There's little people love more than bargain shopping.
Saving sometimes hundreds of dollars on clothes, household items, or souvenirs by purchasing them at a thrift store or flea market as opposed to ordering them online or at the mall.
Sometimes, people might have found something that they'd been looking to find for some time, the sentimental value far exceeding the price.
Other times, people might not have realized just how big a bargain they got, discovering what they purchased was worth considerably more than the price they paid.
Redditor Hgrammer was eager to hear about valuable purchases people made at a considerable discount, leading them to ask:
"What is the best 'treasure' you’ve ever found at a thrift store, garage sale, flea market etc?"
No Forgeries To Be Found
"I found a painting at a garage sale I thought was beautiful but no idea of what it was but it just struck me."
"Paid $15 and it came in a gorgeous frame."
"Got it home and did some research through art people in our area."
"Found out it's worth almost $4K."
"Great score."- Any-Establishment113
Nothing More Priceless Than A Great Memory
"A Corningware pan for $3 in the same pattern my mom had when I was a kid."- everylastlight
Some Impulse Purchases Are Worth It
"My greatest regret in life is not buying the taxidermy frogs playing basketball with one doing a slam dunk."
"I regret not buying it nearly every time I go to the thrift shop, hoping I'll see it again."
"Truly heartbreaking."- Gurren_Logout
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Talk About Vintage!
"At a small thrift store, I found A floor-length, black velvet - real velvet, not velveteen - vintage Oscar de la Renta gown in perfect condition and miraculously in my size for $10."
"And as if that wasn't enough, a few minutes later found a brand-new pair of Yves Saint Laurent black satin pumps with original tags ($400) for a measly $2!"
"I wasn't a designer glam gal and had no reason to own these as I had no need for them."
"I socialized in a much lower tax bracket."
"Two weeks later, I was hired at a job that required me to host a celebrity-packed fundraising gala where these thrift store finds served me very well."- Pennandink
Coincidence Or Fate?
"My family went to the county fair, and my youngest son took along his favorite little toy."
"A stuffed duck with 'feet' where he put his fingers and 'walked along' on things, making happy quacking noises."
"As is tradition, toys brought on outings get lost."
"He was sad, but at least it wasn’t his favorite lovey (a stuffed sea otter)."
"A YEAR later we stopped at a thrift store to look for school clothes."
"And he found the same toy hanging up."
"So, of course, it came home with us."
"Open opening the baggie he found his initials on the tag on the toy."
"Where I had put them a couple of years ago:"
"It was the same toy."- cbelt3
Talk About Charitable!
"I paid $1 for a box of books; one was: 'A Child’s History of the Confederacy', by D. H. Hill."
"I graduated from NC State, and our library was the D.H. Hill Library."
"I took the book to the library the next time I was in Raleigh and asked if they were interested in acquiring it."
"The Director of Acquisitions asked what I wanted for it."
"I said I was happy to donate it; just send me a contribution receipt."
"A few weeks later, I got a nice letter thanking me for my contribution of $1,000!"- Oldpotter2
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Dreams Really Do Come True
"A brand new, high-quality suede coat for twenty bucks."
"What made it a real treasure is that it's somehow my dream jacket, the one I've designed a hundred times in my head and thought I'd never have because leather goods are so expensive."
"It's the exact shade, weight, and shape that I pictured a thousand times, but it's also a design that isn't common for leather jackets."
"I always figured to get one cut like that that fit me so well, I'd probably have to order it custom."
"I'd dreamed of that jacket long enough that I even knew it would cost me about $600 to have one made."
"But then one day, I was picking up some work pants at the thrift store, and it was right there."
"I wasn't even looking at the coats, but someone had pulled it out and draped it over the rack."
"Not two months prior, my car had been stolen with both my jackets inside, so I didn't have a coat at all and wasn't sure how I'd be able to afford to buy one when it got cold again."
"I have worn that coat every day, from September to May, ever since."
"It's one of my most prized possessions."- pokey1984
When Stainless Steel Shines Like Gold!
"Waiting for my wife while she spent her usual hour in a Value Village."
"I looked up at a top shelf, and there were several knife blocks with the usual well-abused cheap knives, but one had two stainless handles sticking up that I recognized."
"Paid $7.99 CAD for the whole shebang."
"Grabbed the Global GS Nakiri and GS Santoku out of the pack and dropped the rest in a donation bin on the way out to the car."
"Combined total of about $220 CAD in value."- Longjumping_Local910
Paying It Forward Will Always Pay Off
"I was a broke single mom trying to furnish my first apartment."
