Recently, we’ve been on a cleaning kick.
It’s not that our house is a pig sty or that we’re neat freaks. There just is a lot of accumulated clutter, most of which ends up in the garage. However, with the astonishing developments over the past several days, I am more reluctant to classify this collection of familial debris as junk.
Like most Americans, we don’t park our car in our garage. Between the alternate refrigerator, additional freezer and the mountains of memorabilia, our garage has long since been put to more valuable use. It’s become the last haven for everything we don’t want to keep in the house, but can’t bear to throw away.
The most logical solution to this exponential predicament is a garage sale. After all, one man’s garbage is another’s long lost treasure.
Just in case you haven’t been following the story, a building painter in Fresno named Rick Norsigian claims he struck gold rummaging around at a garage sale. Last week Norsigian announced to great fanfare that a batch of glass negatives he bought at a garage sale more than 10 years ago for $45 were taken by renowned photographer Ansel Adams. Although their authenticity is disputed by Adams’s heirs, there is now speculation that the discarded negatives may be worth as much as $200 million.
Not Very Unusual
While the potential value of Norsigian’s find is mind blowing, his saga of found wealth is not all that remarkable. Each year there are stories about folks finding curiously valuable items.
For example, there was the coal miner in West Virginia who supposedly found lost letters from Thomas Jefferson to Ben Franklin or George Washington about their plans for an insurrection against the British. Then there’s the North Carolina couple who unwittingly rescued a priceless Picasso from certain obscurity for a dollar. They only bought the painting because they wanted to salvage the frame for a family photo.
Fabulous finds like these explain why the Antiques Roadshow, once an obscure offering by PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) has seen a sudden surge in popularity. From Miami to Memphis, Biloxi to Bakersfield, thousands line up for a free appraisal from the quirky show hosts hoping that their found treasure is the next Louis XIV desk instead of a worthless piece of junk.
All of these fabulous finds pale next to the discovery of Paul Ceglia. A self-described environmental activist and drug legalization advocate from the western New York town of Wellsville, Ceglia may have made the greatest find of all time. Ceglia claims that he has discovered a long forgotten set of papers that prove that he owns 84 percent of Facebook.
If Ceglia’s claims are upheld by the courts in a recently filed lawsuit, it would give him control of the world’s most-popular social networking service. By its own estimates, Facebook has a current market value of $21 billion. Will the Agreement Hold up?
Ceglia contends that in 2003, he signed a contract with then-18-year old Harvard student and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that now entitles him to controlling interest in the wildly successful virtual business. In court documents filed by Ceglia, he alleges that he provided $1,000 in start-up capital to Zuckerberg in exchange for 50 percent interest in a venture referred to as “The Face Book.” According to Ceglia, another provision gives him an additional 1 percent interest for each day after Jan. 1, 2004, that the launch of “The Face Book” was delayed.
Although lawyers for the now 26-year-old Zuckerberg and Facebook admit that the social networking pioneer signed some sort of contract with Ceglia back in 2003, they deny that it gives the New York man any rights of ownership in what has now become the fastest growing site on the web.
Ironically, at the time of the supposed investment, Ceglia had hired Zuckerberg to write software for a start-up called Streetfax, LLC. Unlike Zuckerberg’s brainchild, Ceglia’s cyber venture never got off the ground.
In a truly odd twist, Ceglia never would have found this forgotten fortune if he had not been arrested and charged with fraud relating to a failed wood pellet business. While looking through old files to find assets to pay back bilked customers, Ceglia stumbled onto the Zuckerberg contracts and a series of emails that his lawyers say confirm his mammoth demands.
Ceglia’s claims never will make it to a jury.
Similar to any businessman, Zuckerberg and Facebook will settle long before a trial is held. They can’t afford the risk of an adverse outcome or the uncertainty that such a claim could have on Facebook’s market value. Either way, Ceglia will likely have enough cash to pay off his defrauded wood pellet customers with plenty of loot left over to retire in style.
As for me, I just hired a consultant from Christies in the hope that there’s a diamond in my discards. Who knows? This could be my best chance to cover the daunting cost of my kid’s college tuitions.
John Cohn is a senior partner in the Globe West Financial Group based in West Los Angeles. He may be contacted at www.globewestfinancial.com
