We all love snapping up a bargain, but for these lucky people, a relatively thrifty purchase brought much more than self-satisfaction. 

From ancient artefacts to the US Declaration of Independence, read on to discover some of the most jaw-dropping treasures that were bought for peanuts but proved to be VERY valuable...

All dollar amounts in US dollars. Pre-2022 figures adjusted for inflation.

In 1946, Harvard Law School Library paid $27.50 – around $450 (£333) today – for a 'copy' of the Magna Carta, a medieval document signed by King Edward I to outline the rights of the British people under common law.

The artefact was initially misattributed to King Edward III in 1327. However, 2025 analysis has shown it's actually an original from 1300, when the Magna Carta (which was first signed in 1215) was republished. Though the library has said it doesn't want to sell its version, it's been valued at millions of dollars. 

Hoping to make a small profit, Kentucky resident Greg Estes bought a bicycle with flat tyres and apparently broken pedals for only $5 ($7/£5 today) at a garage sale in 2010. Further research revealed the pedals were not broken but a custom-made pair for professional cyclists.

As it turned out, the bike originally belonged to US road racing cyclist Floyd Landis (pictured) but was blown off a transporter and found on the side of the road two years earlier. Estes sold it for $8,000 ($11.7k/£8.7k in today's money).

In 1970, a woman bought a plate in Rhode Island for less than $100 (around $830/£615 today), which sat above her stove for years. In 2014 she took it along to be appraised on US TV show Antiques Roadshow and was shocked to discover it was a Picasso-designed Madoura plate from 1955 worth in the region of $10,000, the equivalent of $13,500 (£10k) today. 

The image shows a selection of similar plates by Picasso that went up for auction in 2021.

In 2002, music fan Warren Hill found an odd-looking acetate disc at a Manhattan flea market with 'The Velvet Underground' written on the label, and bought it for 75 cents (around $1.30/96p today).

The disc turned out to be a super-rare demo by The Velvet Underground. The demo was sold on eBay in 2006 for $25,000, almost $40,000 (£30k) in today's money.

Hunting for cheap canvases one day in 2012, Beth Feeback, a hard-up artist from North Carolina, made a beeline for her local thrift store and snagged a couple of oil paintings for $9.99 ($14/£10 today) that she intended to paint over. Thankfully, before Feeback went ahead, a knowledgeable friend recognised it as the work of abstract artist Ilya Bolotowsky (pictured).

Feeback put the painting up for auction at Sotheby's not long after, where it fetched more than $34,000 ($47.5k/£35.2k in 2025 money).

When Thea Jourdan from Hampshire, England bought a pink stone brooch surrounded by what she believed were faux diamonds, for £20 ($40/£30 today), she believed it was just "flashy old tat" for her four-year-old daughter's toybox. Her little girl loved it and wore it a lot.

When Jourdan was having a ring valued, the appraiser spotted the brooch, which turned out to be made of topaz and real diamonds and was thought to have once been worn by a Russian tsarina. It sold in 2011 for £32,000, around $63,000 (£47k) in today's money.

During a shopping trip in 2014, Sean and Rikki McEvoy of Asheville, North Carolina paid $58 ($79/£58 today) for a vintage West Point sweatshirt from their local Goodwill store. Not long after, the couple were watching a documentary on legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi and spotted him wearing the sweatshirt they'd bought (pictured).

It sold at auction a year later for $44,150, around $60,000 (£44.4k) today.

A very fortunate bargain hunter, who has chosen to remain anonymous, picked up an old Breitling watch at a car boot sale in 2013 for just £25 ($47/£35 today). The mock Geiger counter was a dead giveaway: the watch was revealed to be the timepiece worn by the late Sean Connery in the James Bond movie Thunderball.

The customised Breitling Top Time watch sold later that year for £131,000, around $248,000 (£183k) in 2025 money.

Eagled-eyed antique dealer Paul Fitzsimmons snapped up an antique wooden falcon for just £75 ($130/£96 today) at an auction in 2019. The bird was later identified as belonging to Anne Boleyn and was made in 1536, just three years before Boleyn was beheaded on the orders of her husband, King Henry VIII. The king then removed all traces of the ill-fated queen from his palaces, making the item a rarity.

In excellent condition, the falcon still bears its original gilding and colours. Its true value has been estimated at $270,000 (£200k). Fitzsimmons generously loaned the bird to Hampton Court Palace in London.

Enjoying a similar windfall, in 2006 Nashville resident Michael Sparks came across an old, rolled-up document in a neighbourhood thrift store, which he bought for a paltry $2.48 ($3.95/£2.90 today). When Sparks unrolled the document, he couldn't believe his eyes – he'd found a copy of the US Declaration of Independence from 1823, which he sold the next year for $477,650 ($739k/£546k today).

