Derrington!

One time in junior high Mike Derrington hoodwinked me into trading my Scottie Pippen and Patrick Ewing rookie cards for a bunch of nobody baseball players. Eighteen years later I can easily recall the exact moment when Mike looked me square in the eye, smiled, and confessed to ripping me off. How can it still feel like yesterday? Jerk.

Just kidding, sort of.

I was out thirty bucks. Comparatively, Ganz is out roughly $149.99 million dollars. Please read on…

TORONTO – Mona Lisa has something new to smile about.

A portrait of a young woman thought to be created by a 19th century German artist and sold two years ago for about $19,000 is now being attributed by art experts to Leonardo da Vinci and valued at more than $150 million.

The unsigned chalk, ink and pencil drawing, known as "La Bella Principessa," was matched to Leonardo via a technique more suited to a crime lab than an art studio — a fingerprint and palm print found on the 13 1/2-inch-by-10-inch work.

Peter Paul Biro, a Montreal-based forensic art expert, said the print of an index or middle finger matched a fingerprint found on Leonardo's "St. Jerome" in the Vatican. Technical, stylistic and material composition evidence — including carbon dating — had art experts believing as early as last year that they had found another work by the creator of the "Mona Lisa."

Canadian-born art collector Peter Silverman bought "La Bella Principessa" — or "The Beautiful Princess" — at the gallery in New York on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector in 2007 for about $19,000. New York art dealer Kate Ganz had owned it for about nine years after buying it at auction for a similar price.

One London art dealer now says it could be worth more than $150 million. If experts are correct, it will be the first major work by Leonardo to be identified in 100 years.
Ganz still doesn't believe it is a Leonardo.

"Nothing that I have seen or read in the past two years has changed my mind. I do not believe that this drawing is by Leonardo da Vinci," Ganz told the AP on Wednesday. She declined to comment further.

Silverman said he didn't expect Ganz to acknowledge it's a Leonardo because that would damage her credibility, adding that if she wants to "go against science and say the Earth is not round," then that's her prerogative. (Full Story)

Crazy! How much you wanna bet Ganz remembers this one for awhile?