Woman discovers rare painting at Goodwill for just $2.99
That's exactly what happened to one Miami Valley woman when she bought a painting at a local thrift store.
Little did she know: It was much more than she bargained for.
'I love to go thrifting,' says Dayton photographer Marissa Alcorn. 'I thrift for the stuff for my studio mostly. Or my house – my house is 90% thrifted.'
Deals and steals for a fraction of the price. She says that was her goal one night in mid-January.
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'My fiancé Arron and I had just got done with dinner he convinced me to go to a Goodwill store,' she says. 'We did a lap around the store and didn't find anything and I was, like, 'see, I didn't find anything, I told you I didn't want to be here,' and this lady brought a cart out right before we were about to leave and I saw the corner of the frame.'
She thought it was an 'awful painting.' But for $2.99, she thought 'why not?'
That is until she got into her car and noticed something.
'It had a little plaque at the bottom of the frame,' Alcorn recalls. 'Out of curiosity, I type in the name and find out it was Johann Berthelsen.'
An American impressionist painter whose pieces hang in art galleries all over the country, Berthelsen's works go can for as little as $1,000 to upwards of $35,000.
'My first thought was: This isn't real,' she says. 'It's probably just a fake.'
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So she posted it on Facebook in a free art appraisal group, and the photos quickly took off. Many people advised her to get it authenticated.
She found an auction house in Cincinnati that quickly accepted the painting.
'While it was listed in this auction – people were pre bidding on it – so it started out at like $600 and on auction day it made its way up to $1,500,' she says. 'It lasted like approximately 30 seconds and it was like a bidding war it was like and then it settled on $2,300.
'I couldn't believe it. I was sweating, I was nervous, and I was, like, even if it goes for $1,500, I'll be happy.
'We paid $2.99 for it.'
A moment Alcorn says she will never forget.
'I think it's probably a once in a lifetime thing,' she says. 'I don't think I'll ever find something like that again, but you never know.'
Alcorn says she and her fiancé Arron recently got engaged so the money will go towards their wedding.
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