Photos bought for £30 now valued at £128m

An American who bought a set of photographic plates for £30 from a garage sale over a decade ago has been told they could be worth £128m.

Rick Norsigian had snapped up the 65 glass negatives at a sale in California and had even bartered the seller down from the initial asking price.

But soon after the purchase he began to suspect they could have been taken by rated US nature photographer Ansel Adams and tried to get then authenticated.

So began a verification process involving hand-writing analysis, meteorology for evidence of weather at the time Adams took his famed landscapes, and consultations with equipment specialists.

Now the images have been confirmed as genuine Ansel Adams works and valued at £128m Norsigian is one very happy shopper -- we just hope whoever sold them to him doesn't read this.