I Bought a $10 Ashtray at Goodwill – When I Found Its True Value I Flipped It for a $2,800 Profit

A college student who bought an ashtray in good faith for $10 was able to sell it for a profit of $2,800 after finding out its true value.

The remarkable discovery was made by Terrell Brown, a 22-year-old student at Wheaton College in Illinois.

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A 22-year-old college student hit the jackpot when she found an ashtray by artist Yoshitomo Nara at a Goodwill store for $10Credit: TikTok/tdotbdot

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Brown flipped the ashtray from the famous artist for $2,800Credit: TikTok / tdotbdot

The ashtray is actually the work of Japanese artisan Yoshitomo Nara, whose meteoric rise has sent shock waves through the art community in recent years.

Brown, who recently opened his shop through TikTok, said he is mostly into clothing. He told online art platform ArtNet: “I was hitting frugality looking for stuff to add to my rotation.”

Then he hit the jackpot. He said he saw a familiar figure of an angry looking girl smoking a cigarette on an ashtray. It was behind lock and key in a cabinet at a Goodwill store.

“I was trembling with excitement because I knew its potential. I got in the car and started looking at eBay prices, and I was like, This is unreal,” he told Artnet.

Turns out his $10 purchase was an original slogan piece from 2002 titled ‘Too Young to Die’.

Brown valued the ashtray and redeemed it for a 30,000 percent profit. According to Artnet, he sold it on eBay for $2,860.

Nara, 62, is known for the vulgar themes included in his artwork. His pieces have been exhibited at blue-chip venues such as Pace, and Blum and Poe.

Artnet notes in 2019, his ‘Knife Behind Back’ (2000) set an auction record for his work at Sotheby’s Hong Kong when it sold for around $25 million.

While his work is his world-renowned and highly sought after, his pieces have found a new fan-base among vintage shoppers scouring TikTok.

Brown joked that the discovery was almost like a “guerilla marketing plan devised by Narrow’s studio”.

Brown said his discovery was not unique, adding several people on TikTok across the country found him the exact same ashtray.

Some, like a thrifter in Los Angeles and another TikTok account holder in Phoenix, opted to hold onto their pieces rather than sell.

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