The thrill of the hunt that shoppers know so well was taken to the nth degree for a woman when she picked up the $6 plates at her local thrift store that turned out to be an unrecognized treasure.
Nancy Cavaliere, an expert “thrifter,” had a hunch she was onto something special when she spotted them but she had no idea just how special it would turn out to be.
Cavaliere moved to New York City from Italy when she was just eight years old, and after getting married in 2014, she started to get into thrifting, mostly to furnish her apartment.
Picking up tableware, furnishings and odds and ends, she hit the jackpot one day when she stumbled on a set of $6 plates—plates that turned out to be an original piece by one of the most famous artists ever.
“I stumbled on the plates during my daily trip to the store. On my way out I noticed some new china had been added to the shelves. My first reaction was that they would make a great tablescape, but then I turned them over and saw the Picasso tag,” Cavaliere told Newsweek.
“I freaked out,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was holding, but I knew it could be worth serious money. So I checked out and ran back to my office.”
The set of plates only cost her $6, but she had a hunch that they were something special. When she got back to her office and started furiously searching the web, she realized it was even more than that: it was a once-in-a-lifetime find.
“I did the initial googling and figured out the series, the date they were made and pretty much the whole history behind Picasso’s ceramic line,” said the thrifter.
Pablo Picasso is mostly known for his paintings and drawings, but few people realize just how many ceramic objects he produced. In fact, in his later years when he was living in Vallauris, in the south of France, he did little else.
Picasso designed 633 different ceramic editions between 1947 and 1971—from simple utilitarian objects like plates and bowls to complex pitchers and vases.
Cavaliere, who runs the Instagram account casacavaliere where she shares her latest finds, reached out to a nearby auction house and had the plates authenticated by experts. They estimated that the plates would sell individually for between $3,000-$5,000 each.
“It felt like a crazy amount of money at the time,” said Cavaliere. “Then even more so when the auction went live and the price started climbing.”
The thrifter watched as the auctions climbed, and her ceramic discovery started selling for $12,000, $13,000, and even $16,000.
“It was absolutely bananas,” she said. “I was watching the auction from the office ‘screaming crying throwing up.'”
Picasso remains one of the highest-grossing artists at auction today, with some realized pieces selling for as much as $179 million.
After the sale, Cavaliere invested the money and continues to thrift regularly.
“My entire home is filled with thrifted, valuable, second-hand finds,” she said. “Everything is worth money and has a cool story.” Not only is her thrifting fun and profitable, but it’s also great for the environment, it’s a valuable form of direct recycling.
This isn’t her only lucrative find, either. A while after the plates, she stumbled on an Alexander McQueen jumpsuit from his second ever collection. Picking it up for $20, it was sold for an amazing $8,500.
While she still likes to browse the local thrift store, Cavaliere said that thrifting isn’t what it used to be. “Pre-pandemic I would go thrifting every day since there was a thrift store on the way home from work,” she said. “That store closed so now I maybe go once a week.”
“Thrifting is not what it used to be pre-pandemic—the whole landscape has changed,” she added. “Prices have skyrocketed and demand for secondhand has surged. It’s a tough game out there, but you can still find magic.”
