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It's every thrifter's dream to find a hidden treasure while walking the aisles of your favorite secondhand shop (personally, I always hope to find expensive wall art). And while few people ever get to see that dream turn into a reality, one teen is riding high after scoring the ultimate find at his local thrift store.
Now his story is going viral after he sold the item at auction, earning $90,000 in the process. Trust me, this is going to change the way that you approach shopping at these secondhand stores.
A Teen's $3.07 Goodwill Find Turned Into a Major Payday
According to a TikTok clip from CBS News, a 19-year-old named Quinn Brown from Oregon stumbled upon a spectacular find while looking through the clothes on sale at his local Goodwill shop: a yellow basketball warm-up jacket priced at just $3.07. Brown brought the jacket home, but says he didn't really realize that he had inadvertently purchased Wilt Chamberlain's vintage warm-up jacket until he was sitting in his room.
"I was in my room and I looked at the measurements of the jacket," he told the reporter. "Well, Chamberlain being 7-foot-1, the jacket measured 33 inches long, so it would have gone down almost to my knees."
Brown then posted about his find online, which is when Sotheby's got involved, reaching out to the Oregon thrifter to help him get the jacket authenticated, and later put it up for sale, where it went to the highest bidder for nearly $90,000.
People Couldn't Believe the Jacket Ended Up at Goodwill
Speculation ran rampant in the comments, with people sharing their theories on everything from how Goodwill felt about the sale to how the jacket ended up at the store in the first place.
"You know Goodwill hates they fumbled that," one person wrote.
"I wonder if a collector died and their kids didn’t know what they had," another person added.
Related: Thrifted Placemat Transforms Into the Prettiest Vase
This Isn't the First Windfall for Casual Thrifters
While many people have made a living by digging through people's castaways and reselling them for huge profits, it's usually the casual thrifters who do it for fun who end up scoring the biggest.
Take, for example, the occupational therapist who found an expensive painting while visiting her local thrift store. She appeared on Antiques Roadshow, where she explained that she thrifted to relax after her high-stress job. But instead of finding stress relief, she found a painting that experts said could be sold for anywhere between $60,000 and $80,000! Her price? Just $15.99.
It just goes to show you that there are treasures to be found all over the place, but only some of us are lucky enough to find these truly amazing items that are actually worth a life changing amount of money.
