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Bargain buys that sold for a fortune

Amazing treasures bought for peanuts
The signed Pablo Picasso lino-cut poster sold for $7,000 (£5.4k)
The custom-built bike for Floyd Landis sold for $8,000 (£6.2k)
The forgotten Nintendo game sold for $9,000 (£6.9k)
The Picasso plate worth $10,000 (£7.7k)
The Beilby wine glasses sold for $24,600 (£18.9k)
The rare Tibetan The rare Tibetan goddess statue sold for $25,000 (£19.2k) statue sold for $20,200 (£15.5k)
The 17th-century Venetian painting sold for $25,500 (£19.6k)
The 18th-century Chinese bowl sold for $27,300 (£21k)
Artists' catalogue sold for $29,700 (£22.8k)
The Velvet Underground demo record sold for $31,960 (£24.6k)
The Ilya Bolotowsky painting sold for $34,000 (£26.2k)
The Jaeger-LeCoultre watch sold for $35,000 (£27k)
The toybox brooch sold for $42,000 (£32k)
The Vince Lombardi sweatshirt sold for $43,020 (£33k)
The René Lalique Feuilles Fougères vase sold for $56,700 (£43.6k)
The 17th-century Chinese cup sold for $50,600 (£38.9k)
The lost Australian painting sold for $115,200 (£88.5k)
The Indian painting sold for $120,400 (£92.25k)
The Breitling James Bond watch sold for $135,200 (£103.9k)
The green golf blazer sold for $139,349 (£107.4k)
The 17th-century Flemish painting sold for $190,000 (£146k)
Princess Diana's Bahrain state dinner dress sold for $202,500 (£156k)
The Alexander Calder necklace sold for $267,750 (£206.3k)
The John Constable painting worth $324,500 (£250k)
The Van Dyck sketch worth $520,000 (£400k)
The original 1823 copy of the US Declaration of Independence sold for $589,000 (£453k)
The cracked teapot sold for $748,000 (£575k)
The James Bond underwater car sold to Elon Musk for $802,000 (£616k)
The lost 13th-century chess piece sold for $954,000 (£735k)
A 26-carat diamond ring sold for $963,000 (£740k)
The Bullitt Mustang worth $1 million (£770k)
The bag of moon dust sold for $1.8 million (£1.4m)
The Martin Johnson Heade paintings sold for $1.9 million (£1.5m)
The Andy Warhol sketch worth $2 million (£1.54m)
The 1,000-year-old Chinese bowl sold for $2.2 million (£1.7m)
The original 1776 copy of US Declaration of Independence sold for $4.54 million (£3.5m)
The Billy the Kid photo worth $5 million (£3.85m)
The Arthur Pinajian artworks worth $30 million (£23m)
The Third Imperial Fabergé egg worth $33 million (£25.4m)
1 of 40
LEON NEAL/AFP via Getty Images

Amazing treasures bought for peanuts

Thrift stores, flea markets and storage spaces sometimes turn out to be a real treasure trove. Among vintage clothes, cracked pottery and old electronics some lucky shoppers have snapped up super-valuable items, paying little-to-nothing for them. From Princess Diana's state dinner dress found in a charity shop to a James Bond car forgotten in a storage unit, we reveal 40 of the most incredible bargain buys of all time. Click or scroll through to find out what they are.

Items sold before 2010 have had their prices adjusted for inflation.

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Sandra Schröpfer

04 February 2020

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