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Vase woman buys for $3.99 at Virginia thrift shop sells for more than $100,000

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/17/goodwill-vase-murano-carlo-scarpa

Jessica Vincent, who bought the rare item at a Goodwill, said: ‘I had a sense that it might be a $1,000 or $2,000 piece’

Vase woman buys for $3.99 at Virginia thrift shop sells for more than $100,000

A woman who bought a glass vase for $3.99 at a local Goodwill charity shop has seen the piece auctioned off for more than $100,000 after it turned out to be a rare and valuable piece of Italian glassware.

Jessica Vincent had bought the item at a Goodwill thrift store in Hanover county, Virginia, and had an inkling that it might have been worth a little more than was usual, she told the New York Times.

“I had a sense that it might be a $1,000 or $2,000 piece, but I had no clue how good it actually was until I did a little bit more research,” she told the paper after noticing a small ‘M’ on its bottom which she suspected might stand for Murano, an Italian island near Venice famed for glasswork.

33 comments

badbytes

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Well, I would expect someone called "Vase Women" to know a thing or two bout them.

jopepa

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Choked to death. I wish lemmy or one of the apps had a follow feature for moments like this; keep up the good work.

marker2002

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jopepa

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Thanks is it on iOS?

Drusas

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That's pretty ugly for something worth $100,000.

jopepa

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Photos alway look 5% compared seeing glasswork. Could be valued for the techniques, materials, the art’s story, or even someone’s favorite kind of ugly.

If I paid $50 at a flea market for it I’d eventually feel like i got ripped off, so I see what you mean.

Drusas

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I assume the value is based on its history and popularity of the original artist. I still don't think it's anything special.

jopepa

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I bet I could sell you one for $60

ikidd

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Art auctions are just a money laundering front.

Dyskolos

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Phht. Amateurs. I'll buy a vase for 100 grand only to later discover it's true worth of 3,99.

jopepa

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It might be, they just might not have 100k to spare for a vase.

Dyskolos

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Nonsense, who hasn't got some hundred grands to throw away? That's just what vases cost, right?

sanimalp

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I.. uh.. have a vase for sale.. If you're interested.

Dyskolos

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Hmmm... I sense dishonesty. Are you sure it's a worthless low quality vase and your price will be exaggerated and obscensely high? 🤔 Like nowadays popular fashion-brands?

OldWoodFrame

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This makes me think of the gold shoes that a thrift store recognized and sold for $20k. I'd much rather that money go to the shop than that lady.

modcolocko

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Thrift stores in America are usually corporate and not for charity. Or, they pretend to be charities (but aren't)

Goodwill is fucking evil.

robocall

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Forgive my ignorance, why is goodwill evil?

modcolocko

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There's a lot that I could say, but it simply boils down to them always favoring their corporate and ceo's interests over their charitable ones.

Their ceo (and branch ceo's) make obscene amounts of money.

Theres also that case and probably even more about an autistic woman being paid like less than 25c an hour.

Probably "evil" isn't the right word, but they absolutely do not have "good-will"

Classy

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I can't look at their advertising without finding the company gross and exploitative. Every single ad is filled with people with developmental disabilities and it has this imagery of "Look at us, if it weren't for Goodwill these people would be nowhere". It comes off like they're using these people as mascots and it weirds me out.

On top of that, their prices are garbage anymore. Might as well buy them all new! My local thrift store is so much better.

Fredselfish

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Exactly they advertise how great they are by hiring disabled people. Which fools the boomers. But in reality they hire them because law says they can legally pay them way below minimum wage.

Also keep in mind everything they sell was 100% given to them by donations. So they make butt loads while exploiting labor.

Dozzi92

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I looked at their 2022 990 and their CEO made 600k, which for an organization doing $61m in business is on the very low end. I see 3.5m to 13 paid employees of Goodwill.

There are ICs associated and I'm not interested in delving into that right now, but I don't have any information available right now to say the CEO of Goodwill is making a buttload.

