A bowl bought for $3 at an upstate New York sale was just sold at Sotheby's for $2.2 million. What can you trade for this tiny Song Dynasty artifact?

A family paid $3 for this bowl at a 2007 upstate New York garage sale. They kept it in their living room for years.

When curiosity finally compelled them to appraise the bowl at Sotheby's, they were shocked to hear it was a thousand-year-old Northern Song Dynasty bowl valuated at $200,000-$300,000. The only other bowl of its kind sits at the British Museum in London. A bidding war ensued, and British art dealer Giuseppe Eskenaz snatched it up for $2.2 million. Mr. Eskenaz has been dealing Asian art for 30 years and believes his customers would pay even more.

Garage-to-auction flukes are the bread and butter of shows like "Antique Roadshow." But more importantly, what does the market think is worth the same as this bowl?

Via: sothebys.com