10 Thrift Store Finds That Made People Rich

[Music] thrift stores and garage sales are a great way to recycle materials and save a few dollars in the process most of us are happy just to get a discount on clothes and knickknacks but in rare cases everyday people can find extraordinary items at a thrift store that all but guarantee their retirement from diamonds to ancient artifacts and fine art we are counting down 10 thrift store finds that made people rich our first fine came to a lucky Pennsylvanian woman with expensive tastes according to Bloomberg Philadelphia resident norman Eiffel was pursuing a flea market eight years ago when she stumbled upon a sleek silver necklace and paid $10 for it having no clue that 60 years before it hung in the Museum of Modern Art I thought it looks so tribal Eiffel told Bloomberg award about four or five times max and every time I wore it people always admired it I can't believe I had to call their necklace all this time and had no idea it wasn't until three years later when Eiffel visited an Alexander Calder jewellery exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Museum that she realized her prized piece of costume jewelry could be a bona fide artwork after speaking with the exhibition's curator Eiffel took the necklace to the Calder Foundation in New York where it's status as the genuine Calder was confirmed known for his kinetic art works Calder designed over a thousand pieces of jewelry throughout his career in fact eiffel learned that the very same necklace she purchased was on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1943 you can find a full-size Calder mobile on the market for between twenty and forty thousand dollars but this necklace ended up scoring Eiffel three hundred thousand dollars at auction which means a 267 thousand dollar profit after taxes and fees not bad for a secondhand necklace in June 2015 a man found a golden egg at a yard sale and paid fourteen thousand dollars for it this might seem like a hefty sum but the man was intending to melt the egg down and sell it as scrap metal the man who hails from the Midwest but wishes to remain anonymous have been left financially stretched after he apparently overestimated what the tiny golden egg would be worth once melted down he'd been hoping to make five hundred dollars in a fit of desperation one night last year he typed egg in the name engraved on the clock it contained batch run Constantine into Google his search brought up a 2011 article in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper describing a frantic search for the object the third Imperial Easter egg made by Faberge for the Russian royal family and estimated to be worth thirty three million dollars far from being a financial burden that the man had imagined it appeared the golden egg might live up to its fairytale namesake and avoid the firmest with just a few scratches the man contacted Faberge expert Kieran McCarthy and flew to London to visit McCarthy's workplace after a tense exchange with the expert it was revealed that the Midwest man indeed had his hands on the third Imperial eggy McCarthy said the man had overestimated the value of the eggs materials which were worth about what he paid for it but underestimated its value as a work of art in the end the egg was returned to the royal family for an unbelievable 33 million dollars this was a wise gamble for the Midwestern man teri Horton insists she's not greedy and just wants a fair price for her five-dollar thrift shop find that some believe is an original Jackson Pollock painting it's been more than 25 years since the Costa Mesa resident Pot the 66 by 48 inch abstract painting that caused a stir in the art world horton who drove a big rig for 20 years retired in 1987 after a trucking accident she took up hunting for bargain treasures sometimes rummaging in trash bins for objects that stores had discarded like a genuine Ebell watch worth more than $2,000 I can't stand to see stuff thrown away if people can use it she said during one of her thrift shop sprees in 1992 horton bought the five dollar painting as a gift to help cheer up a friend since it wouldn't fit through the front door for friends trailer Horton ended up trying to sell it at a yard sale a local art teacher came by and suggested the painting could be an original buy Pollock a late American abstract expressionist known for his drip and splash style horton not having a clue who Pollock was began researching her son helped her hire Paul by Ralph afrien art specialists from Canada thus began her quest to authenticate and sell the painting the forensic expert using triple fingerprint recognition analysis of paint splatters from Pollock studio and a side-by-side comparison to the painter's work number five 1948 concluded that the painting was real number five 1948 by the way sold for 140 million dollars in 2006 once Wharton discovered this she has been unwilling to bargain with the art world she declined two million from a dealer and later nine million from a Saudi art collector though the work is still unsold it stands to make her a multimillionaire when she finally decides to sell [Music] a Filipino fisherman in western Palawan Island has owned the world's biggest pearl for decades but he never knew its value for the last ten years the 75 pound pearl was hidden in a bag under his bed the fisherman's family would rub it with their hands before going out to sea in the belief it would bring them luck said relative ileena morale the man then gave his pearl to a security officer for safekeeping while he moved into a new house the Pearl was sitting on a bench in her home for weeks until she found time to check the internet and she was shocked to learn that it could be the world's biggest at 67 centimeters long and 30 centimetres wide it's been estimated to be worth more than 100 million dollars the fisherman his father and brothers found the irregular-shaped pearl inside a giant clam that stuck to their boats anchor when they sought refuge from a squall on a reef on morale sad the fishermen did not want to be identified she said she said that she the fisherman and his family decided to turn over the pearl to the city mayor who had it displayed in the glass case in puerto princesa city hall to attract tourists the fishermen will receive a still unspecified reward from the local government Omarosa adding that he never intended to sell it it's hard to imagine walking away from that kind of payday but it's clear that the pearl had a huge personal significance to the fisherman Rick Norse Indian kept two boxes he bought at a garage sale under his pool table for four years before realizing they may be too valuable to store at home the Fresno California commercial painter learned that what was in those boxes he paid $45 for a decade ago could be worth more than two hundred million dollars when I heard that 200 million dollars I got a little weak horse ideon said art forensic handwriting and weather experts teamed up to conclude the 65 glass plates in the boxes where photographic negatives created more than 80 years ago by Ansel Adams the iconic American photographer whose images of the West inspired the country most Adams prints range between 4000 to $70,000 and Norse Aegean had