As many of us are now spending more time at home than ever before due to the pandemic, here's hoping we stumble across some hidden treasures like these lucky people did. From the lost Rembrandt painting found in a family dining room to a set of rare gold coins discovered in an unsuspecting cottage, click or scroll through to see some of the most priceless treasures found in homes.

The nephew of the late British singer Cilla Black, a man named Simon White, was searching through his father’s record collection when he came across some demo discs. He took them to The Beatles Shop in Liverpool to have them valued, and store manager Stephen Bailey was ecstatic to discover one of the discs had McCartney singing a song called It's For You, which he had given to Black to record her own version of.

Mr. White's father had previously assumed it was Cilla Black's own version of the track, but White was amazed to discover it was in fact the original recording by Sir Paul from 1964. The demo sold for £18,000 ($22.3k) at auction in 2016. 

The treasures include the rifle clad in gold and silver that Tipu (pictured) used in his final fight against the British. The items were sold at auction in Oxfordshire on 26 March, and fetched £107,000 ($132k) in total.

The painting of an unconscious youth being administered smelling salts was bought by New York financier Thomas Kaplan in September 2016 for a cool $870,000 (£107.7k) and has since featured in an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. 

The most brilliant treasure finds of the last decade

The son of an amateur musician caused a storm in the antique world when he unearthed Titanic's bandmaster Wallace Hartley's violin in his attic. Hartley was playing the violin when the Titanic sank in 1912 and it's claimed it was recovered with his body in a leather case that was strapped to him.  

The violin was gifted to Hartley by his fiancé Maria Robinson and it was returned to her following his death. It was then giving to a local Salvation Army citadel before being passed on to the amateur musician in the early 19040s. Although the violin’s authenticity was contested, tests proved it was the real thing. The violin fetched £1.1 million ($1.4m) at auction in 2013. 

Krytzer had inherited a Navajo blanket from his grandmother and had left it largely forgotten in a closet. It wasn't until he chanced upon an episode of TV show Antiques Roadshow, which featured a similar Navajo textile that was valued at half a million dollars, that he decided to get it appraised. Luckily for Krytzer, the blanket, which dates from 1840, was sold for $1.5 million (£1.2m). By all accounts, the blanket turned out to be not too shabby an inheritance. 

These treasures are still waiting to be found

When a New York family bought a small bowl for $3 at a flea market in 2007, they had no idea of its history. It wasn’t until 2013 that they realised their mantelpiece decoration was a 1,000-year-old Ding bowl from the Northern Song Chinese dynasty. 

In 1998, an 18th-century bust of British politician Sir John Gordon was discovered propping open the door to a shed in the village of Balintore, Easter Ross in Scotland, by local councillor Maxine Smith.

Sotheby's specialist Julian Gascoigne had a career-defining moment when he happened to see a long-lost Constable oil painting casually hanging under the stairs in a client's home. The painting was the first sketch for Constable's acclaimed The Opening of Waterloo Bridge.

Michael Rorrer was clearing out his late great aunt's home in Virginia when he stumbled upon a collection of 345 comics in the basement. The collection belonged to his late uncle, Billy Wright, who had never told anyone about his hobby before his death in 1994. The carefully-arranged collection included rare comics such as Detective Comics No 27, the first comic to star Batman (pictured).

The eccentric doctor had bought the car for £895 in 1955, the equivalent of £23,558 ($29.1k) today. But over 50 years later Dr Carr's relatives sold the car for a whopping £3 million ($3.7m). The find was a suprise to his family, even though it had long been rumoured that Dr Carr owned it. As his nephew said: "It was a bit of local folklore that he had a Bugatti, but no one knew for sure. It's worth so much because he hasn't used it for 50 years. It was one of the original super cars." 

Discover the treasure that was hiding in plain sight

Frank Abrams picked up some pictures at a flea market to decorate a room he was renting out to Airbnb guests. Little did he know, the tintype he picked up for $2 was a rare photograph of Billy with Pat Garrett. 

Curators at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts had always been suspicious of their copy of his painting Breaking Home Ties. The painting, lent to them by owner Don Trachte’s children, seemed different to the original. But it wasn’t until the Trachte brothers found a hole in the wood panelling of their father’s former home that the real painting was found.

When Don and his wife Elizabeth decided to divorce, Don hid the painting with others in the panelling of his home to ensure he got to keep it. The painting the museum had was simply a copy. Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4 million in 2006, equivalent to $19.7 million (£16m) in today's money. When Elizabeth found out what Don had done, she simply replied, “Doesn’t surprise me.” 

Exceedingly valuable Ming vases masquerading as ordinary umbrella stands seem to be a thing. In 2010, a retired couple from Dorset, England took their battered umbrella stand into Duke's auction house for valuation. It was revealed to be an 18th-century Ming vase worth £765,000 ($942k).

Unbelievably it wasn't the only Ming vase that had lived a second life as an umbrella stand discovered that year. During a house clearance in London, an umbrella holder was found to be a Ming vase from the Qianlong period. The historically important vase realised a record auction price of £43 million ($53m).

Christie's London reported a similarly spectacular find in 2016. A valuer who was appraising objects in a client's home stumbled upon an 18th-century Dragon vase that was also being used to store umbrellas. The treasure went on to sell for $20 million (£16.2m) at auction in Hong Kong. 

However, the identification of the painting as Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio is contested. Pictured here in the Brera Art Gallery in Milan in 2016, there was outrage at it being exhibited as a Caravaggio when its authenticity was still not universally agreed. If it is a Caravaggio the painting has a value of €120 million ($129m/£105m). 

Now read about the 'treasures' that turned out to be worthless