Billy the Kid photos and other amazing treasures bought for peanuts

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Billy the Kid (Matt Damon) and the otha Billy the Kid (Joaquin Phoenix) at the 30 minute mark at the "Star Wars the last jedi" original motion picture soundtrack by john williams audio-track at the URL above... in one of the many, many, many trailers for Tim Burton's "Gotham"...

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Slide 1 of 27: It's every collector's dream – chancing upon a super-valuable object in a thrift store or flea market and paying peanuts for it. From not one but two photos of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid to a James Bond watch to the Declaration of Independence, we reveal some of the most incredible bargain buys of all time.

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1/27 SLIDES © Frank Abrams/Associated Press

Bargain treasures

It's every collector's dream – chancing upon a super-valuable object in a thrift store or flea market and paying peanuts for it. From not one but two photos of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid to a James Bond watch to the Declaration of Independence, we reveal some of the most incredible bargain buys of all time.

2/27 SLIDES © Courtesy Zach Bodish

The signed Pablo Picasso lino-cut poster

In 2013, Columbus, Ohio resident Zach Bodish bagged a Picasso poster from his local Volunteers of America thrift store for $14 (£11). Assuming it was just a mass-market print, Bodish was bowled over to discover the great painter's signature on the poster. He had the poster appraised and it turned out to be an original printed by Picasso himself. The poster went on to sell for a not too shabby $7,000 (£5,700).

3/27 SLIDES © Bellmans Auctioneers & Valuers

The rare Tibetan goddess statue

This rare 16th-century statue of the Tibetan Green Tara goddess was snapped up at a car boot sale in West Sussex, England for just $30 (£25). The anonymous buyer suspected it was worth a lot more, but was stunned when a valuer told her it was worth in the region of $6,000 (£5,000). The statue went on the sell for an even more impressive $19,000 (£15,500) when it went up for auction last June.

4/27 SLIDES © Courtesy eBay

The Velvet Underground demo record

In 2002, music fan Warren Hill found an odd-looking acetate disc at a Manhattan flea market with 'Velvet Underground… 4-25-66' written on the label, and bought it for 75 US cents (61p). The disc turned out to be a super-rare demo by the band Velvet Underground. The demo was sold on eBay in 2006 for $25,000 (£20,000).

5/27 SLIDES © Courtesy John Nicholson

The 18th-century Chinese bowl

Last year, an amateur collector came across a beautiful metallic Chinese bowl in a charity shop in Somerset, England. The antiques enthusiast paid just $2.50 (£2) for the 18th-century bowl, which was later valued at $6,100 (£5,000). It went on to sell last December at auction for a very respectable $26,000 (£21,000).

6/27 SLIDES © Ketterer Kunst Hambug

The 17th-century Venetian painting

An impoverished German student lucked out big time in 2007 when she found a 17th-century oil painting in a second-hand couch she'd snapped up for just $215 (£176) at a Berlin flea market. The painting, 'Preparation to Escape to Egypt' by a pupil of Carlo Saraceni, was eventually sold for a whopping $27,630 (£23,000) at an art auction in Hamburg.

7/27 SLIDES © Sotheby's

The Ilya Bolotowsky painting

Hunting for cheap canvases one day in 2012, Beth Feeback, a hard-up artist from North Carolina, made a beeline for her local charity shop and snagged a couple of oil paintings for $9.99 (£8.19), which she intended to paint over. Thankfully, before Feeback attempted to paint over one of the pictures, a knowledgeable friend recognized it as the work of abstract artist Ilya Bolotowsky. Feeback put the painting up for auction at Sotheby's not long after, where it fetched more than $34,000 (£28,000).

8/27 SLIDES © Courtesy Zach Norris

The Jaeger-LeCoultre watch

A sensational Goodwill store find, bargain hunter Zach Norris was browsing in his local store in Phoenix, Arizona in January 2015 when he discovered a watch with 'LeCoultre Deep Sea Alarm Automatic' engraved on the face. Suspecting it could be worth a whole lot more than its $5.99 (£4.91) price tag, he bought the watch and had it valued. Turns out the vintage timepiece from 1959 was worth a fortune. Needless to say, Norris sold it a month later for a tidy $35,000 (£29,000).

9/27 SLIDES © Heritage Auctions

The Vince Lombardi sweatshirt

During a shopping trip in 2014, Sean and Rikki McEvoy of Asheville, North Carolina paid $58 (£48) for a vintage 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 – it sold at auction a year later for $43,020 (£35,000).

10/27 SLIDES © Courtesy Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

The Albrecht Dürer engraving

Last year, a seasoned collector stumbled upon a 16th-century engraving by Albrecht Dürer at a flea market in Sarrebourg, France and bought it for just a few euros. The 'Maria, crowned by an angel' engraving, which is worth thousands of dollars, went missing from the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany during World War II. Rather than hold on to the artwork, the benevolent collector returned it to its rightful home.

11/27 SLIDES © Christie's

The René Lalique Feuilles Fougères vase

A couple bought this glass vase for $1.35 (£1) from a car boot sale in Dumfries, Scotland because they liked the look of the plant it was carrying. When the plant died, the vase was squirrelled away in the loft and almost forgotten about until TV show Antiques Roadshow came to town in 2008. Half-jokingly, the couple brought along the vase, and were flabbergasted to discover it was a highly desirable piece by Art Nouveau icon René Lalique. They sold it later that year for $43,720 (£32,500).

12/27 SLIDES © Sotheby's

The 17th-century Chinese cup

In 2013, an Australian antiques collector on the hunt for bargains spotted an interesting-looking cup in a thrift store in Sydney, priced at just A$4 (US$5.38/£2.46). Suspecting it may be worth a lot more, the collector enlisted the services of a Sotheby's valuer, who revealed the object was a 17th-century Chinese rhinoceros horn 'libation' cup. The cup went on to fetch A$75,500 (US$63,230/£47,000) at auction.

