14 Unlucky Ding-Dongs Who Ruined Or Lost Ultra-Rare Items
![14 Unlucky Ding-Dongs Who Ruined Or Lost Ultra-Rare Items](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/8/781428_320x180.jpg)
Museums house inventories of artifacts from all over the globe, allowing visitors to communicate with and learn from history. However, most of those ancient artifacts pale in comparison to certain exceptional objects that already have gotten lost and destroyed over the years. Losing treasures is a mainstay of imagined and real-life adventures, ranging from the oldest reserves to disused WWI artifacts.
The majority of other well-missing artifacts will almost certainly never be managed to recover; several were destroyed, and this will not deter relic hunting, who continue to look for ancient artifacts to this day. Everything gets one new story about rare artifacts discovered in pawn shops to keep the motivation up.
I'm no expert, but lesson number one on your first day of Art Curation School should be: don't clean the ancient relics with steel wool.
Scroll down to see what objects are considered unlucky Ding-Dongs who ruined or lost ultra-rare items.
![Statue of Two Hercules CRACKED.co In 2016, two tourists climbed up on the 300-year-old statue at the Loggia dei Militi Palace in Italy. As they were hanging off of it posing for a picture, one of the Hercules' crowns snapped off and smashed to the ground like a pumpkin.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/4/781444.jpg)
Source: Twitter
![A 126-year-old public statue CRACKED.COM A statue of a 16th century Portuguese king had stood for decades at the entrance of the Rossio train station, but it was no match for one jerk who wanted a selfie. Some dude climbed the statue, which was freestanding and toppled immediately.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/1/781441.jpg)
Source: Reuters
![Canova's Venus Victrix CRACKED.COM An Austrian tourist in Italy decided to recline on this enticingly ouch-shaped sculpture. But when he did, he snapped the toes off of the immortalized Pauline Boneparte. The dude studied the carnage before fleeing the scene, but was later caught because he, ya know, signed in to the museum.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/8/781438.jpg)
Source: NY Times
![Michelangelo's Pieta CRACKED In 1972, a geologist (who thought he was Jesus at the time) attacked the statue with a hammer. He was stopped by an American visitor: I leaped up and grabbed the guy by the beard. We both fell into the crowd of screaming Italians. One of those screaming Italians made off with Mary's nose, which was never returned.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/9/781439.jpg)
Source: Time
![The Portland Vase CRACKED.COM The vase, which is suspected to share a birth year with Jesus, was REK'D by a drunk college kid in 1845. Young William Mulcahy threw another sculpture at the vase, shattering them both, then gave a fake name when he was caught.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/0/781440.jpg)
Source: BBC
![Picasso's The Actor CRACKED.COM Some girl tripped and fell into the painting, leaving a 6-inch gash. Who knows if it's real, but a Craigslist Missed Connection from the area the next day read I was about to approach you, but froze up and ended up tripping and falling into the painting.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/3/781433.jpg)
Source: 5 Priceless Works of Art Destroyed by Unintentional Hilarity
![A 600-year-old Virgin Mary statue CRACKED.COM Some dude from Missouri traveled all the way to Florence to give the Virgin Mary a high five. In the process, he snapped off her pinky finger. Luckily, the pinky was so brittle because it was itself a restoration -- meaning this was definitely not the first time some idiot tried to high five the Holy Mother.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/2/781432.jpg)
Source: NPR
![The British Museum's ancient Greek statues CRACKED.COM Tourists and staff can't stop beating the sh*t out of these statues! Some kids on a class trip broke a centaur when they got into a fight, a worker dropped a skylight on one statue's head, and the museum f*ed up every one of their sculptures when they cleaned them with steel wool in the 1930's.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/5/781435.jpg)
Source: 5 Priceless Works of Art Destroyed by Unintentional Hilarity
![Rembrandt's Night Watch CRACKED.COM People won't stop trying to trash this Rembrandt. Someone doused it with sulfuric acid in 1990, a teacher on a divine mission sliced it up in 1975, and someone attacked it with a shoemaker's knife in 1911.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/2/781442.jpg)
Source: LA Times
![A couple of Lucien Freuds CRACKED.COM This guy's work keeps getting destroyed. A rich antique book dealer once trashed the portrait he commissioned Freud to make, because he thought he painted him too fat. In 2000, a crate containing a Freud piece was mistaken for a crate of (neatly packed) garbage, and incinerated.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/6/781436.jpg)
Source: 5 Priceless Works of Art Destroyed by Unintentional Hilarity
![An Enigma machine CRACKED.COM These are the WWII gizmos that allowed the Nazis to confound the Allied forces before Alan Turing blew the whole thing wide open. Someone sold what they thought was a cool typewriter for $114 at a flea market. The savvy buyer flipped it for $51,000.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/3/781443.jpg)
Source: Smithsonian
![Picasso's La Reve 3 CRACKED.COM Las Vegas bajillionaire Steve Wynn was preparing to sell his most prized painting, when he threw his elbow through the canvas while enthusiastically gesticulating next to. It was refurbished, but the valuation dropped from $139 milion to $90 million.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/4/781434.jpg)
Source: 5 Priceless Works of Art Destroyed by Unintentional Hilarity
![A 1976 Apple 1 CRACKED.COM Someone dumped a first-gen Apple computer, one of only 200 units made, at a California recycling center in 2015. Employees recognized the device, and sold it for $200k. The center tired to honor its policy of splitting the proceeds with the woman, but they couldn't track her down.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/7/781437.jpg)
Source: ABC7Chicago
![Qing Dynasty vases CRACKED.COM Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge kept their prized vases sitting on a window sill, unprotected, at the bottom of a staircase. Sure enough, a visitor fell down the stairs and smashed the entire collection to smithereens. He panicked, fled the scene, and hid out for 3 months until 25 cops busted down his door.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/1/781431.jpg)
Source: 5 Priceless Works of Art Destroyed by Unintentional Hilarity