Most Valuable Paintings Found at Thrift Stores

All five of these paintings found at thrift stores are worth at least $45,000 — or much, much more.

Most Valuable Paintings Found at Thrift Stores

Thrift stores provide the ultimate stomping grounds for those hoping to find the next best thing. Perhaps that includes a $10 wooden shelf that just needs a coat of paint. Or a leather jacket that screams 1960s chic.

You could also quite literally find a painting worth millions. No, it doesn't happen to everyone, but when it does, it's the stuff of thrifting legend. All five of these paintings found at thrift stores are worth at least $45,000 — or much, much more.

5. Maud Lewis Painting

Value: $45,000

Store: Mennonite Central Committee Thrift Store

Location: New Hamburg, Ontario, Canada

Maud Lewis never would have imagined her paintings could fetch up to $45,000 at auction. That's because she lived a life of poverty, selling her artwork for only about $3 a pop until she died in 1970.

But after her death, her artwork became more well-known — so popular, in fact, that a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Thrift Store volunteer recognized this piece in a donation bin in 2017. The shoreline painting, "Portrait of Eddie Barnes and Ed Murphy, Lobster Fisherman, Bay View, Nova Scotia," was authenticated by art experts, and it went to auction soon after.

Selling for nearly triple its appraised value, the proceeds went to helping the MCC relief service and peace agency.

4. 'DHead XLVI' by David Bowie

Value: $88,000

Store: Macher Mall

Location: South River, Ontario, Canada

Remind us to go to Ontario, Canada, next time we want to go thrifting. An unidentified person bought this 9.75-inch by 8-inch portrait for $4.09 from a pile of second-hand items on sale at Macher Mall in 2020.

Needless to say, they were shocked when they found David Bowie's signature on the back of the painting known as "D Head XLVI." It's one of a series of portraits that the famous rocker painted between 1994 and 1997. It's believed that it reflects Bowie's Ziggy Stardust era.

3. An Unknown Oil Painting From the 1650s

Value: $190,000

Store: Goodwill

Location: Anderson, South Carolina

A former antique dealer who only went by his first name, Leroy, found this oil painting in 2012 and suspected it might be worth something. After paying just $3 for the piece, Leroy had his daughter-in-law take it to "Antiques Roadshow," and she was told it dated back to the 17th century.

At auction, the Flemish art school painting created a bidding war between five different people, ultimately going to a man from Worcester, Massachusetts, for a whopping $190,000.

2. 'The Gold Thinker' by Andy Warhol

Value: $500,000-$2.5 million

Store: Angel View Thrift Store

Location: Yucca Valley, California

Avid art collector and enthusiast Michael P. Wilson purchased this Warhol painting for about $40 and held onto it for years.

Because the painting was not the pop art style for which Andy Warhol was known, Wilson didn't know it was his until he finally recognized the signature. The painting was authenticated in 2015 and went up for auction in late 2016. Wilson shared part of the proceeds with the City of Hope cancer center.

1. Jackson Pollock Painting

Value: Millions

Store: N/A

Location: Southern California

This thrift-store find was so unbelievable that it was the subject of the 2006 documentary, "Who the $&% Is Jackson Pollock?"

Retired truck driver Teri Horton bought the painting for $5 and didn't know its value until an art teacher told her at a yard sale Horton was hosting in 1992. A forensic art expert discovered one of Pollock's fingerprints on the painting and said it was an original, but the International Foundation for Art Research didn't believe it since there was no record of ownership.

Horton made it her life's work to sell it for the at least $50 million she believed it to be worth, but she died before she could. Her son, Bill Page, now owns the painting, and only time will tell how much it's worth if he ever decides to sell.

For more thrift-store finds worth money, check out "Most Valuable Thrift Store Finds of All Time."