Illinois Man’s $5 Thrift Store Buy Really Worth 1000 Times More

Sure, it would be a much better tale if it had happened to you or me, but I have to admit to a real fondness for stories about people grabbing up an item of some sort at a thrift store or estate sale, only to discover later that it's far more valuable than the purchase price would indicate.

A small-dollar purchase at a thrift store, garage sale, or an estate auction that turns out to be a big-money windfall is literally the stuff that dreams are made of, like buying a winning lottery ticket. And it seemingly happens all the time:

• In 2014, a couple looking through bins at Goodwill bought what looked like a vintage West Point sweater that kind of resembled a warm-up jacket. They paid next to nothing for it, but it turns out that the sweater had belonged to Vince Lombardi when he was an assistant coach at West Point. They sold the sweater to a collector for $43,020.
• In 2006, a guy was browsing through the Music City Thrift Shop in Nashville, Tennessee when he grabbed up what he thought was a cheap, old, yellow copy of the Declaration Of Independence that he thought looked cool for $2.48. The copy was actually from 1823, one of only 200 produced, and the man eventually sold it at auction for $477,650.

So, An Illinois Man Walks Into A Goodwill Store In Evanston...

That does sound like the beginning of a joke, although we are missing 2-3 members of the clergy walking in with him, which would then make it an official joke--but you can't have everything.

Anyhow, the man, John Carcerano, stopped into the Evanston Goodwill location last October, and was looking at some plates that were on display when he spotted something underneath some of the other plates.

Newsweek.com:

"The plate was underneath a modern plate and three other people were digging on the cart with me," he recalled. "When everybody walked away from the cart, including me after we went through it, in the corner of my eye I noticed the plate was underneath a modern one."

"Sometimes it takes some digging, but I did a Google Lens search and found one that had sold exactly like it for $4,400 and I knew within five minutes that I had something valuable. Only two of these have ever sold in the last 50 years of auction history."

Mr. Carcerano's $5 Thrift Store Purchase Hits The Auction Block In June

According to ElAdelantado.com, the buyer asked some of the world's most well-known and respected auction houses to take a look at what he'd found, and they weren't disappointed.

A Sotheby’s specialist described the plate in an email as a “Chinese export armorial chamfered rectangular platter” from the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, dating back to around 1755. Measuring 14 inches long, it features the coat of arms of Mendes Da Costa and is estimated to be worth between $4,000 and $6,000.