According to the Buzău County Museum in Romania, this is the largest piece of amber ever found. An elderly resident of the village of Colți, located in southeastern Romania, stumbled upon the 3.5-kilogram stone. She brought it home and used it as a doorstop. The stone served such a humble purpose that even thieves who once targeted her house overlooked it. It turned out the villager had one of the largest nuggets of amber in the world, El País reported. Experts valued the stone—identified as Romanian amber—at about €1 million ($1.1 million), ScienceAlert reported.
Amber is fossilized tree resin that formed millions of years ago. Over time, this highly viscous substance hardens, transforming into a solid material with warm hues and becoming a widely recognized semi-precious gemstone.
What else is known about this giant piece of amber? In Romania, pieces of amber can be found in sandstone along the banks of the Buzău River, particularly around the village of Colți, where it has been mined since the 1920s. The local variety of amber, known as Romanian amber, is prized for its deep black and red shades. The enormous nugget is currently housed in the Buzău County Museum. The elderly woman originally found it at her home. After her passing in 1991, a relative who inherited the house suspected that the doorstop might be more than it appeared. Following an examination of the stone at the Historical Museum in Kraków, Poland, the man sold the amber to the Romanian state, where it was re-evaluated. The nugget was declared a national treasure of Romania. Experts believe this piece of amber is about 70 million years old.
The story echoes a case in Michigan where a resident used a large rock as a doorstop for decades before learning it was a meteorite worth $100,000. But this amber nugget, valued at around €1 million, is even more valuable. Just imagine how many doorstops that could buy!
