Jessica Vincent, 43, from Lynchburg, Virginia, went shopping at a thrift store. It was a normal day for her.
At the store, she bought a vase for $3.99. Later, she sold the vase for more than $100,000. She was thrilled with this and it made a major impact on her life.
"It's a really special piece, and it will always have a special place in my heart and in my life," Vincent said in an interview with Fox News.
"It changed my life. The money couldn't have come at a better time," she continued.
Jessica Vincent's discovery of the vase was very important. It surprised everyone in the art and decoration world.
Because of this, Jessica, who works with horses, became famous in the media.
"Having the story go viral was very unexpected for me," she said.
"The different news outlets and media coverage the story got was pretty incredible. I was doing podcasts and live morning shows, experiences I never thought I would be having. All because of something I’ve done countless times in my life: going to the thrift store."
Last July, Jessica Vincent visited a Goodwill store. She was traveling between horse farms at that time.
She noticed the store was busier than usual. But she saw the vase immediately. Jessica said, "We walked in and it was a little bit busier than normal, but I saw the vase right away."
"I did not know what it was, but I saw that it was a large bottle and it had interesting colors. I wanted to check it out but there were just so many people in that aisle. It was just kind of jammed up, so I decided to circle back later and see what else was shaking."
Vincent looked around the store. She felt a bit disappointed at first.
"There really wasn't much of anything in there that caught my eye that day," she said.
"I would have loved to have kept it, but in reality I really needed the money more than I needed the vase."
"Then I remembered the bottle, so I went back to it and picked it up," she said.
"I realized it was really nice, and I could tell it was blown glass. It just had this beautiful iridescence and I was so surprised that nobody had picked it up before I did."
Jessica picked up the vase, which was burgundy and green. She looked at the bottom and saw three words. She could only read two: "Murano" and "Italia."
Jessica knew Murano glass was good. She said, "I knew Murano glass was pretty nice. So I was like, ‘You're coming home with me.’"
The vase didn't have a price tag. So Jessica wasn't sure how much it cost.
"But I knew that even if it was $8.99, I was going to buy it," she said.
"And $8.99, in my mind, was a lot. But I decided that I liked it, so we put it into the cart."
Jessica put the vase in her shopping cart, which was almost empty. The vase moved around in the cart. Then, she went to the checkout line.
"The lady looked at it and said, ‘$3.99," Vincent said.
"I said, ‘Perfect. I will take it.’ That was a great price in my mind. I was excited to get it home and sort of do a little bit of research to see if I could decipher that top mark and find out who made it, because I knew that would give me a little more information on the age and sort of what it was."
Jessica took pictures of the vase. She posted them in a Facebook group.
This helped her find out what the vase was. It was made by Carlos Scarpa, a Venetian architect. The vase was from his "Pennellate" series, made in the 1940s.
People in the Facebook group suggested Jessica contact an auction house.
So, she got in touch with Richard Wright from Wright Auctions in Chicago. Richard sent two glass experts, Sara Blumberg and Jim Oliveira, to meet Jessica. They came to check if the vase was really made by Carlos Scarpa.
Jessica remembers how Sara and Jim looked when she showed them the vase.
Six months after that, on December 13, it was time to auction the vase. Jessica and her family watched the auction happen online together.
"I had all the emotions leading up to it," Vincent said. "When the numbers started creeping up, up and up — $70,000, $75,000, $80,000 — my jaw just hit the floor. I just — it was unbelievable. But in such a good way. I felt like I had a winning lottery ticket."
Wright, who was also the auctioneer, had no doubt the piece would do well.
"Then we opened the bidding at $24,000. By the end of it, with our buyer's premium, it made over $100,000," he said.
"I described the piece briefly and thanked Jessica for entrusting us with it and telling a little bit of the story," Wright said.
