Throwback Thursday: Hong Kong fisherman nets USD129 million piece of wood

By Matthew Bossons, April 23, 2015

Throwback Thursday is when we dig through the That's archives for a work of extraordinary genius (or in this case a bizarre story) written at some point in our past. We then republish it - on a Thursday.

For this week's Throwback Thursday, we take you to Hong Kong where in February 2014 a fisherman netted a very peculiar catch - agalwood.

What is agalwood you ask? It is a soft heartwood of an evergreen tree of the genus Aquilaria native to southeastern Asia. The wood's pores are infused with a fragrant resin used mainly to produce incense, perfumes and traditional medicines.

Jennifer Gampell, a Bangkok-based author, wrote in the New York Times, "With prices for noncultivated agarwood [alternative name] rising to $10,000 a kilo, few shopkeepers welcome mere browsers."

A Hong Kong fisherman netted a huge piece of agalwood Thursday which may be worth as much as RMB780 million (USD129 million / 1 billion HKD), Sing Tao Daily reports.

The man, surnamed Kwok, has been fishing for almost 50 years. At first, he considered catching the wood on his first day of work in the lunar new year an omen of bad luck, figuring it was just a worthless piece of dead wood. However, to his surprise, he found the wood gave out a special fragrance and an unusual amber fluid came out when he cut into its surface.

Kwok then conducted some research, during which he found that all the wood's unique features corresponded with a certain kind of agalwood (also called 'agarwood' and 'agalloch'), a substance known as the "diamond of plants" which can worth hundreds of times the price of gold.

An agalwood expert who examined the wood said the 2.8-metre piece could net its new owner as much as RMB780 million.

Kwok said he plans to contact a lawyer and a notary to help with a further appraisal. "If the wood turns out to be true agalwood, I will sell it out and donate part of the profit to charity." Kwok said.

// This article first appeared online in February 2014. For more Throwback Thursdays click here.