Thrift Store Finds That Made People Insanely Rich!

[Music] often people will expect that in order to find valuable treasures a pirate map is a good place to start yet there's another way to discover riches than getting scurvy every so often people will wander through thrift stores flea markets and yard sales they'll spend a small amount on a strange item only to find out later they're sitting on an absolute fortune today we're going to look at these incredible instances will examine pricy artifacts literature history and other such amazing objects ones that generated thousands if not millions for the people that discover them so let's get started it's not every day that a person stumbles across a missing piece of history during the 2000s an unnamed scrap dealer purchased a golden egg at a us flea market he paid $14 for it within the golden egg there was a lady's watch with a white enamel dial and openwork diamond set gold hands he had plans to melt the item down and sell the material for a profit for a few hundred dollars it's a good thing he didn't he instead kept the item for a few years yet in 2012 he was curious the man looked online for any information about the prized find he found an article by the Telegraph that spoke about the origins of his egg as it turns out he was the owner of a missing prized Faberge egg from Russia that was made for royalty it was made by the house of fabergé his head jeweler Auguste Holmstrom in either 1886 or 1887 over the years it somehow left Moscow and ended up in a random Midwestern market in 2014 the egg was sold at auction to an undisclosed buyer for an undisclosed amount however the estimation of the eggs value was 33 million dollars in 2008 a school in England was throwing out a load of old tatty books due to an upcoming inspection some of these books were books from the Harry Potter franchise yet a teacher hated seeing books being discarded so she took them from the skip and held on to them for 12 years one day her and her son saw a television program about first edition Harry Potter books being sold for thousands they immediately investigated their books one of them was a rare hardback first edition of the Philosopher's Stone only 500 of these versions were printed in 1997 they got in touch with a specialist and were given an estimated value of $15,000 in May of 2020 the first edition was sold at auction $41,000 they also sold their other recovered Harry Potter books to paperback first editions of the Philosopher's Stone went for four thousand two hundred and three thousand seven hundred dollars first edition copies of chamber of secrets and the Prisoner of Azkaban made four hundred and forty four dollars altogether giving them nearly fifty thousand not bad for a chance discovery in a skip one day during 2010 Randy gwee Haro was visiting an antique store in California there was a box of old photos the store was looking to sell quickly one of the photos particularly caught qui har Ozai he recognized one of the people photographed he bought three images for two dollars he then took the special photo and examined it closely with a microscope his suspicions were right this was one of only two photos in existence of the famous outlaw Billy the Kid otherwise known as Henry McCarty the image was taken in New Mexico around 1878 making it the earliest image of Billy it shows the outlaw and the gang playing croquet the suspicion is that the gang were attending a wedding in the image Billy the Kid is standing in a very similar pose to his famous 1880 portrait however we Haro had to get the image authenticated by professionals it took five long years of knock backs but finally in 2015 we Haro got his answer it definitely was Billy due to the incredible rarity of one of the most infamous people in the West the photo is worth five million dollars teri Horton wanted to cheer up her friend in 1992 so she went to a California thrift store and spotted a massive colorful abstract painting she found the perfect gift she paid $5.00 for it however when she arrived at her friend's trailer it was too big to fit through the door so Horton took it home she later tried to sell it at a yard sale yet an art teacher recognized the style they suggested it could be a painting by famed abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock however Horton's painting was lacking a signature from Pollock after years of research investigation and fingerprint analysis it was confirmed to be Pollock's work a similar painting from Pollock number 5 1948 was sold for 140 million dollars in 2006 in that same year horton starred in a documentary about her five-dollar discovery she had received offers for the painting for two and nine million but she turned them down she wanted fifty million sadly Horton never got to enjoy any riches in 2019 she passed away she instructed her son to sell the painting but not to give it away during the 1980s in London an unnamed woman was looking through a car boot sale she spotted an extravagant ring since it was only twelve dollars she bought it believing it to be costume jewelry she thought the massive diamond on the ring was fake oh how wrong she was one day decades later she took the ring into a jeweler as she suspected it was real after the jeweler suspected the ring it was sent off for examination the Gemological Institution of America then took a look at the suspicious stone it turned out that the diamond was very much real in fact it was a 26 carat diamond it's believed to have been cut in the 19th century the value of which was estimated to be four hundred and thirty two thousand dollars the ring was nicknamed the tenor ring due to the amount the ten pounds the woman paid for it originally the unnamed woman wore it for decades in her day to day life without realizing its true worth in 2017 the Magnificent ring was taken to auction it was sold for eight hundred and eleven thousand dollars nearly double its estimation the Nintendo Gameboy was first released in 1989 from there it changed the video game market forever it was a regular item in all gamers Arsenal throughout the 90s with games such as Zelda Tetris and pokemons being favorites the price at the time was around $90 nearly one hundred and nineteen million units were sold worldwide used versions of the console can go for around thirty to fifty dollars today however the real price comes with an unopened sealed box of the Game Boy they can go for thousands of dollars for the original console with special edition variations bringing in a much higher value one person on eBay is currently attempting to sell their special version that has Tetris included for nearly 20 grand you could find a fortune in your attic since you're in your attic you might be lucky to come across another valuable item teri Diebold was looking through a box of objects belonging to former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Olaf olafsson Diebold found a very rare prototype console for the Nintendo PlayStation he turned down an offer a million dollars hoping to get more at auction it was sold at auction in March of 2020 for three hundred and sixty thousand in 2013 an unnamed man was looking for bargains in a thrift shop in Australia he came across an unusual cup he spent three American dollars on it once he got home he started to do some research on what it was he got in touch with an antique expert the cup turned out to be a libation cup made in China during the 17th century it was made from the horn of a rhinoceros these cups were used for drinking during important ceremonial occasions as a result it's a highly valued item amongst collectors of Chinese antiques despite having a large chip the estimated value of the cup was between 13 to 20 USD in 2010 a similar cup was sold in the UK after being found in an attic it had been lying in the attic for 25 years it was sold at auction for ninety nine thousand dollars feeling lucky the Australian man decided to take his cup to auction as well in the end it was sold for 75 Australian dollars which is around 50 American dollars more than double its estimated value in 1965 the world saw the release of the newest James Bond film Thunderball in it we see bond whilst underwater use a special watch with a Geiger counter inside it all to locate the villains disastrous weapons and save the day well in 2011 an unidentified man was looking through a car boot sale in the UK he spotted a strapless watch that looked very familiar he paid thirty one dollars for the unusual timepiece as it turned out it was the prop used by Sean Connery in Thunderball it had been missing from Pinewood Studios since the release of Thunderball its whereabouts were unknown until now that is but watch was made in 1962 by the manufacturer break link it's part of their top time model of watches it was then modified by the prop Department on Thunderball it was the only one created for the film which of course increased it's worth the highest estimation on its value was 74 thousand dollars in 2013 it was put up for auction and it was sold for one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars making it a prized possession in a Bond fans film memorabilia during 2007 a family in New York we're looking through items in a yard sale they spotted a ceramic bowl and handed over $3 from there it was displayed in their living room for a number of years it lay there undisturbed however curiosity got the better of the family they wanted to know its origins so they had the item assessed by experts as it turns out the bowl wasn't just any old Bowl it was a rare ding Bowl from the Song Dynasty period in China particularly in the northern part of the country making their living room bowl around 1000 years old original estimates on its value were between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars at the time items like the ding Bowl were incredibly popular amongst Chinese art collectors in 2013 the ding Bowl was put up for auction online after a battle between four bidders the bowl was finally won by art dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi he spent an incredible 2.2 million dollars on the 5 inch diameter Bowl turning the New York family into multimillionaires in an instant all the way back in 2010 antique bed restorer Ian Coulson found a dismantled bed frame for sale on an online auction it was listed as 19th century Gothic Revival the bed had been removed by builders from the red land house hotel in Chester England as the hotel was undergoing renovation Colson splashed out $2,700 he had a suspicion that there was more to the frame than meets the eye after a lot of research and examination the bed turned out to be very important it was the bed frame belonging to King Henry the seventh also known as Henry Tudor it's believed that the bed was used by the king and his wife Elizabeth of York between 1486 and 1495 due to its historical significance the bed frame is worth an astounding 25 million dollars the frame has since been displayed in numerous museums it's not the only time royalty has been found in the strangest of places in the UK in Leicester in 2012 the skeletal remains of King Richard the third were found underneath a carpark he was slain during the War of the Roses the other side was led by King Henry the seventh and that's it have you ever found a fortune by accident write your story in the comments below if you enjoyed the video please like share and subscribe all of those actions really helped us out finally thanks for joining us today we'll see you next time

Channel: TheRichest

Views: 64,374

Rating: 4.88729 out of 5

Keywords: Worth Millions, Valuable Items, First Edition, rare, worth a fortune, lottery, most expensinve paintings, most expensive video games, thrift stores, yard sale finds, millions, the richest

Id: OGfvz2TAUyM

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 07 2020