The season is looking merry and bright for a Virginia woman who recently turned a glass vase she bought at Goodwill for $3.99 into a more than $100,000 profit.
According to CNN, Jessica Vincent is a regular shopper at the Goodwill store off of Route 1 in Hanover County – located near the state’s capital city of Richmond. She visits the store a few times a week, a habit she picked up as a child from her mother who frequented secondhand stores.
As an avid watcher of “Antiques Roadshow,” Vincent told CNN she knew the glass vase, featuring a swirling pattern of red and green, had some value as soon as she picked it up back in June.
But she could have never predicted just how valuable it actually was.
Vincent told CNN she posted a picture of it in a couple of glassware Facebook groups she’s a member of to see if anyone recognized the insignia. Soon members identified the vase as a Carlo Scarpa piece from the famed Italian glassworks company Venini.
It was soon learned that the vase was from the Pennellate series that Scarpa designed for Venini in 1942 as the company’s creative director, CNN said.
Wright auction house founder Richard Wright told CNN via email, “[Scarpa’s] work in glass was among the most innovative on the island of Murano. The ‘Pennellate’ series was not widely produced or purchased in its day — so it is quite rare to find a work such as this one.”
CNN said experts from the auction house visited Vincent to confirm the authenticity of the piece before listing it between $30,000 and $50,000. It ended up selling for more than double the estimate.
Vincent told CNN she loves that she can say she owned a Pennellate piece at one time, but ultimately she needed the money more than she needed the vase.
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