Typically, when a husband and wife encounter vomit, they’re far from excited – but when said vomit comes from a whale, making it worth up to $70,000 (£50,000) due to its rarity and desirability as an ingredient in perfumes (that’s a different story entirely).
According to The Guardian and the International Business Times, Lancashire natives Gary and Angela Williams were walking along Middleton Sands beach when they picked up the pungent scent of rotting fish. Rather than turning around and heading for more pleasant-smelling pastures, they chose to follow the odor and found a grey-colored lump about the size of a rugby ball.
They had read about whale vomit, also known as ambergris, in their local newspaper and decided to wrap the object up in a scarf and take it home. Perfume makers use ambergris in their products to try to make scents last longer, but the substance is very rare, and thus can be quite valuable. In this case, the 1.57 kg lump found by the couple could net them well over $70,000.
“It was a bit of a shock,” Gary Williams told the Daily Mirror. “It was down a section of the beach where no one really walks. It smells bad though. It’s a very distinctive smell, like a cross between squid and farmyard manure. It feels like a rock hard rubber ball. Its texture is like wax, like a candle. When you touch it you get wax sticking to your fingers.”
‘Floating gold’ lives up to its name
He and his wife are said to be negotiating with potential buyers in France and New Zealand, and he said that if they are able to earn a considerable sum of money by selling the ambergris, that it would “go a long way towards buying us a static caravan. It would be a dream come true.”
This isn’t the first lump of whale vomit found in the region, according to the Guardian. In 2013, a 2.7 kg piece was found on the shore in Morecambe Bay, not far from where the Williams family was walking. It was valued at close to $170,000 (£120,000). A 1.1 kg chunk of ambergris found in Wales sold for more than $15,500 (£11,000) during an auction in September 2015.
Also known as “floating gold,” ambergris is secreted in a sperm whale’s bile duct and intestines, and is believed to make it easier for the creatures to pass hard and sharp objects they consume by accident. Once a whale vomit, the ejected materials float around the ocean for several years, and ultimately harden into a smooth, grey-colored lump due to exposure to the salt water.
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Image credit: SWNS
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