$9.99 thrift-store painting turns out to be artwork sold for $34,375

A North Carolina artist once walked into a Goodwill store looking for inexpensive material for her own artwork and walked out with what would turn out to be a valuable piece of American abstraction. Beth Feeback paid just $9.99 for a large painting in 2012, not because she admired the artwork, but because she wanted to reuse its canvas for one of her own paintings featuring cats. Months later, a friend's suggestion to check the markings on the back changed the fate of the seemingly ordinary thrift-store find, according to a report by ABC News.The painting turned out to be “Vertical Diamond” by Ilya Bolotowsky, a Russian-born American abstract artist whose work is held by major museums. It was subsequently authenticated and offered at Sotheby's in New York, where it sold for about $27,000 at auction.