Man’s $3 Goodwill painting turns out to be a 1650 Flemish work worth $190,000

A $3 purchase at a South Carolina Goodwill store turned into one of the most remarkable thrift-store art discoveries in recent memory. The buyer, a former antiques dealer identified only by his middle name, Leroy, spotted an oil painting in an antique frame and assumed it might be worth a few hundred dollars. His daughter-in-law later took it to Antiques Roadshow, where appraisers revealed it was a 17th-century Flemish work from around 1650. In March 2012, the painting sold at auction in Massachusetts for $190,000, according to reporting by Mental Floss and Ksl.com.A frame that caught a trained eyeLeroy, then 81, was browsing his local Goodwill when he came across a framed still life of a dinner table.His background as a former antiques dealer gave him a practical eye for age and quality. He noticed the ornate frame and judged it to be from the 1800s, which led him to wonder whether the painting inside might also be old. He told reporters that he figured the oil painting was out of the 1800s because of the frame it was in. Based on that assessment, he estimated the frame alone might be worth about $50 and the painting perhaps another $150. That put his total expectation at a couple...