When a man browsing his local thrift store came across a painting bearing a distinctive signature, he decided to investigate. Mark Harrington is an avid thrifter—and he’s not alone. According to figures published by Capital One Shopping, around one in five Americans shops at thrift stores in a typical year. For Harrington, thrifting appeals for a number of reasons. “What I personally like about thrifting is that it feels like a window into the past,” he told Newsweek. “It feels like a treasure hunt, and I get to learn about all of these beautiful things. I often daydream about the path that led them to me. It’s a little sad that they were once so loved and end up being undervalued. But that’s also what I enjoy.” Another appealing aspect is that, thanks to modern technology, it has become easier to spot a bargain and sell it for a profit. “There are so many ways to resell—Whatnot, eBay, and Vinted, for example,” he said. “Combined with Google Lens, an image-recognition tool from Google that uses artificial intelligence to identify objects, being so accessible, you don’t necessarily need prior knowledge to find out whether something is valuable.” The painting he recently came across is a case in point. “Saturday morning, I was at one of my favorite thrift stores,” Harrington said. “By pure chance, I thumbed through a bin of wall hangings before I left and found the Stan Sobossek painting.” The presence of Sobossek’s signature in one corner intrigued Harrington, but it was not the sole reason he decided to buy it. Stanley Sobossek was a New York artist known for his mid-20th century oil paintings. “The painting caught my eye because the subject was an antique store, and I thought it would make good décor for my hobby space,”