13/27 SLIDES © Frank Augstein/PA

The Breitling James Bond watch

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 $31 (£25). The mock geiger counter a dead giveaway, the watch was revealed to be the timepiece worn by Sean Connery in the movie Thunderball. The customized Breitling Top Time watch sold later that year for $160,383 (£131k).

14/27 SLIDES © John McInnis Auctioneers

The 17th-century Flemish painting

Goodwill retail stores in the US appear to be veritable troves of hidden treasure. In 2010, an 81-year-old South Carolina resident, who has chosen to remain anonymous, purchased a painting from his local Goodwill for just $3 (£2.46). On a whim, the man's daughter-in-law got it appraised by an expert from TV show Antiques Roadshow – the picture was revealed to be a 17th-century Flemish masterpiece. It went on to fetch $190,000 (£156k) at auction in 2012.

15/27 SLIDES © Christie's

The Alexander Calder necklace

In 2005, Philadelphia native Norma Ifill chanced upon this striking necklace at a flea market in New York and bought it for a mere $15 (£12). Three years later, she visited an Alexander Calder exhibition and realized her cheapy necklace was one of the renowned American sculptor's missing works – it fetched $267,750 (£220k) at a Christie's auction in 2013.

16/27 SLIDES © Courtesy UKTV

The John Constable painting

In 2012, Robert Darvell, a graphic designer from London, was gifted a small landscape painting by his father Robin, who had purchased the picture as part of a $37 (£30) job lot some years before. Robert did some delving and discovered it was a genuine John Constable painting worth $308,000 ($250k). The story was featured on the TV show Treasure Detectives the following year.

17/27 SLIDES © Scott Rothstein/Shutterstock

The original 1823 copy of the US Declaration of Independence

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 (£2). When Sparks unrolled the document, he couldn't believe his eyes – he had found a copy of the US Declaration of Independence from 1823, which he sold on in 2007 for $477,650 (£392,000).

18/27 SLIDES © Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

A 26-carat diamond ring

This beautiful 26-carat diamond ring was purchased in the 1980s from a car boot sale for a bargain $13 (£10). Now nicknamed the "Tenner", the ring is thought to have been cut in the 19th century, but the rest of its history is unknown. After modestly hiding its worth for years, the ring finally went under the hammer recently at Sotheby's in London, where the glimmering piece of jewelry managed to fetch a whopping $849,612 (£656,750), almost double the estimate of $453,000 (£350,000).

The million-dollar Bullitt Mustang

One of only two Ford Mustangs custom-made for the classic film Bullitt, which boasts one of the most awesome car chases in history, the car was found by the junkyard owner languishing in a corner. Acquired for peanuts, it has an estimated value of at least $1 million (£818,000).

The Martin Johnson Heade painting

This still-life was purchased for just $30 (£25) in the 90s 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 his painting on one of the cards. The picture, which turned out to be a notable work by American landscape painter Martin Johnson Heade, went on to sell for $1.25 million (£1 million).

The Andy Warhol sketch

British tourist Andy Fields was on vacation in Las Vegas in 2010 when he hit a yard sale and bought five paintings for $5 (£4) from a “drug user” who claimed his aunt babysat the artist Andy Warhol when he was a child. Upon his return to the UK, Fields discovered a sketch hidden behind one of the paintings, which experts believe is an early sketch by Warhol of French-Canadian singer Rudy Vallée, worth $2 million (£1.7 million).

The 1,000-year-old Chinese bowl

In 2013, a New York family made the sort of discovery most bargain hunters can only dream about. Rummaging around a neighbourhood garage sale, they chanced upon a fairly ordinary-looking white bowl but decided to buy it nonetheless for the princely sum of $3 (£2.46). It later turned out to be a 1,000-year-old Chinese treasure and sold for $2.2 million (£1.6 million) at auction.

The original 1776 copy of US Declaration of Independence

A financial analyst from Philadelphia bought an old painting for $4 (£3.30) at a local market back in 1989 mainly because he liked the frame. When he went to remove the painting, he discovered none other than an original copy of the US Declaration of Independence, one of just 24 existing copies, hidden between the picture and backing. Two years later, the document fetched a whopping $2.42 million (£2 million) at auction.

The Billy the Kid photo

Telecoms technician Randy Guijarro hit the jackpot in 2010 when he came across the Holy Grail of photography in a Fresno, California antiques shop – an ultra-rare photo of outlaw Billy the Kid playing croquet. Guijarro paid just $2 (£1.63) for the snap, which has since been valued at a cool $5 million (£4 million) by appraisers from Kagin's.

The 'new' Billy the Kid photo

In 2011, criminal defence lawyer Frank Abrahams purchased this photograph for $10 (£7.45) 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 the Randy Guijarro photo 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. We wait to find out if he will sell it.

The multimillion-dollar Arthur Pinajian artworks

In 2007, New Yorker's Thomas Schultz and Lawrence Joseph paid $2,500 (£2,100) for a huge collection of artworks by the late Armenian-American artist Arthur Pinajian, which they bought along with the artist's former home in Long Island. Now an art world sensation, works by Pinajian have skyrocketed in value, and the collection was recently valued at $30 million (£25 million).

The Third Imperial Fabergé egg

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 (£11,000), 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 (£27 million), the egg was purchased in 2014 by a private collector.

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Friday, December 22, 2017

Is Billy the Kid (Berenger Sauniere / Matt Damon).. Billy the Kid (Joaquin Phoenix / Mathieu Paoli) .. coming to Gotham City..?... "GOTHAM".. a Tim Burton.. film.. coming... to movie theatres.. in the year.. 2019..?...