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(#1) A Retired Truck Driver Bought A Jackson Pollack Painting As A Joke
Jackson Pollack toiled in obscurity for years until he found fame as an artist and is now considered one of the most important painters of the past 100 years. His art has been valued as high as $140 million but one of his paintings ended up in a thrift store. That's where Teri Horton found what she called an ugly painting and paid $5 for it as a gag to cheer up a friend of hers. But buying the painting was just the beginning of Horton's journey.
After she showed it to her friend, Horton didn't have anywhere to put the painting and tried to sell it in a yard sale. A local art professor saw the work and told her she might have a priceless Jackson Pollack painting. Horton spent many years trying to convince the art world, who dismissed her in part because she has an eighth grade education and drove a big rig before retiring, but eventually forensic evidence proved that the piece was authentic. The art world is still dismissing Horton's find, but she isn't giving up and believes the work is worth as much as $50 million.
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(#2) A Copy Of The Declaration Of Independence Sold For $2.48
The Declaration of Independence is one of the most important historical documents ever produced. Though anyone can see a picture of it or read its text at the click of a mouse, finding a copy of the actual document is more of a challenge.
Despite that, Michael Sparks found a copy of the document in a thrift store in Nashville and bought it for $2.48. The copy he found was actually created in 1823 at the order of then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Sparks later sold the document for $477,650.
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(#3) A Rare Photo Of Billy The Kid Was Found In A Thrift Store And Sold For $5 Million
The name Billy the Kid conjures images of quiet dusty streets in the Wild West being shaken to life by the outlaw and his band charging through to rob a bank. Despite being immortalized in books and films about his life, however, photographs of him are rare - in fact, there are only two known to exist.
The second was discovered in a thrift store by Randy Guijarro, who paid $2.00 for it. The photo he found sold for $5 million after it was authenticated by forensics experts. It shows Billy the Kid, his gang, the Regulators, and their wives and girlfriends, playing croquet after a wedding.
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(#4) A Man Stumbled Upon A Childhood Sketch By Andy Warhol
Perhaps it says something about modern art that so much of it seems to end up in thrift stores, but that's a discussion for the art critics. Andy Fields sure is glad that a sketch by artist Andy Warhol ended up in a thrift shop and was even happier to find out that it was extremely valuable. Warhol was one of the most well-known artists of the 20th century, and the sketch that Fields found shows the seeds of what would become his famous style. The piece was made when the artist was only 10 or 11 years old, and was made in pencil and graphite.
Fields put the piece on eBay, hoping to get more than $2 million for it.
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(#5) A Retiree Had A Hunch About A Half-Million Dollar Handbag
A 73-year-old retired man named John Richard found a $30 handbag in a UK thrift shop that turned out to be worth $500,000. Richard purchased the bag because he liked the print of Elvis that festooned it. He took the bag to a Philip Treacy shop in London to determine if it was indeed designed by the famous hat designer and it was authenticated.
The clerk at the shop said that the bag, which features an Andy Warhol print of the King of Rock n' Roll, was really a work of art, with only 10 produced in the entire world.
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(#6) A Man Found A $35,000 Watch And Used The Money To Pay For His Wedding
People go to thrift stores for all kinds of reasons. For one thing, a secret treasure may be found among the old shoes and used softball jerseys. Zach Norris went to a shop in Phoenix, Arizona, looking for a golf cart and left with an antique watch worth $35,000. He paid $5.99 for the timepiece that turned out to be a 1959 Jaeger-Lecoultre diving watch.
Rather than keeping the watch, Norris planned to sell it to help pay for his wedding.
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(#7) A Couple Snagged A Ratty Old Sweater That Once Belonged To Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi and football go together like rain and wetness, the two are inseparable. Lombardi transcended the game and become something of an iconoclast whose name evokes ideas of leadership and motivation. Sean and Rikki McEvoy bought a holey old sweater for $.58 at a Goodwill outlet and promptly forgot about it.
That is, until Sean was watching a documentary about Lombardi, recognized the sweater as one that the coach was wearing in the film, and had it appraised. Ultimately the garment sold for $43,020 at auction.
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(#8) A $50 Painting Was Really Worth $190,000
A man in South Carolina found a painting that he liked so much, he paid the unthrifty sum of $50 for it in a Goodwill store. The 81-year-old man, who wanted to go by Leroy in interviews, thought it might really be worth a few hundred bucks. His daughter-in-law had other ideas and brought it to a taping of Antiques Roadshow, where she was told it may be worth $20,000-$30,000.
Luckily for him, both appraisals were much less than the painting was really worth. It turns out that the artwork is a Flemish painting created sometime around 1650 and sold in an auction for $190,000.
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(#9) A Student Found An Expensive Surprise In A Thrifted Couch
It is usually not a good thing when an unexpected item is discovered in a couch bought from a thrift store. One student in Germany, though, was sure happy to find a small 17th-century painting in a second-hand couch he bought for $215.
The surprise turned out to be an antique painting by the artist Carlo Saraceni called Preparation to Escape to Egypt. The painting will pay for a lot of textbooks, as it sold for $27,630 in an auction.
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(#10) An Ancient Egyptian Cat Statue Was Found In A Yard Sale Trash Can
Thrifty people often visit yard sales in an effort to find inexpensive delights. One shopper found a cat statue in a trash can that turned out to be worth $80,000. The unassuming cat sculpture turned out to be a relic from ancient Egypt estimated to be over 2,500 years old.
Officials from the auction house that sold the artwork believe that the piece was commissioned by a high figure in the Egyptian ruling dynasty between 500 and 700 BC.
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(#11) A Piece Of Used Tableware Was Worth Millions
Thrift stores, garage sales, and rummage shops are great places to find previously used plates, bowls, and glassware. One family in New York bought a bowl for $3.00 in a thrift shop and put it on their mantle as decoration. It turned out to be an ornamental bowl from China, only the second bowl of its kind in the world.
Luckily, the family brought it to a Sotheby’s auction house where it was appraised for between $200,000 and $300,000. Even that turned out to be too modest, though, as the bowl finally sold in auction for a price of $2.2 million.
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About This Tool
Some boutique thrift stores sparked heated discussions on social media. The point of the debate is that the selling prices of many thrift stores are considered expensive. Thrift store merchants, especially those selling imported goods, must undertake a long-term historical and cultural mission. Looking back in history, thrift stores are actually resistant to fast fashion consumption, and many people are keen to find some valuable collectibles there.
The thrift store era began in the late 19th century. The city developed rapidly. In the largest wave of immigration in the United States, people tried to find new uses for these old fashion items. The random tool displays 11 valuable historical objects that were found in thrift stores.
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