Charlie Naysmith, 8, was strolling with his dad along the beach in New Zealand when he stumbled on what he thought was a funny-looking rock. The rock was quite compelling, thanks to its surprisingly light weight and faint waxy texture, so young Charlie decided to take it home.
As it turns out, the weird rock was actually not a rock at all, but an incredibly rare substance called ambergris, which is, essentially, a very valuable piece of whale poop. Charlie’s 1.3-pound piece of ambergris is estimated to be worth somewhere around $65,000-$80,000.
Why so expensive?
In truth, ambergris is “poop.” But it’s very rare poop. Creating a chunk of ambergris requires “layers of feaces piled on top of another,” says Kemp, and “only one percent of the 350,000 sperm whales can actually make it.” Ambergris is essentially made out of a fatty substance that protects a whale’s intestines when they feast on hard substances. Occasionally, sperm whales dump out hundreds of pounds of the stuff at a time. From there, ambergris has to float around in the ocean for decades, where it has to harden to become valuable.
The irony is that it’s used in the high-end fragrance industry. Ambergris was the main ingredient in a super-expensive, 200-year-old perfume originally made by Marie Antoinette. And today, perfume companies like Chanel and Lanvin use it to fix scent to human skin. Just a few tiny pieces of it can go for thousands of dollars, earning it the nickname “floating gold.”
Lord have mercy, dem dey use shit produce perfume, no be small tin ooo.
Manny the long lost MDB’er
Wow, I hope to find bigger size of it too.