PORTLAND, Ore. — A teenager paid just over three dollars for a piece of basketball history at an Oregon thrift store — and now that item could sell for more than $150,000 at one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses.
Quinn Brown, 19, was digging through a large bin of clothing at a Goodwill store near Portland back in January when he watched another shopper toss aside a yellow Lakers warmup jacket bearing the name of NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain. Brown, who makes money reselling secondhand clothing online, wasted no time snatching it up. He paid $3.07.
That jacket is now listed on Sotheby’s auction platform, with bidding set to wrap up Monday.
Sotheby’s describes the short-sleeved yellow jacket as an “extraordinary piece of memorabilia.” According to the auction house, it was worn by Chamberlain during the 1972 NBA Finals, the series in which the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New York Knicks.
“I didn’t even think that finding something like this was possible,” Brown said. “I got very, very lucky.”
Chamberlain is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in NBA history. He played in the league from 1959 to 1973 and earned two championship rings — one with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967 and another with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972. He also holds the all-time record for most points scored in a single game, dropping 100 points in a 1962 contest. He is enshrined in the NBA Hall of Fame.
Brown has spent the past three years hunting thrift stores for clothing he can flip online. Before this discovery, the most he had ever made on a single item was $250 — for a T-shirt connected to Sub Pop Records, the independent label that signed Nirvana in 1989 and put out the band’s debut album.
After bringing the Chamberlain jacket home in January, Brown went online to investigate its potential value. He found a photo of Chamberlain actually wearing a jacket like it and began comparing the two. He zeroed in on specific stitching details on the Lakers patch on the front, finding they matched the photograph. He also cross-referenced measurements from a different Chamberlain jersey — the Hall of Famer stood 7 feet, 1 inch tall — and found they lined up closely with the jacket in his hands.
“I really just wanted to make sure, because it was so hard to believe at the time,” Brown said, noting he had previously only read about other people stumbling onto such incredible thrift store finds.
Brown shared a photo of the jacket on social media, and Sotheby’s reached out to him about putting it up for auction. He agreed, and the jacket was later picked up by an armored vehicle.
Sotheby’s conducted its own photo verification and confirmed the jacket was indeed worn by Chamberlain during the 1972 Finals — a series in which he was also named Finals MVP.
“Photomatching a piece of game-worn clothing to a specific Finals series, for a player of this era, is genuinely exceptional,” Sotheby’s website states. “As photomatched items worn by Chamberlain become exceedingly rare, this jacket is a piece of sports history.”
This isn’t the first time a Chamberlain item from that 1972 championship run has commanded serious money. A game jersey from the same series sold at Sotheby’s in 2023 for $4.9 million, making it the fourth most expensive NBA jersey ever sold by the auction house.
As for Brown, he says he can’t wait to see what the jacket ultimately brings in.
“That was as good as it gets,” he said of his remarkable thrift store score.
