Somewhere in the world — in a private collection, an attic, a safety deposit box, or perhaps sitting unrecognized on a dusty shelf — there may be a small, ornate jewelled object worth tens of millions of dollars whose owner has no idea what they possess. This is not a fantasy. It has already happened at least once. In 2014, a man in the American Midwest who had purchased a small gold egg at a flea market for approximately $14,000, intending to sell it for scrap metal, discovered that the object sitting on his kitchen counter was in fact the Third Imperial Faberge Egg of 1887, one of the legendary jewelled Easter eggs created by Peter Carl Faberge for the Russian royal family — an artifact valued at approximately $33 million. The egg had been bought at a junk market in the 1960s for about $500, sat in obscurity for half a century, and was nearly melted down for its gold content before its true identity was recognized. The Third Imperial Egg was one of 50 Imperial Easter eggs created by the House of Faberge for the Romanov dynasty between 1885 and 1916, each a masterpiece of goldsmithing, enameling, and mechanical ingenuity containing intricate surprises — tiny portraits, mechanical animals, working clocks, miniature replicas of imperial carriages and palaces. Of the 50 Imperial eggs, 43 are accounted for. The remaining seven are missing — lost during the chaos of the Russian Revolution, sold off by a desperate Soviet government, scattered across the globe through decades of private dealings, and possibly sitting unrecognized in collections whose owners have no inkling of the extraordinary treasures in their possession. The hunt for the lost Faberge eggs is one of the most romantic and potentially lucrative treasure hunts in history — a real-world quest for objects worth hundreds of millions of dollars combined that could be hiding in plain sight, much like the long-lost tomb of Cleopatra, the submerged ruins of Heracleion, or the undeciphered symbols of the Indus Valley script.

The story of the Faberge eggs begins with the Romanov dynasty, the imperial family that ruled Russia for over three centuries until their violent overthrow in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The tradition of Easter eggs as gifts was deeply rooted in Russian Orthodox culture, where eggs symbolize resurrection and new life. In 1885, Tsar Alexander III commissioned the House of Faberge, one of the most prestigious jewellery firms in Saint Petersburg, to create a special Easter egg as a gift for his wife, Tsarina Maria Fedorovna. The result was the Hen Egg — a seemingly simple white enamel egg that opened to reveal a gold yolk, which in turn contained a small gold hen with ruby eyes, which itself concealed a miniature imperial crown and a tiny ruby pendant. The Tsarina was enchanted, and Alexander III established a tradition that would endure for over thirty years: every Easter, the Tsar would commission a new Faberge egg, each one unique, each containing a surprise, and each representing the pinnacle of the goldsmith's art. After Alexander's death in 1894, his son Nicholas II continued the tradition with even greater extravagance, commissioning two eggs per year — one for his mother and one for his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna. Each egg took nearly a full year to create, involving a team of master craftsmen working in gold, silver, enamel, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and other precious materials.

The Masterpieces: Inside the Most Spectacular Eggs

The 50 Imperial Faberge eggs represent some of the finest examples of decorative art ever created — objects so intricate, so perfectly crafted, that they have been compared to the work of Renaissance goldsmiths and medieval reliquary makers. Each egg was unique in design, and the surprises they contained ranged from charming to breathtaking. The Trans-Siberian Railway Egg (1900), commissioned to commemorate the completion of the transcontinental railway, contained a working miniature gold locomotive with a platinum headlight and a ruby lantern that could be wound up and set running along a tiny track. The Coronation Egg (1897), created to commemorate Nicholas II's coronation, was made of gold and translucent yellow enamel and contained a precise miniature replica of the imperial coronation carriage, complete with working doors, moving wheels, and a tiny folding step — a model so detailed that it took craftsmen fifteen months to complete. The Winter Egg (1913), perhaps the most visually stunning of all the Imperial eggs, was carved from a single piece of quartz and decorated with over 1,300 diamonds set in platinum to resemble frost flowers; its surprise was a tiny basket of spring flowers carved from quartz and gold. The Winter Egg sold at Christie's auction in 2002 for $9.6 million, and again in 2025 for a staggering $30.2 million, making it one of the most expensive decorative objects ever sold.

