Thrift store ‘Picasso’ sells for $7,000

Zachary Bodish, 46, of Columbus, Ohio, bought what he thought was a poster reproduction advertising an exhibit of Pablo Picasso for $14.14 in a thrift store and sold it for $7,000 to a private buyer.

Bodish, who lost his job as a house manager at the Wexner Center for the Arts about two years ago, said he went to a Volunteers of America store in Clintonville, Ohio, on March 1 looking for mid-century furniture or "kitschy art" to re-sell, reported ABC News. He uses the hobby to supplement his income while he works part-time and looks for permanent work in the arts.

"I would have liked to have kept it but I'm somewhat underemployed at the moment," Bodish told ABC. "I really needed the money. If it hadn't been worth very much, only $2,000, I probably would have kept it."

According to Fox News, after buying the Picasso, Bodish did an online search and discovered the print's history as an exhibit advertisement. He started looking more closely at the piece and saw some very faded red writing in the lower right corner, which he originally thought were pencils marks from the thrift store.

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"It wasn't until I realized where the signature would be, and that those little red marks were right where the signature should be, that I got a stronger magnifying glass out and determined that, 'Holy cow! It's really a Picasso,'" Bodish said to Fox.

After the discovery was reported on the news, Ed Zettler, 72, a retired Columbus English teacher, came forward to say the poster had been his and sat in his home for years before he donated it to the thrift store, according to the New York Daily News.

"I gave it away. Someone else found it. He fortunately saw more. It's his," Zettler said, reported the Daily News. "That's the risk you take when you bring something to the thrift store."