Many people have a story about an unbelievably cool yard sale or thrift store find, but the CBC showed readers a thrifting find that was literally someone's Roman Empire.
The discovery occurred at Thrifty Boutique in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and it happened through a nearly nerve-wracking chain of happenstance events.
At some point in spring 2024, an individual donated two medallions and 11 rings to Thrifty Boutique. The items were priced at 30 Canadian dollars ($21.51) each and placed on the floor, where anyone could've bought them.
Eleven rings and two medallions, up for sale in a Chilliwack thrift shop for $30, are believed to be medieval or Roman artifacts, dating back potentially thousands of years.https://t.co/T14r2FgATC
— CKNW (@CKNW) September 25, 2025
It's not clear how much time passed before an extremely lucky coincidence intervened: A shopper "who identified himself as an archaeologist" visited and flagged down a volunteer employee to alert them to the putative nature of the jewelry, the CBC reported.
According to manager Sandy Parker, the man suspected the pieces could be authentic antiquities of "medieval or Roman" origin, possibly thousands of years old.
Parker took the visitor's advice and contacted Simon Fraser University about the potentially ancient jewelry, but she was still awed when she spoke to the CBC.
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"Absolutely it's the most interesting thing that we've seen, just because of the history and the unknown," Parker said. As for the pieces, they're in the custody of the university's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and will be featured in an upcoming course.
Thrift shopping has several distinct advantages over retail shopping, and situations such as this are perhaps the most thrilling of these advantages. It is admittedly rare — though clearly not unheard of — to stumble across antiquities in secondhand stores, but stunning finds aren't rare.
High-end appliances including KitchenAid mixers are a common score, as are designer goods and items that are no longer being produced. Purses and jackets routinely serve as hiding spots for valuables and cash.
When we shop at thrift stores, saving money is just one benefit. In addition to discounts on designer or big-ticket goods, we're also diverting items from landfills one purchase at a time.
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Cheaper clothes 🤑 Redditors discussed the antiquities find on r/nottheonion, a subreddit dedicated to strange but true news.
"I wager this stuff happens more than people think. I have a storage room full of very high-end antique furniture I've collected from yard sales and thrift stores over the years," one user said.
"I work at the receiving dept at a thrift store and can confirm," another replied. "Sometimes this is obvious — massive Persian woven rugs and colonial furniture — other times it's boxes that … we have to dig through and find the wildest stuff."
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