As the old saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Last week, one woman’s thrift shop vase became her bounty when a Chicago auction house sold it for more than $100,000.
While shopping at a Goodwill store in Hanover County, Virginia, in June, Jessica Vincent noticed a large glass vase with red and green spirals on it. She didn’t think much of it at first, but when she looked closer and realized the glass was iridescent, she knew she had to have it. She bought it for a paltry $3.99.
After doing some research, she eventually discovered the vase was a work of art and sold it through a Chicago auction house for $107,100. According to the Associated Press, she’ll receive about $83,500 from the purchase, while the auction house will get about $23,600.
She plans to use the money to renovate her 1930s farmhouse outside Lynchburg, Virginia.
“I just feel so blessed,” Vincent said. “It’s like winning the lottery to me.”
Vincent first realized how valuable the piece was when she posted on a Facebook page dedicated to Italian glass. Group members told her to contact Richard Wright, the owner and founder of the Wright auction house at 1440 W. Hubbard St. in West Town.
Wright has worked with Italian glass for 30 years.
Wright said he received an email from Vincent and immediately asked to call her to get the backstory on the piece. It turned out that the vase was made of Murano glass and was designed by Carlo Scarpa, a Venetian architect who became well-known for using saturated color in glasswork. Scarpa glass is the most prized glass of the mid-20th century, he said.
“There are entire books on just Scarpa glass,” he said. “The Metropolitan Museum in New York did an exhibition on Carlo Scarpa glass. So, he’s really the top of this movement.”
Wright said the piece, had it been chipped, would have been worth less than $10,000 and may not have even sold. The fact that this extremely rare piece is in pristine condition was something like a miracle, Wright said.
“He’s the top glass producer in the world at that point, and it falls all the way down to Goodwill and then doesn’t get broken, doesn’t get scratched,” he said. “Nothing happens to it. Jessica just pops in and buys it on the shelf where other people were milling about.”
