trash from a hobo who seemed to have Cerebus confused with someone else about a third of the way through the book. [[spoiler:He destroys it, since he no longer has the political capital to make use of it himself. And it turns out to be a fake anyway.]]
* In Franchise/TheDCU, the ComicBook/{{Guardian}}'s origin involves him finding a seemingly indestructible shield in a costume shop.
* The original origin story of the original Franchise/GreenLantern, Alan Scott, had him find an old railroad lantern while travelling by train (it was 1940, people did that), and only realize it was a powerful artifact when it kept him from being killed. Later tales established that the lantern had been on Earth for centuries, occasionally doing something odd, but mostly just being a lantern.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' book ''[[Recap/TintinTheSecretOfTheUnicorn The Secret of the Unicorn]]'', Tintin buys a model ship from a street vendor to give to Captain Haddock as a gift. It turns out the ship has a scroll concealed in the mast which, when combined with two others from identical ships, leads to a fortune in gold and jewels.
* Seen in a ''ComicBook/{{Witchblade}}'' spinoff, in which a medieval woman warrior called Katarina Godliffe ([[MST3KMantra don't ask about the plausibility]]) discovers the Witchblade while shoveling manure in the year 1175.

* One episode of ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey'' has a very valuable lost painting be accidentally discovered in a collection of donated paintings that were supposed to only be copies. The characters contact the man who donated the paintings and he claims that his grandfather purchased the painting at a flea market at the turn of the century, but the characters get suspicious that he is lying because of his request that they don't tell anyone that the painting came from him, and the fact that the painting appears to have been deliberately modified to conceal its authenticity. So they decide to investigate the painting's history and find that his story doesn't add up. [[spoiler:They also find that one of the painting's previous owners is still alive. When confronted by the surviving owner, the man confesses the truth. It turns out that the painting was stolen by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The donor's father was a Nazi deserter who took the painting with him when he fled to America to start a new life under a false name. The donor was deeply ashamed of this and used his father's money to start a charity.]]

* In ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Oathbreakers]]'', Kethry happens to find a useless-looking dull-bladed old sword abandoned in a cabin in the mountains; she and Tarma speculate that it must have been a decorative sword and the gems and gilding were all stripped off by previous travelers, leaving behind what was left as junk. Kethry, on an impulse, takes it along when they leave, and it turns out to be the ancestral Sword that Sings, traditionally used to choose the proper ruler of the country of Rethwellan.

* The TVA in ''Series/Loki2021'' has numerous copies of the Infinity Stones, which they treat as worthless trinkets because they are powerless within the TVA. They even use them as paperweights, which is about all they're good for.

* Saito's talking sword in ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' was sold for dirt cheap in a weapon shop. Since [[NamedWeapons Derflinger]] is actually the [[CoolSword traditional weapon/partner of the Gandalfr]], [[ThereAreNoCoincidences karma almost certainly arranged for him to be in the shop solely to end up in Saito's hands]]. In fact, Derflinger looks pretty crappy and likely handles poorly in the hands of anyone but Gandalfr. It's a good bet everyone else ''thought'' it was worthless junk.

** The episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" begins at a swap meet, in which Homer finds a treasure trove of such items in a 5¢ box. He dismisses them all: "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence Junk,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Comics_1 junk,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny the airplane's upside down,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius Strad-di-who-vious?!..."]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' episode "One Krabs Trash" has Mr. Krabs sell the contents of a nearby dumpster to [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick. One of the items is a soda-drinking hat, which he charges ten dollars for. Moments after [=SpongeBob=] leaves with his new hat in tow, a group of antiquarians show up and inform Krabs that the hat was actually an incredibly rare collector's item that they're willing to pay thousands or millions of dollars for. Unsurprisingly, Krabs spends the rest of the episode trying to get the hat back. This then gets subverted at the end of the episode, where it's revealed that while Krabs was trying to get the hat, someone unearthed a warehouse full of them, and its value has plummeted to worthlessness as a result.

** Episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" begins at a swap meet, in which Homer finds a treasure trove of such items in a 5¢ box. He dismisses them all: "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence Junk,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Comics_1 junk,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny the airplane's upside down,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius Strad-di-who-vious?!..."]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyANewGeneration'', the Unicorn Crystal, an ancient artifact that can help return magic to Equestria when combined with the Pegasus Crystal, is found in a tea shop. The owner added it to his collection of odds and ends after winning a bet with a crystal collector, making it a double case of this trope. [[spoiler:The Earth Pony Crystal happens to be part of the lamp that Argyle made for Sunny when she was a foal, and Argyle didn't appear to realize how important it was at the time.]]

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'':

** Also, in ''The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual'', the riddle passed down by the Musgrave family turns out to be instructions to locating some ostensible treasure. Sherlock (and prior, Brunton) both find the clues lead to a sack full of broken dirty metal shards and colored glass. Unlike Brunton, though, the detective realizes the metal is gold and the glass are gems: the sack contains the pieces of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England King Charles I's]] crown.