access to dozens of negatives with which he could make countless more prints Adams historians had believed the negatives were destroyed in a darkroom fire in 1937 according to another historian neurosurgeon consulted Patrick Gault Adams taught a class in Pasadena in the early 1940s and may have brought the glass negatives along as a teaching tool how they ended up in a warehouse however is still unknown in June a single Adams print clearing winter storm Yosemite National Park sold for seven hundred twenty two thousand five hundred dollars setting a new auction record for an Adams print though he is yet to sell the prints for City and stands to make a boatload of money it's not every day you can plop down two bucks in luck away with some junk that's worth a fortune but that's what happened when a collector purchased an old-timey photo from a Fresno California antique shop it turns out the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid is in the photo apparently taking part in a leisurely game of croquet the image could be worth up to five million dollars Cajuns incorporated a Numis mastix firm announced it had authenticated the photo earlier this month the four inch by five inch tin type shows Billy the Kid in the summer of 1878 it may have been taken at a wedding and he's alongside several members of his gang through regulators according to the firm in a statement Cajon senior numismatist David McCarthy said it took more than a year of careful inspection before the firm would confirm the photos authenticity the only other known photo of the outlaw was taken in 1880 in Fort Sumner New Mexico that photo a 2 inch by 3 inch tintype pulled in 2.3 million in 2010 according to Cajuns Billy the Kid whose real name may have been Henry McCarty has remained part of American frontier folklore for generations he was a famous thief and gunfighter who was captured and sentenced to death but escaped prison after killing two guards legend has it that he killed 21 men one for each year of his life however according to the New Mexico tourism department the number was actually 9 for that he was solely responsible for including the two guards and five he helped dispatch regardless of his criminal past this Billy the Kid photo is sure to make someone rich a rare 180 four year old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2 $0.48 purchase price Michael sparks a music equipment technician is selling the document in an auction March 22nd a trainers historical collectible auctions in Burlington North Carolina the opening bid is for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and appraisers have estimated it could sell from nearly twice that sparks found his bargain last March while browsing at a Music City thrift shop in Nashville when he asked the price on a yellow chillax rolled-up document the clerk marked it at two dollars and 48 cents it turned out to be an official copy of the Declaration of Independence one of 200 commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820 the standard price was altered significantly a year later when sparks sold the document to a Utah investment firm for four hundred seventy seven thousand six hundred fifty dollars causing a national stir he didn't know he had such a valuable piece until doing some online research and then having appraisers a trainers offer an opinion clearly it pays to do your research a small painting bought at an auction and kept in a cupboard for years has been revealed as an original by British painter John Constable worth an estimated 250,000 pounds for $400,000 the postcard sized painting bought for 30 pounds in the British city of Canterbury around a decade ago depicts a landscape by the 19th century artist and has been described as a lost item by the man who uncovered its origins antiques dealer and forgeries expert Curtis Dowling told Reuters he and his team spent about nine months studying the painting after the owner Rob Darville asked for their help Darvill father who bought the painting suspecting it may be an original because of a faint signature on the back had given him the painting as he was clearing his house it's a fairly standard stock sort of constable painting it's quite interesting in that it's small which you don't see that often it's something we've never seen before it's really actually been quite a lost item Dowling said constable born in Suffolk is famous for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale now known as constable country his most famous work the hay Wain painted in 1821 now features on millions of prints hanging on walls around the world a sweater bought last year for fifty eight cents at a Goodwill store sold in an auction in New York City for forty three thousand twenty dollars that sweater with West Point on the front and the word Lombardi written in black ink on a cotton swab sewn inside turned out to be owned and worn by Vince Lombardi when he coached from 1949 to 1953 a representative with heritage auctions which auctioned off the sweater said the buyer wish to remain anonymous other highlights of the auction include a pair of gloves used by Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston in their second fight which took place in May 1965 they sold for nine hundred fifty six thousand dollars the historic Lombardi sweater worn by the Gregg coach was bought in June 2014 in Asheville North Carolina by Sean and Ricky McEvoy of Knoxville Texas they sell vintage clothes online I picked it up and thought it was cool said McEvoy at first I thought it was a basketball warmup as is the case with Goodwill outlets the sweater was weight for cost and McEvoy got changed for one dollar I didn't see the Lombardi tag when we walked out with it or I might have made a connection McEvoy said my wife saw it but she didn't know who that could be then while watching a Lombardi documentary the couple had an epiphany and decided to get the item appraised they were startled when the sweater sold for just south of fifty grand it was truly a diamond in the rough some 30 years ago a woman in West London uncovered a gaudy giant ring at a yard that piqued her fancy thinking it was costume jewelry she picked up the piece for a measly 10 pounds now that same gem is being auctioned off by southeast London in July for nearly half a million dollars it's expected to go for somewhere around a whopping 350,000 pounds to be exact it turns out that the dusty gem which the owner assumed was a fake and wore regularly in her daily life about town for decades he's actually a giant 26 carat cushion shaped white diamond from the 19th century giving it that eye watering price the antique shape and older style of cutting has disguised it's true brilliance for all those years so next time you find a cheap piece of jewelry at the thrift store be sure to do your homework

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Keywords: thrift store, garage sell, lucky finds, thrift shop, treasure, expensive, discovery, yard sale, accidental millionaires, luckiest discoveries, millons, sale, thrift store finds, garage sale finds, luckiest, antiques, lucky people, Faberge Egg, made people rich, sold for millions, top 10, viral, new

Id: 13GYCbG7JIY

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 08 2018