Being a treasure hunter of the highest order, I was among the very first to receive word – via treasure-y chatrooms – of UK’er Ken Wilman’s finding of an odd-looking, smelly chunk of amber-colored gunk that had washed up on his home beach at Lancashire. For the record, Ken’s bulbous beachcombing oddity was technically found by Ken’s bulldog. In the treasure realm, we like to keep such things perfectly straight.

Despite being put-off, at first, by the oddity’s off-smell, his pup’s abiding interest in the “stupid thing” caused Ken…