The artistry of the Faberge eggs went far beyond their materials. Carl Faberge himself was famous for insisting that the eggs should be beautiful and surprising rather than merely expensive. The value lay not in the quantity of precious stones but in the ingenuity of the design and the perfection of the craftsmanship. The eggs incorporated mechanical marvels: tiny singing birds, spinning globes, miniature paintings on ivory, clockwork mechanisms, and photorealistic enamel portraits. The Lilies of the Valley Egg (1898) featured three tiny portraits of Nicholas II and his daughters that rose from the top of the egg when a pearl button was pressed. The Bay Tree Egg (1911) was disguised as a carved nephrite tree whose leaves concealed a singing mechanical bird that emerged from the top. Each egg was a demonstration of the House of Faberge's unrivalled technical mastery and its army of specialist craftsmen — enamelers, jewellers, goldsmiths, engravers, and miniaturists — who worked in conditions of strict secrecy to create surprises that would delight the imperial family.

The Revolution: How the Eggs Were Lost

The world of the Romanovs came to an abrupt and violent end in 1917. The February Revolution forced Nicholas II to abdicate, and the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. The imperial family was imprisoned and ultimately executed by firing squad in July 1918 in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The Faberge eggs, along with the rest of the imperial treasures, were confiscated by the Bolsheviks from the imperial palaces — the Winter Palace, the Anichkov Palace, and the Alexander Palace — and transported to the Kremlin Armory in Moscow for safekeeping. For a few years, the eggs sat in the Kremlin, catalogued but unused, while the new Soviet government struggled with civil war, economic collapse, and international isolation. The last Imperial egg, the Constellation Egg (1917), was never completed; it was found in the Faberge workshop in various stages of assembly, its surprise — believed to be a mechanical rotating globe — unfinished. The fate of the Constellation Egg remains uncertain, with some sources reporting it was later completed and others claiming it was destroyed or lost.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin made a fateful decision: it would sell off many of the imperial treasures, including the Faberge eggs, to raise foreign currency for industrial development. The sales were conducted through a network of intermediaries and dealers, most prominently Armand Hammer, an American businessman who had established commercial ties with the Soviet Union and who would later become famous as the head of Occidental Petroleum. Hammer and other dealers purchased Faberge eggs from the Soviet government at what were, by any standard, bargain prices, and resold them to wealthy collectors in the United States and Europe. The sales were conducted with little documentation, and the provenance of many eggs was obscured or lost in the process. Some eggs passed through multiple owners in rapid succession, disappearing into private collections where they remained unseen for decades. The combination of the chaotic confiscation during the revolution, the secretive Soviet sales, and the passage of decades through private hands created the perfect conditions for objects to be lost, misidentified, or forgotten.

The Seven Missing Eggs

Of the 50 Imperial Faberge eggs, seven remain unaccounted for as of 2026. These are the eggs whose current whereabouts are unknown and whose fates are uncertain. They are: the Hen with Sapphire Pendant (1886), the Cherub with Chariot (1888), the Necessaire (1889), the Empire Nephrite (1902), the Royal Danish (1903), the Alexander III Commemorative (1909), and the Constellation (1917). Some of these eggs may have been destroyed during the revolution or in the decades since. Others may be in private collections whose owners are unaware of their significance — as was the case with the Third Imperial Egg before its rediscovery in 2014. The Necessaire Egg (1889), an elaborate egg containing a set of miniature gold and enamel toiletry instruments, was last seen in 1952 at a London dealer's shop and has not been seen since. The Alexander III Commemorative Egg (1909), which contained a gold bust of the late tsar, disappeared after being confiscated by the Bolsheviks and has never surfaced on the art market. The possibility that one or more of these eggs might be sitting unrecognized in a private collection — or even in a thrift shop or flea market — is what keeps the Faberge treasure hunt alive.

The Flea Market Discovery: The Third Imperial Egg

The story of the Third Imperial Egg's rediscovery is the most dramatic chapter in the modern Faberge saga — and the strongest evidence that the missing eggs might still be found. In the 1960s, someone purchased a small gold egg at a junk market in the United States for approximately $500. The buyer had no idea what the object was; it was simply an attractive gold trinket that seemed worth the price. The egg sat in the buyer's possession for years, eventually passing to a family member. Decades later, in approximately 2012, a man — described only as a resident of the American Midwest — purchased the egg from the estate for about $14,000, intending to sell it for its scrap gold value at a modest profit. He contacted several buyers, but the scrap value of the gold was less than he had paid. Disappointed, he set the egg aside.

