When a scrap metal dealer from U.S. Midwest bought a golden ornament at a junk market, it never crossed his mind that he was the owner of a $20 million Faberge egg hailing from the court of imperial Russia.

The 3-inch golden egg was spirited out of St Petersburg after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and then disappeared for decades in the United States.

An unidentified man in the United States spotted the egg while searching for scrap gold and purchased it for $14,000, hoping to make a fast buck by selling it to the melting pot.

This is the photo from the auction house in London, where, after a man in sneakers wondered in with this priceless antique, the antiques dealer was shocked.

"He couldn't talk. He knew it was real."

(READ the story in the Washington Post)