From rust to riches: Japanese “treasure creator” restores tools that have rusted beyond hope

What would you do if you found your old tools in a rusted condition? Many people would throw them away if they were rusted beyond hope.

But where some people see trash, YouTuber and self-professed treasure hunter and "treasure creator" ちょっくん Chokkun (@anatenales) sees opportunities. In addition to searching for discarded objects that potentially have value on his main channel, he has an even more popular subchannel focusing on "creating" treasure. In other words, he has mastered the craft of restoring rusted old items and brings them back to life so that they can be used again.

For example, here's an old haircutting set that has rusted away. Of course, you can't cut your hair with them in this condition, unless you want to hurt yourself and possibly invite a staph infection.

Leave it to the "treasure creator" to work his magic:

Before restoration, some of the tools in the set didn't work at all, but after a thorough cleaning , polishing, and sharpening of the blades, they are back and good as new!

And to prove the point, the video even shows someone getting a nice haircut with them. The fact that they not only restored the set but also created missing parts is amazing.

They even restored a completely rusted and encrusted Zippo lighter they picked up at the beach.

All the paint was stripped and the inside was replaced with a new lighter insert.

Even the smallest parts were thoroughly polished, and the lighter was reborn as shiny and new as if it had just been unboxed.

The video received a lot of praise from overseas, with comments such as, "The high level of restoration techniques is amazing," "This must have been decades old" and "This guy fixes things you'd think were impossible to fix."

Chokkun even restores things like this: