15 Unbelievable Thrift Store Finds That Turned Out to Be Worth a Fortune

We often donate items that we consider to be of little or no value. Though it may be of no use to us, someone else might be in need of it. If you visit a thrift shop every now and then, you will most likely be familiar with some of the weird and wacky stuff they have there. Surprisingly, some of the items that end up in Goodwill or other resale shops, are worth far more than we could imagine. There are several people from around the world that managed to find valuable treasures among all the trash. Just like the old saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. The following 15 lucky individuals came across the most incredible and unbelievable findings. Not only did they manage to find them but they were also able to make a fortune out of them. Here are the stories of people who managed to find hidden gems from thrift stores.

1. Zach Norris – 1959 Jaeger-Lecoultre Watch: $35,000

While going through a Goodwill store in Phoenix, Arizona in search of a golf pull cart, Zach Norris found quite the thrift store treasure. Though Norris collects watches, he wasn’t there for one that day, As he was browsing through the watch section, a rare 1959 Jaeger-LeCoultre diving watch with a tag that read $5.99 caught his attention. He said,

“I didn’t even want to give it to her to scan, I was like, you can scan it in my hand if you want to. I just didn’t want to let it go.”

Norris bagged the deal for $5.99 and went home with his valuable treasure. His lucky find ended up in Hodinkee.com, a watch collector’s website. There, a collector in San Francisco made an offer to buy it for $35,000, along with a $4,000 Mega Speed Master watch (to sweeten the deal). Norris sold the watch and used the fortune to plan his wedding; which he and his fiancé had been trying to save up for.

2. Chinese Libation Cup: $75,640

In 2013, a man shopping at a local thrift store in Sydney came across a weirdly carved cup. Since it was only 4 Australian dollars, he decided to purchase it. After returning home, he snapped a picture and sent it to a specialist at Sotheby’s, who suggested that what he had wasn’t an ordinary cup. It actually turned out to be a real 17th century Chinese “libation cup”; which was carved from a rhinoceros horn. The man soon put his lucky find for auction and sold it for a staggering 75,640 Australian dollars.

3. A Priceless Painting Titled “Vertical Diamond”: $34,375

In 2012, Beth Feedback was unemployed and had nothing to do, so she decided to walk into a North Carolina Goodwill in search of a blanket. As she was wandering around the store, an oil canvas caught her attention. Since it was on sale for $9.99, she couldn’t resist purchasing it. According to Beth, after a while, one of her friends suggested that she research an artist named Ilya Bolotowsky. Beth was surprised to find out that the $9.99 oil canvas was in fact created by Ilya Bolotowsky, titled “Vertical Diamond”. At an auction, the sale took place for a staggering $34,375.

4. A Necklace From a Flea Market That Turned Out To Be An Alexander Calder Necklace: $267,750

A Philadelphia woman’s life changed after shopping at a flea market. Norma Ifill was shopping at the flea market when she came across a bold piece of jewelry that she just couldn’t pass up. She loved it so much that she often wore it for special functions and received tons of compliments on her jewelry. Three years after her initial purchase, she visited the Philadelphia Art Museum where she discovered that the original Alexander Calder jewelry looked similar to her flea market purchase. Norma Ifill contacted the Calder Foundation in New York and confirmed that her piece was real. In September 2013, the necklace was put up for auction at Christie’s, First Open Sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art. It was recorded that the necklace sold for a staggering $267,750.

5. The Declaration of Independence: $477,650

How lucky do you have to be to find an original copy of the Declaration of Independence? A young man named Michael Sparks was browsing in a Nashville, TN thrift store in 2006, when he came across a document that had no price tag on it. Sparks reached out to the store employee who estimated the price to be $2.48, plus tax. The document was in fact a rare original Dunlap broadside, one of 500 official copies from the first printing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. In 2007, an auction at the Raynors’ Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina earned him $477,650.