Originally published at: Woman finds rare Picasso plates at thrift store, cashes in | Boing Boing
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Hell yeah thrift shop!
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We didn’t find them in a thrift store, but years ago we were given a set of Ligne Roset TOGO lounge furniture. We put them through years of pretty heavy use including compressing the sofa with ratchet straps and taking it to the drive-in numerous times. One day the tag fell off of one and I decided to look them up. Even in miserable condition they were worth loads of money. We finally sold the set for $4000 to help make the down payment on our new house!
I really miss them, actually.
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That’s so cool. 
Edit: This reminded me of a tale for Antiques Roadshow, where the experts were asked about the thing they most regretted not buying when they had the chance. One of the experts told of being in a flea market in New York and seeing and an original Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman is very good condition.
The expert was flying out of the country later that day, and so passed up the chance to snap up the iconic piece of furniture.
When the expert returned to the UK they mentioned this missed opportunity, and their friend, pointed out that the chair comes apart, could be packed in to a large suitcase and flown across the ocean for the cost of some excess luggage. Even with the cost of the chair from the market stall, plus a suitable suitcase, plus the excess, it would still have been cheaper than buying a modern one.
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If you drop them and glue them back together funny they’re worth more, right?
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I do my part at increasing the rarity of estate junk. Whenever I have to clean out a relative’s home after they pass, we have a rule for “rare collections”: if you say out loud to somebody else “don’t throw that rare collection of Three Wolves Christmas Plates, it’s worth something”, then you have to take it home and try to sell it yourself. Amazing how much of that “valuable” treasure ends up in the dumpster.
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Man, the coolest thing I’ve ever found while thrift hunting was this 70’s Tori Richard shirt a couple weeks ago.
Nowhere near as good a find as those plates, but… still pretty cool.
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Agreed. That’s one way of dealing with 'em. On the other hand one could weld two of them together…
Oh, man, I’m losing it 
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We found an unmarked box of electronic music equipment someone had left up front as a donation. We asked the proprietor for a cost for the whole box, “Meh, 20 bucks.” It was filled with guitar pedals and effects racks. One of the pedals turned out to be a vintage Univox Superfuzz, giant red case with a huge blue pedal, still worth about $1,000, and the best distortion effect I have played ever. And more…
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Those are really beautiful. If you see something beautiful, which speaks to you, listen to what it’s saying!
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Those are wonderful, although I might have tried to keep them all together as a set and sold them as one. Surely someone would have appreciated having the full set. (insert “That belongs in a museum!” vibes here)
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My partner suggested she might also think about an anonymous donation to the Salvation Army, after all, they are selling the stuff to help people…
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Yeah, it’s hard for an amateur to sell stuff. I have, for example, books that are “rare” or “collectable” and you won’t see copies of online for less than hundreds. Nobody would buy them off a nobody though. Only chance you have is an incredibly steep discount off the professional sellers’ price. And it would be one of them buying it and popping it onto ABE for the normal price straight away
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Ridiculously sellable these days. I gave a few away a while back to a kid starting guitar - they cost me fifty quid for the lot - and a colleague was going “are you mad?” They were “worth” hundreds each on Reverb…
No regrets for me though.
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Helping kids isn’t about the money 
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I wonder how much it would be to restore them now though…
just to know how they are made… 
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I have a relative who has two stores in new york never mind anywhere else…
that’s sold carpets to heads of state…
never mind second though
Ah, the Spanish Pottery Wars, those were the days!
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That’s beautiful.
Ah, the Spanish Pottery Wars, those were the days!
Is that a thing? Because if not, that’s now a story idea in my list.
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