10 rare items found in thrift stores

Is it possible to buy a painting that costs almost 200 thousand dollars for next to nothing at a flea market or second-hand store? Or a document that will then go under the hammer for more than two million? Yes!

This does not mean that you need to go to a second-hand store today. For some reason, almost always exclusively Americans are lucky. And even then very rarely.

1. In 2012, artist Beth Feebeck bought a pair of paintings at a thrift store for $9.99. Later, her attentive friend discovered the signature of abstract artist Ilya Bolotovsky on one of them. At Sotheby's the painting was sold for $34,375.

2. Unlike Beth Feeback, Zach Norris deliberately hunted for valuables at garage sales, flea markets and second-hand stores. In the end, he got lucky: he found a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch in Phoenix, bought it for less than six dollars and gladly sold it on one of the sites for 35 thousand.

3. Spouses Sean and Ricky McAvoy bought an old sweater at a thrift store in Asheville, which, as it turned out, belonged to American football player and coach Vince Lombardi. At auction they sold it for 43 thousand 20 dollars.

4. A strange bowl bought at a consignment shop in Sydney for four Australian dollars was sold at Sotheby's for $75,640. Experts established that it was a 17th-century Chinese cup made from rhinoceros horn.

5. The Breitling Top Time watch was specially made by the Swiss company for the film Thunderball with Sean Connery. According to the plot, British intelligence specialists built a Geiger counter into this watch so that Bond could detect two NATO atomic bombs stolen by terrorists. According to the owner, who sold the watch at Christie's in July 2013, he bought it at a flea market for £25.

6. An 81-year-old retiree from Massachusetts bought a painting for three dollars in 2006, about which he knew only one thing: it was very old. A year later, his resourceful daughter went to antique dealers, who valued the find at 20-30 thousand dollars. In the end, the painting by an unknown Flemish master of the 17th century was sold at auction for 190 thousand.

7. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an American woman saw the work of sculptor Alexander Calder, which reminded her of a necklace she had bought three years earlier at a flea market. In September 2013, she sold the necklace for $267,750.

8. Two Americans were lucky with the Declaration of Independence. More precisely, with its copies. Nashville, Tennessee sound engineer Michael Sparks discovered a copy of the document among old items at a thrift store and sold it at Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions for $477,650.

9. A Philadelphia resident bought a painting at a flea market in 1989 and found a copy of the 1776 Declaration of Independence between the canvas and frame. In 1991, he sold it at Sotheby's to Donald Scheer for $2.4 million. In 2000, the enterprising Scheer put it up at the same auction and sold it for 8 million.

10. A metal dealer bought a certain item at the market for 14 thousand dollars and intended to sell it for fifteen thousand. Luckily, he did some Googling and found a description of his discovery in The Telegraph. The found egg is one of the first creations of Faberge: Alexander III gave this egg to his wife Maria Feodorovna for Easter in 1887. The relic was sold to a private collector for $33 million.