DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — They say treasure can be found in the most curious of places. That’s exactly what happened to one Ohio woman when she bought a painting at a local thrift store. Little did she know, it was much more than she bargained for. “I love to go thrifting," Marissa Alcorn, a photographer in Dayton, told Nexstar's WDTN. "I thrift for the stuff for my studio mostly. Or my house — my house is 90% thrifted.” Alcorn said she was scouring for such deals one night in mid-January. Rare vase bought at Virginia Goodwill sells for over $100K at auction “My fiancé Arron and I had just got done with dinner he convinced me to go to a Goodwill store," she explained. “We did a lap around the store and didn’t find anything and I was, like, 'See, I didn’t find anything, I told you I didn’t want to be here,' and this lady brought a cart out right before we were about to leave and I saw the corner of the frame.” She thought it was an "awful painting.” But for $2.99, she thought "Why not?" That is until she got into her car and noticed something. “It had a little plaque at the bottom of the frame," Alcorn recalled. "Out of curiosity, I type in the name and find out it was Johann Berthelsen.” An American impressionist painter whose pieces hang in art galleries all over the country, Berthelsen's works can sell for as little as $1,000 or upwards of $35,000. "My first thought was this isn’t real," she says. "It’s probably just a fake." So Alcorn posted it on Facebook in a free art appraisal group, and the photos quickly took off. Many people advised her to get it authenticated. She found an auction house in Cincinnati that quickly accepted the painting. “While it was listed in this auction, people were pre-bidding on it. So it started out at like $600 and on auction day it made its way up to $1,500," she said. “It lasted, like, approximately 30 seconds and it was like a bidding war. Then it settled on $2,300." Online records show the painting sold for more than $2,800. What are wheat pennies, and why are they sometimes worth thousands? Alcorn said they were taken aback by the sale. "I was sweating, I was nervous, and I was, like, even if it goes for $1,500, I’ll be happy," she told WDTN. "We paid $2.99 for it.” It's a moment Alcorn said she will never forget. “I think it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I don’t think I’ll ever find something like that again, but you never know." Alcorn said she and her fiancé Arron recently got engaged, so the money will go towards their wedding. ...read more read less