Here is a definite case where being frugal and shopping at a thrift store can really pay off!
Bargain hunter Michael Sparks picked up a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence in a Nashville, Tennessee thrift shop. The document turned out to be an official copy, originally commissioned by John Quincy Adams himself, back in 1820.
Experts are putting a value of about $250,000 on the document. Sparks himself didn’t realize the value of what he had found until almost a year later, while he was doing some research online.
This copy of the Declaration of Independence will be going up for auction on March 22nd. The opening bid will start at $125,000, but the experts are sure it will go for at least that $250,000 price.
How much did Sparks pay for the find? Exactly $2.48.
Can you imagine having a find like that? it makes me want to run out now to my local thrift store for some bargain hunting. although, knowing me, I would have probably looked at the old, yellowed and shellacked paper and thought “what an eyesore.” I’m much too cynical to have believed that the document might have been an original.
I do wonder, however, about an old dresser that we once had. It had been handed down to my husband through his grandmother and no one really knew how old it was. It sat in our garage for the longest time.
One Saturday, we were cleaning out our household in preparation for our town’s bulk trash day, a day when the town carts away all sorts of treasures to the dump. I had no idea the dresser would fall victim on this day.
I went out in the backyard looking for my husband and found him out in the driveway hacking the thing to death in preparation of putting it out to the curb. He was in an organizing fit and decided the dresser needed to go in that instant.
Of course I cringed. That was not very frugal. Even if we didn’t want the dresser, I was sure there was someone out there who might like it. But probably not in the dozen or so pieces it was in. I noticed the crafters mark on an inside drawer. To this day, we still wonder if that dresser would have paid for our mortgage, or at least for a little vacation.
So you just never know.
Maybe someone was cleaning out their own house when they came across that copy of the Declaration of Independence and decided it wasn’t worth much.
So keep on thrift shopping and let let me know what you find.
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