Sometimes, a trip to a thrift store can lead to much more than a bargain. In 2012, North Carolina artist Beth Feeback bought a large painting at a store for just $9.99, planning to paint over it and use the canvas for one of her own cat portraits. Instead, a closer look at the artwork turned the cheap purchase into a five-figure windfall. The painting, later identified as “Vertical Diamond” by abstract artist , was eventually sold through for more than $27,000.



She bought the painting for its canvas


Feeback had visited a Goodwill store in Oak Ridge, North Carolina, while attending an art fair in April 2012. She bought two large paintings for $9.99 each, not because she admired them, but because she wanted inexpensive canvases for her own work. According to ABC News, Feeback had planned to cover one of the paintings with her distinctive cat portraits. But a friend advised her to inspect the labels and markings on the artwork before doing anything to it. That suggestion changed everything. Feeback found the name Ilya Bolotowsky on the back and began researching the artist. Sotheby’s subsequently identified the work as “Vertical Diamond” and estimated its value at between $15,000 and $20,000 before the auction.



A Goodwill bargain becomes an auction discovery


Bolotowsky was a Russian-born American artist associated with geometric abstraction. Secondary reporting by the Associated Press, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, later highlighted Feeback's discovery as one of several valuable works of art that had surfaced at Goodwill stores.




The report noted that Goodwill employees try to identify valuable donations and sell some through the organisation's online auction operation, but valuable pieces can still be missed because store workers are not art specialists. The artwork also had an interesting history. Records at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro showed that “Vertical Diamond” had been loaned by Burlington Industries for a 1979 exhibition. The museum's records helped establish the painting's provenance.



The $9.99 painting sells for more than $27,000


When the painting finally went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in September 2012, Feeback watched the auction with family and friends. She had expected the work to sell for somewhere within the auction house's estimate, but remained worried that it might not sell at all.




It ultimately fetched about $27,000 at auction. With the buyer's premium included, the total reported sale price was $34,375. ABC News noted that the painting had been estimated to sell for $15,000 to $20,000. Feeback summed up the unlikely result simply, telling ABC News, “It’s a great return on $9.99.” Forbes later included the discovery among notable examples of valuable items found in thrift stores, reporting that Feeback's painting ultimately sold for $34,375.



What did Feeback do with the money?


The unexpected sale came at a useful time for Feeback and her husband. She told ABC News that they planned to use the money for long-delayed home improvements and to pay down debts. But the artist also found a humorous way to remember the painting that almost became a canvas for her cats. She planned to create her own versions inspired by “Vertical Diamond” featuring large cat heads.




The story also became part of a wider pattern of surprising discoveries at charity shops. The Associated Press reported that other valuable artworks, including an Alexander Calder lithograph bought for $12.34 and a Salvador Dalí sketch that sold for $21,000, had also surfaced through Goodwill around the same period.



A reminder that valuable art can hide in plain sight


Feeback's Goodwill purchase shows how easily an important artwork can be overlooked when it is removed from its original setting. What looked like an inexpensive canvas in a thrift shop turned out to have an artist, title and exhibition history that gave it a completely different value. The biggest twist was that Feeback had never intended to keep the painting as art. A friend's advice to check the label first prevented her from painting over a work that would soon sell for tens of thousands of dollars.