A collector took a gamble on a cracked teapot at an auction in 2016, buying it for just $19 ($25/£18 today). He then took it to Woolley and Wallis auctioneers, and ceramics experts established it was a piece by John Bartlam, who emigrated to America from Britain and was the first person to make porcelain in the US.

As a truly historical artefact, it went for auction with an estimated price of $25,280 but sold for more than 20 times that when snapped up by the Metropolitan Museum in New York for $580,255, the equivalent of $776,000 (£574k) today.

With no idea what was inside, a couple from Long Island paid $100 (around $260/£192 today) at a blind auction for an unclaimed New York storage unit in 1989. However, their risk paid off as inside the container, covered by old blankets, was a real treasure – a Lotus Esprit sportscar used in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me as an underwater vehicle.

In 2013, the couple put their lucky find up for auction with Sotheby's London, where it sold for a whopping £616,000 ($1.16m/£861k today). The buyer, it was later revealed, was none other than Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

This beautiful 26-carat diamond ring was purchased in the 1980s from a car boot sale for £10, around $40 (£30) today. The ring is thought to have been cut in the 19th century, but the rest of its history is unknown. After years of being overloooked, the ring finally proved its worth when it went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London.

The impressive piece of jewellery sold for a whopping £656,000, almost double the auction estimate, in 2017. That's the equivalent of $1.2 million (£874k) today.

An Edinburgh antique dealer bought this chess piece for £5 (around $120/£90 today) back in 1964, not realising its significance. It’s one of five lost pieces belonging to a set found buried in a sand dune on the Scottish island of Lewis in 1831. Experts believe it was made between the late 12th century and early 13th century somewhere in Scandinavia. The other ‘Lewis chessmen’, as they're known, are on display at London’s British Museum and Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland.

Made from walrus ivory, the piece was passed down through the dealer’s family before being sold at Sotheby’s in London for £735,000 in July 2019, a record for a medieval chess piece. That's around $1.3 million (£939k) when adjusted for inflation.

This still life was purchased for just $30 (around $60/£44 today) in the 1990s by a factory worker from Indiana, who used it to cover a hole in a wall in his home. Several years down the line, the hard-up machinist was playing the art-based card game Masterpiece and spotted a similar painting by the same artist on one of the cards.

The picture, which turned out to be a notable work by American landscape painter Martin Johnson Heade called Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth, went on to sell for $1.25 million in 1999, around $2.4 million (£1.8m) today. Heade's work has repeatedly turned up in garage sales and other surprising places, which experts attribute to his popularity among middle-class buyers before he became acknowledged as a modern American master.

British tourist Andy Fields was on vacation in Las Vegas in 2010 when he hit a yard sale and bought five paintings for $5 ($7/£5.20 today) from a man who claimed his aunt babysat the artist Andy Warhol when he was a child. On his return to the UK, Fields discovered a sketch hidden behind one of the paintings. Experts believe it's an early sketch by Warhol of French-Canadian singer Rudy Vallée, worth around $2 million (£1.5m).

In 2011, criminal defence lawyer Frank Abrams purchased this photograph for $10 ($14/£10 today) at a market in North Carolina, having no idea that it was an image of Billy the Kid alongside the man who would later shoot him dead, Pat Garrett. It wasn't until 2015 when he read about another photo of Billy the Kid, which a telecoms technician named Randy Guijarro bought for just $2 in 2010 and was subsequently valued at $5 million ($7.4m/£5.4m today), that he realised he might have a valuable item on his hands.

Experts concluded that it was taken between 1879 and 1880, just a few years before Pat Garrett captured Billy and shot him dead. It's believed to be worth millions.

This drawing by Albrecht Dürerwas was bought at a yard sale for $30 in 2017, the equivalent of around $39 (£29) in 2025. The Virgin and Child (pictured) is a previously unknown artwork by the German artist and is believed to have been drawn around 1503.

Boston art collector Clifford Schorer was on his way to a party when he was asked to take a look at the drawing, which the friend of a friend had bought from an art dealer's son. Schorer was amazed to discover the drawing was "either the greatest forgery [he'd] ever seen or a masterpiece". It turned out to be the latter and has since been valued at $10 million (£7.4m). 

In 2012, a scrap metal dealer in the Midwest decided to do some online research on a blingy egg-shaped ornament he'd picked up for $13,000, around $18,000 (£13.3k) today, which he intended to melt down. The dealer searched for 'Vacherin Constantin', the name engraved on the ornament, and 'egg', and realised he had bought the Third Imperial Fabergé egg.

Valued at $33 million ($46m/£34m today), the egg was purchased in 2014 by a private collector.

Updated by Alice Cattley

Now discover the legendary lost treasures still waiting to be found