500-Year-Old Print Found in a Dump Sells for $40,000 at Auction

Knight, Death and The Devil, by Albrecht Dürer, 1531, engraving on laid paper.

Hanson's

Thirteen years ago, a young collector in England rescued an interesting-looking print from a landfill. Now, the piece has been identified as a 500-year-old German Renaissance print by one of history’s greatest artists, and it just sold for about $40,000 at auction.

The story starts with 11-year-old Mat Winter in Kent. He developed an interest in antiques and frequented the local dump to look for treasures. On one of his visits, a woman came by to discard some things, including an antique-looking print that caught his eye. He recalls, “I thought it looked interesting and asked if I could have it. She was more than happy to give it to me because she wanted it to go to someone rather than just throwing it away.”

Winter, now 24, recently decided it was time to find out about the print’s value. He contacted Jim Spencer, an expert on prints and rare books who worked for Hansons Auctioneers in the U.K. Spencer immediately recognized the print as Knight, Death and the Devil, one of the Meisterstiche (master engravings) of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a German artist and one of the most important figures of the Renaissance. He suspected that it was not a copy but one of the prints made by Dürer himself. His suspicions were proven correct with help from the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.

Jim Spencer, director of Rare Book Auctions, with 500-year-old print.

Hanson's

The Dürer print was offered for sale online in the inaugural sale for Spencer’s new saleroom, Rare Book Auctions, located in Lichfield, U.K. The print sold for £33,390, or about $40,000, on Sept. 18.

Spencer, whose previous discoveries include a 1757 Hebrew manuscript from Amsterdam, a first edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia, and multiple first editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, called the print “the most important print I’ve ever catalogued and offered for sale.” He said the winning bid was placed by a private buyer in Germany, “so this German Renaissance print is going home.”

The moral of the story? It’s a literal case of one person’s trash being another’s treasure.

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Tags: Collectible