One evening, the man was browsing the internet and came across an article about the missing Faberge eggs. He noticed that one of the eggs described — the Third Imperial Egg of 1887 — bore a striking resemblance to the gold egg sitting on his kitchen counter. He began researching, comparing his egg to photographs and descriptions of the missing artifact, and grew increasingly convinced that he might have something extraordinary. He contacted Kieran McCarthy, a director of Wartski, the renowned London-based Faberge dealers that has been handling Imperial eggs since the early twentieth century. McCarthy flew to the United States to examine the egg in person. Upon seeing it, he immediately recognized it as the Third Imperial Egg — an 18-karat gold egg in the Louis XVI style, resting on gold legs with lion-paw feet, decorated with sapphires and diamonds, and containing its original surprise: a Vacheron and Constantin lady's watch with a white enamel dial. The authentication was confirmed, and Wartski purchased the egg on behalf of an unidentified private collector. The man who had nearly melted it down for scrap gold was now the owner of an object worth an estimated $33 million. The rediscovery of the Third Imperial Egg was announced publicly in March 2014 and became one of the most widely covered art stories of the decade — a real-life fairy tale that suggested the remaining missing eggs might also be hiding in plain sight.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Faberge eggs are missing?

Of the 50 Imperial Easter eggs created by the House of Faberge for the Romanov dynasty between 1885 and 1916, seven remain unaccounted for. The missing eggs are: the Hen with Sapphire Pendant (1886), Cherub with Chariot (1888), Necessaire (1889), Empire Nephrite (1902), Royal Danish (1903), Alexander III Commemorative (1909), and Constellation (1917). Some may have been destroyed during the Russian Revolution; others may exist unrecognized in private collections. The Third Imperial Egg (1887) was itself considered lost until its rediscovery in 2014, which gives hope that the remaining seven might still be found.

Who created the Faberge eggs?

The Faberge eggs were created by the House of Faberge, a prestigious jewellery firm based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the supervision of Peter Carl Faberge (1846-1920). Faberge did not personally craft the eggs — he led a team of master workmasters and specialist craftsmen, including goldsmiths, enamelers, jewellers, and miniaturists, each of whom contributed to the creation of individual eggs. The most famous workmasters included Michael Perkhin, August Holmstrom, and Henrik Wigstrom. Each egg took nearly a full year to complete, with Faberge overseeing the design and the workmasters executing the fabrication. The House of Faberge also created eggs for wealthy private clients, including the Kelch family, the Nobel family, and the Rothschild family, but these non-Imperial eggs are generally less valuable and less famous than the 50 Imperial eggs.

What is the most expensive Faberge egg ever sold?

The most expensive Faberge egg sold at auction is the Rothschild Egg, which sold at Christie's in 2007 for $18.5 million. The Rothschild Egg was not an Imperial egg but was created for the Rothschild family in 1902 and features a clock and a mechanical cockerel that emerges to flap its wings and crow every hour. The Winter Egg (1913) sold at Christie's in 2002 for $9.6 million and was later sold again in 2025 for a remarkable $30.2 million. The Third Imperial Egg (1887), rediscovered in 2014 after being purchased at a flea market for $14,000, was valued at approximately $33 million. The largest single Faberge transaction was the 2004 sale of 9 Imperial eggs from the Forbes collection to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg for a reported $90 to $120 million.

Where are the Faberge eggs today?

The 43 surviving Imperial Faberge eggs are distributed among institutions and private collectors worldwide. The Kremlin Armory in Moscow has the largest institutional collection with 10 Imperial eggs. The Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg (opened 2013) displays 9 Imperial eggs owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, purchased from the Forbes collection in 2004. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, owns 5 Imperial eggs. The Royal Collection of the United Kingdom (formerly owned by Queen Elizabeth II) holds 3 Faberge eggs. The remaining eggs are in private collections, other museums, or the collections of other royal families. The eggs are occasionally lent to museums for special exhibitions, and several have passed through major auction houses including Christie's and Sotheby's over the decades.

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