Woman found $1 wooden bowl at thrift store that is worth more than $100: 'Great find'

Editor's note: This article was originally published on August 24, 2023. It has since been updated.

Plastic wear simply cannot match the rustic charm of wooden kitchenware, making us wish they weren't so expensive. One Reddit user u/Erinzzz, however, discovered a fantastic deal in a thrift store. They showed off their new 11-inch salad bowl from The Great Alaskan Bowl Company in a photo posted to the r/ThriftStoreHauls subreddit. The original market price for this one was $119. "Wow! I scored a $119.11 wooden bowl from The Great American Bowl Co. (AK) for one dollar at a garage sale! Just in time for Big Salad Season," u/Erinzzz captioned the photo which garnered over 450 upvotes.

We can guess why these environment-friendly bowls are costly. The wood has a rich color with visible knots and grain and has been sanded to an enviable smoothness. Wooden bowls are useful in more ways than one. They're also far healthier to have in our kitchens than plastic bowls. Plastic items such as bottles, home furnishings and carpet fibers emit microplastics into our homes' air, which we then breathe in.

It is highly unlikely that our plastic bowls will be properly recycled when we are finished with them. Only one-tenth of all plastic ever produced has been recycled once, with only 1% recycled twice. Plastic bowls that have been discarded are more likely to take hundreds of years to decompose in landfills, per The Cool Down.

The bowl manufactured by The Great Alaskan Bowl Company which the Reddit user had bought is biodegradable. The company also claims to have a low to zero waste manufacturing facility, which means that it uses up or donates nearly all of the wood and sawdust generated during manufacturing. This Reddit user has maximized their low-impact lifestyle by purchasing this wooden bowl secondhand from a company that already attempts to cultivate wood sustainably because making wooden bowls may result in deforestation.

Some Reddit users added more information about the bowl and some simply appreciated the lucky bargain. "I had no idea those retailed for so much. It’s a beautiful bowl, congratulations!" commented u/emptyhellebore. "Great find! I’m a little jealous on this one," wrote u/IcedHemp77. "Fun fact about those bowls. I grew up in Fairbanks AK, where they were made. The company would cut a big log in half and core out the center to create the bowl. The discarded logs were left in a pile outside for anyone to take and my mom would get them and turn them into planters. We had so many planters, haha," shared u/DudeHeadAwesome. 

Talking of lucky thrifts, one woman was browsing the store's tableware, furnishings and trinkets when she came across a set of $6 plates—plates that turned out to be original Picasso pieces.

"I stumbled on the plates during my daily trip to the store. On my way out I noticed some new china had been added to the shelves. My first reaction was that they would make a great tablescape but then I turned them over and saw the Picasso tag," she explained. She was overwhelmed when she later Googled them and discovered how much they were worth. The thrifter watched as the auctions increased in value and her ceramic find began selling for $12,000, $13,000 and even $16,000.