This man picked up a painting because he liked the frame. Then it turned out to be worth $170,000 — are you sitting on hidden money?

The painting turned out to be a seascape by Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla, reported missing by its owners on June 27. When Hurtado later sent photos to an auction house in Madrid, he says he was told it appeared to be an original worth up to €150,000, or roughly $170,000.

The ring in your drawer, the painting from your grandmother, the coins in the closet (and many more) — most of it has never been appraised, and most of it never will be. Finding out costs nothing. But before we address that, here’s what happened in Seville.

What happened in Seville

“We picked it up because of the frame, not because of the painting,” Hurtado told Radio Sevilla on July 1.

While Hurtado headed home with his find, the family who lost the painting papered their Seville neighborhood with flyers asking for the return of “a painting of great sentimental value,” according to The Guardian. They also quietly reported it to police as possibly stolen — without naming Sorolla or hinting at what the painting was worth.

Hurtado knew none of this. Back in Murcia, curiosity finally got the better of him. He ran a photo of the painting through an AI tool, which kept flagging similarities to Sorolla, the Spanish painter celebrated for sunlit beach scenes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Skeptical of an algorithm, he contacted a Madrid auction house.

“I sent them pictures and they came back to me very quickly, saying it was an original Sorolla,” he told Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

Then the news of a “stolen” Sorolla reached him, complete with a photo supplied by the owners. He recognized it immediately.

Why cases similar to this happens more often than you’d think

Hurtado’s story sounds like a one-off, but the art world is full of them.

An Indiana resident used a $30 thrift-store still life to cover a hole in the wall for years — until a lookalike painting turned up in the auction board game Masterpiece, prompting some research. The work was identified as that of 19th-century American painter Martin Johnson Heade, and it later sold for $1.2 million, according to the arts publication Art & Object.

The same outlet documented a shopper at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Queens, New York, who pulled a crayon sketch from a stack of framed art; the nearby Galerie St. Etienne authenticated it as an original Egon Schiele worth an estimated $100,000 to $200,000.

None of these people were dealers. They were shoppers who happened to flip something over, or run one search, before the item disappeared into a donation bin for good. Most people never take that step. Estate sales move a lifetime of belongings out the door in a weekend, and boxes go to thrift stores unopened.

How to check if you’re sitting on hidden money

Plenty of ordinary households own something valuable that no one has ever examined. Hurtado’s steps are easy to copy, and most of them are free. He looked closely at his find, searched a photo of it, then asked professionals before assuming anything.

Sorolla’s signature sits large in the bottom right corner of the canvas, and Hurtado carried it 325 miles without noticing because he only cared about the frame. So check yours properly. Look for a painter’s signature in the corners, a hallmark under a silver tray or a maker’s stamp inside a drawer.