"I went to a garage sale and saw an almost brand-new recliner."
"I was admiring it knowing I couldn't afford it, just doing a little daydreaming."
"The woman holding the sale came over and asked if I liked it. I told her, of course, I loved it, but as I was a broke single mom, that wasn't happening."
"I thanked her for the daydream and turned to go."
"She asked me to wait and went inside to get her adult son."
"She told me that she would sell it to me for $1."
"I knew she could make some money, so I declined, as I knew that wasn't fair to her."
"She then told me that she was in the middle of a divorce, and he got half of everything she made at the sale."
"I left there with a recliner, a kitchen table, and a bookshelf, and I spent $3."
"Was the divorce story true?"
"Or was she just helping me out?"
"Don't know, but I've made sure to always help others once I was in a better spot."- tsundoku2sensei
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We May Grow Up, But The Child Inside Us Never Leaves
"I remember not wanting to go to a church flea market when I was like five."
"Came back with a massive 'Star Wars' haul."
"Dozens of 'Return of the Jedi' figures."
"The brown hover car from New Hope."
"Icing on the cake was a broken millennium falcon that I played with daily."
"Six-year-old me was super happy."- Fruscione
To Be Admired, But Never Read...
"A 110 year old copy of Little Women for $4.00."- baby-lou
A Gift That Literally Keeps On Giving
"I bought an unused 6 quart KitchenAid mixer with all the attachments at a garage sale for $20 (retails for $400)."
"I then gave it to my sister as an early birthday present."
"She bakes cakes and cookies for parties has a side-gig and was hand mixing everything beforehand."
"She was ecstatic!"- ItsEarthDay
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Waterloo Averted!
"Had a work colleague who had a garage sale."
"Her new husband added a bunch of his basement junk to the sale."
"A browser who was a prof at Harvard University told the husband that a framed sketch he had was done by Napoleon."
"He took it to the university, and they authenticated it as a genuine Napoleon sketch."
"It was a nautical drawing done from the deck of a ship."- Traditional_Ad_6801
Ignorance Can, Indeed, Be Bliss!
"Paid $50 for a full set of Golf clubs, including the bag, at a garage sale near my house."
"I know nothing about Golf, but my Dad goes semi-regularly; it was close to his birthday, and he had recently been complaining that his old clubs were falling apart."
"They looked new and in good condition and $50 seemed reasonable."
"When I gave them to my dad he freaked out."
"Apparently the bag alone was like $800 and from what he could tell after looking them up the set must have cost at least 2k."
"They didn't appear to have ever been used before I bought them."- Mace_Thunderspear
Money Isn't Always The Best Reward
"Not a store, but I used to work for a junk removal company."
"Most clients were just rich people who didn't wanna deal with throwing out their stuff, so it wasn't uncommon to find things of value and keep them to resell or just have."
"I was on an estate clean out and pulling stuff out of the attic and found a box that i decided to open it just to see what was inside."
"I popped the lid and inside there was 17 small orange, very old, boxes with big blue letters said 'Lionel'."
"Model trains."
"Box full of money."
"I quietly put the box in the truck cab to investigate later."
"Once I got home I pulled the trains out and started researching them. 2 full sets from the 1930s, all new in box."
"The boxes showed their age, but the trains looked like they had never been removed from the box."
"Most even still had their (deteriorated) packing materials around them."
"I turned to the model trains subreddit to learn more and was immediately swamped with people trying to buy them, and one person who was wildly honest with me and told me what they thought they were worth and not to let someone try and swindle me out of my gold mine, mentioning he wished he could afford to buy them from me."
"I went to a local hobby shop to learn even more and confirmed their real monetary and historical value."
"About $10,000 and considered to be museum quality, near mint condition."
"Exceedingly rare."
"In the end I didn't get $10k."
"I contacted the Redditor who had told me what they were really worth, while everyone else was offering a few hundred bucks and offered to sell them to him."
"We agreed on $2000."
"He and his aging father (likely passed by now) had bonded over their love of model trains since he was a kid and had a massive layout in their basement."
"Last I heard from him a couple years ago the trains are still running and well taken care of."
"I'm glad i gave them to someone who would truly appreciate them and enjoy them as they were intended instead of putting behind a glass case or looking at them as only an investment to make money off of."- CptJaxxParrow
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A price tag often doesn't even begin to estimate something's value.
As one person's trash could very likely be another person's treasure.
