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Rare art, original comics, prized love letters, vintage newspapers, fancy jewelry — home contractors are used to finding odd treasures behind walls and under floors.

But in mid-February, Alif Babul and his brand new employee Dean Materi noticed something extra unusual amid a dusty pile of rubble while ripping apart a Calgary home’s bathroom.

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It was Materi’s second day working with Babul as a plumbing apprentice, a job he found after he was laid off from a gig in the crane industry in November.

“I seen a gold shimmery thing on the ground and I thought it was a copper light fixture,” Materi said. “But when I went to shovel it up, it seemed kind of heavy. I picked it up and it was a gold brick.”

Materi inspected the cellphone-sized one kilogram gold bar imprinted with a serial number and the stamp of a well-known jeweller.

Babul, the owner and operator of home improvement company Perfection Plumbing & Gas Ltd., couldn’t believe his eyes.