Va. Woman Bought Vase for $3.99 at Goodwill, Then Made Over $80,000 Selling It at Auction (Exclusive)

"I saved the vase and the vase saved me," Jessica Vincent tells PEOPLE about her lucky find

Virginia horse trainer Jessica Vincent got a sizable Christmas bonus after grabbing a pretty $3.99 vase off a Goodwill shelf.

She later learned the Murano vase was crafted by legendary Italian glass designer Carlo Scarpa as part of a series called “Pennellate” in the 1940s. It sold at auction on Dec. 15 for a hammer price of $85,000. With buyer's premium, the total price came out to be $107,100. Of this, Vincent netted about $83,000.

“It was the thrifters equivalent of winning the lottery,” Vincent, 43, tells PEOPLE. “I read about these things all the time but I thought, 'Could I have really just bought a masterpiece at Goodwill?'”

Vincent, whose story was also covered by the Associated Press, was doing her usual thrifting last June with her partner Naza Acosta after a day of training horses. In her search through the store, she came across a glass vase among the cluttered stacks of old kitchen items and canning jars.

“I picked it up and I could tell that it was blown glass, and it just had a beautiful iridescence,” Vincent says. “When I got close to it, I knew it was coming home with me.”

She saw a mark on the bottom of the glass with Murano and Italia stamped on it.

It didn’t have a price tag on it, but she said she was going to buy it even if it was expensive. To her luck, the clerk said it was only $3.99.

Back home, Vincent posted photos in her Facebook groups and took the suggestion to join a private group for Murano Glass. There, it was identified as being produced by the renowned glass company Venini and designed by Scarpa, who died in 1979.

She says she got chills when one Facebook member told her: “Those are very rare. Every collector would love to have that. But most people cannot afford them.”

She was referred to Richard Wright, president of the Wright Auction House in Chicago, and contacted him by email. Wright then connected with Vincent by phone.

“I figured when the CEO of the auction house wants to have a phone call with you it's probably pretty special,” Vincent says. “And he was just telling me how incredibly rare these are and the color that this was in and the form that it was in. I think they only know of one other one in these colors.”

Vincent says she would have loved to keep the vase but needed the money. Plus, once she realized the worth, she was nervous about having it sitting out. She quickly boxed and wrapped it for fear it would get chipped or broken.

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“I was stressed having it at my little 1930s farmhouse,” Vincent says. “And I just bought the farm and everything needs to be fixed. I don’t even have heat.”

It made sense, she said, to send it back to the art world. As for her windfall, she’s already got plans to get her home heated and to purchase a dishwasher. She also works with rescue horses and plans to put some money into that as well.

“I feel like I saved the vase and the vase saved me,” Vincent says.

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