iStockphoto / dbdurden
One lucky thrifter in Virginia hit the literal jackpot when she purchased a vase at a Goodwill in Richmond, Virginia and six months later sold the prized Carlo Scarpa vase at auction for $107,000.
Jessica Vincent’s story has gone viral with folks everywhere intrigued by the idea of turning $4 into $107K.
She spoke with Elle Decor and told them how it all came about. Vincent said “I saw that it was a solid piece of glass and that it was heavy, not junk.” She added “I’m not a glass expert, but once I saw the Murano marking, I knew I wanted to buy it. When we got to the checkout, it was $3.99—I had been prepared to pay $8 or $9 for it, so I was super excited at the price.”
Wright Auctions was in charge of handling the sale at auction. They put together this video on Instagram of how this incredible vase came to be found and sold:
This vase was billed as “one of the rarest works of Italian Glass” to be auctioned off by Wright Auctions in “more than a decade.” The vase itself was designed 81 years ago back in 1942. The artist, Carlo Scarpa, passed away back in 1978. For a lost piece of his art to turn up like this after decades is almost unheard of.
This piece is named “Pennellate” which means “brush strokes” in Italian and it was part of a series for the Venini glass workshop in Italy.
After getting the Carlo Scarpa vase home from Goodwill, Jessica Vincent inspected it and took note of the word ‘Murano’ on the bottom of the vase. She then took to Facebook where she posted a picture of the vase in a FB Group and that helped her to identify it.
At that point, someone came forward with an offer of $10,000 but she must’ve realized what she had and instead opted to reach out to the Wright Auction House. Flash forward to last week and the $3.99 vase from Goodwill was auctioned off for over a hundred thousand dollars.
That’s the American dream right there. Selling Italian masterpieces at auction after they were bought for cents at a thrift shop.