It wasn't quite Antiques Roadshow, but...

...it almost was!  So, I've had a ton of awesome Goodwill finds over the years, but perhaps I made one of my very favorite finds last week. 

As I was perusing the shelves at Goodwill, this gorgeous little blue hobnail candy jar caught my eye.  "That looks like Fenton," I thought to myself.  I checked the bottom, and it wasn't marked.

Now, I know that Fenton doesn't always mark their pieces.  (Fenton, for the uninitiated, is a glassware company that began making beautiful colored glass pieces over one hundred years ago.  The company no longer exists, but Fenton pieces are very collectible and often command high prices when resold.)

And I also know that people often give really, really great stuff to Goodwill.  And that sometimes people don't know the value of the stuff they donate.

But still, I thought it must be a reproduction.  Why?  Well, because it had a $3 price tag!

Usually Goodwill marks items up that they know (or think) are worth something.  How could I find a piece of Fenton for $3?!  It had to be reproduction!  Well, reproduction or not, it was too pretty not to buy for $3.

Upon checkout, the older lady cashing me out grabbed the candy jar and exclaimed, "You found Fenton for three dollars???"  She shook her head, "People just don't know what they have.  But good for you!"

Well, that was unexpected.

I'm often told by the cashiers at Goodwill that the things I'm buying are "pretty" or "beautiful," or maybe I hear "What a great find!" as they're ringing me up.  But I've never heard one identify my find before.  (To be fair, I've never found a Fenton at Goodwill before for one to identify.  But I have found some other great valuable pieces.)

Well, if the Goodwill cashier recognized a Fenton, I started thinking it must be.  Maybe there are no reproduction Fentons?

As soon as I got home I put my detective hat on and googled my beautiful little jar.  Sure enough, I found several exact replicas for sale online for around $50 a piece.

Yes!!

Just look at this pretty little thing:

Here it is.  I still can't believe it!

Who would give this away?

Here it is on ebay.

I gave her a run through the dishwasher to get her super sparkly.

The slight gradations in Fenton coloring are just so beautiful.

If you recall, I found an absolutely gorgeous blue Fenton vase last summer at a flea market for $26, and I thought THAT was way undervalued:

I think Fenton, like all art glass, is so much more beautiful in person, because you can see the variations in colorization, which are so much of what make it so lovely.

It was perfect to fill with gladioli.

So maybe it wasn't my "I paid $6.00 for it at a yard sale and found out it was worth $20,000" Antiques Roadshow moment, but it still felt pretty good.

Treasure hunting is what's fun about thrift store shopping, even if the value of the purchased object is high only to me.

In the end, I just bought it because I loved it.

So I guess that proves I've got amazing taste, right? 😉