For those who love thrifting or shopping at yard sales, spending $35 for a small porcelain bowl might not seem like a steal.
However, for one for a Connecticut resident it turned out to be the deal of a lifetime.
According to Angela McAteer, an expert on Chinese art with Sotheby's Auction House, the bowl in question turned out to be a 15th Century Chinese artifact, of which only seven are known to exist.
Its value? Anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000.
"It was immediately apparent to both of us that we were looking at something really very, very special," says McAteer, who learned of the find after the unidentified buyer emailed Sotheby's.
"The style of painting, the shape of the bowl, even just the color of the blue is quite characteristic of that early, early 15th century period of porcelain.”
No one knows how the bowl ended up at a yard sale, but it is set to hit the auction block this month.