Paying an autistic employee peanuts is deplorable, but hopefully a one-off by some CEO wannabe/neverbe who thinks he knows how to do business.

I'm all about calling out "charitable" organizations, but the first thing I do is check their 990. And I'll be completely honest, this may just be one branch of Goodwill's larger umbrella, but it's probably a decent example with 61m in revenue. I'm sitting in a cabana at Kalahari while my two year old eats a bar so I'm phoning it in, literally.

skulkingaround

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The optics of paying disabled people shit wages is not good, but consider that those workers are otherwise unemployable. Goodwill is probably still losing money on a lot of them even with the super low wage.

If you force a higher wage, goodwill is simply going to replace them with abled people who can do the job much more efficiently and reliably.

The idea is that people under these circumstances should already be fully supported by disability pay (yes I know disability pay is broken right now, I'm talking about ideally here) or a guardian or caregiver, and their goodwill job is something for them to do to help with socialization, practice doing hands on tasks, and getting some pocket money.

If disabled people are struggling to make ends meet because they make $4/hr at goodwill, that's a failure of our society at taking care of a less abled person, not goodwill. Nobody whose only option is to work at goodwill due to disability should need to be working at all. I'm not a Marxist but some level of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" isn't a bad thing.

I do have other bones to pick with goodwill, but I'm pretty neutral on the disabled workers thing.

Dozzi92

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Yeah, I mentioned in a comment below but I agree with what you say. And as far as I'm aware, if you qualify for this less-than-minimum wage, you're also entitled to a number of other safety nets. People who are mentally and physically able to work presumably wouldn't be getting paid this rate; folks who have some mental or physical impairment that prevents them from working (and at the same time entitled them to disability, amongst other things), would.

So yeah, lots of words saying I agree.

Fredselfish

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I know for a fact they pay them 2 bucks an hour they brag about it at the training facility.

Dozzi92

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Yeah, I mean, they're not breaking a law to do so, but I think we all agree that isn't necessarily a high bar. But the law was put in place, initially, to get disabled WW1 vets back into jobs. The alternative, I suppose, is these folks don't get hired. I don't like the alternative, but I don't like seeing them get paid less either. It's the middle ground.

foggianism

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It reminded me of the guy who bought a golden egg thinking it would be worth to melt it and sell the gold. Luckily, he found out he had in his posession a long lost Faberge Egg that is worth many times over its weight in gold.

totallynotarobot

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Are you...somehow unaware of how appallingly vile Goodwill is???

Suavevillain

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Thrifting W. I haven't been thrift shopping but I do want to go try it.

Graphy

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Honestly thrifting sucks hard these days.

I went to one of those goodwills that bring out totes of items and you buy things by the pound. There was at least 15 people just waiting like little gremlins waiting for the next tote to come out.

Definitely had a feeling they were all there to resell

JeeBaiChow

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Serious question: how is this pricing model different from speculative value as it applies to real estate or stocks?

Rinox

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I mean, the price of anything luxury is just stupid, and you should be aware you are always getting scammed (which is why they want to sell you "luxury" apartments or whatever. It's the same as a normal apartment, but costs twice as much).

As for, in this case, it's just happenstance. I don't think she finds designer art at goodwill as her job. Also, I don't care if there's speculation on art pieces, as long as we start closing tax break loopholes connected to art pieces.

The speculation on homes is a much more egregious problem, as nobody needs an Italian designer vase, but everyone needs a home.

Chainweasel

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Because someone actually paid the $100,000+, it's no longer speculation when someone has already given the money for it. "it sold for X" is very different from "it could sell for X, to the right buyer"

FadoraNinja

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Potentially, the labor and skill involved in the production. While speculation does play a part, so does the rarity, difficulty of production, & skill needed in the creation of the art. You may argue whether that justifies the price, but at least there is labor and material evidence, while stocks and property don't necessarily need any real evidence of value to be valued, especially in our current economic climate.

BoiLudens

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Never undervalue yourselves y’all