Teens snag a Wilt Chamberlain LA Lakers jacket at Goodwill for $4. He can make $335K

When Quinn Brown, 19, first saw basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain’s 1972 Los Angeles Lakers jacket, it was on someone else’s hand.

The teenager from Portland, Ore., was picking through the newcomers’ bins at a local Goodwill store in January when he saw another shopper pick up a large, bright yellow jacket with Chamberlain’s name on the back. The buyer looked at it indifferently, then tossed it back.

Brown snapped it up. As someone who likes to save money, he says he knew right away that it was a good find. He bought it for $3.07 US ($4.36 Cdn), thinking he could sell it online for a few hundred dollars.

It is now up for auction at Sotheby’s, where it is expected to fetch around $250,000 US ($355,150 Cdn).

“I would say it’s good, but I wouldn’t have thought it would be like that [Chamberlain’s] jacket,” said Brown As It Happened hosted by Nil Kӧksal. “It was just something you get.”

The art of barrel making

Brown, a recent high school graduate, did something creative by picking up Goodwill bins, a skill she learned from her twin.

She buys used clothes by the pound, scavenging bins for interesting or unusual items, which she sells online for a profit.

“I just have an eye that I think other people want to wear,” he said.

Before now, his biggest find was an old T-shirt from Sub Pop, the Seattle record label that made a name for itself in the ’90s by signing Nirvana and Soundgarden. He bought it for a dollar and sold it for $250.

When he examined Chamberlain’s jacket, he said he knew it was old. It had Scovill buttons, which were discontinued in 1984.

But it wasn’t until she started looking at the photos online that she began to suspect that they might actually have been worn by Chamberlain herself.

Another clue that it was the real deal? The size was similar to other Chamberlain jackets and sweaters from previous auctions.

“The jacket was ridiculously big,” Brown said. “Of course, it wouldn’t fit.”

1972 heroic history

Brown posted his findings on Instagram for feedback. Soon, he had auction houses coming into his DMs.

Finally he made a deal with Suthu, who hired a third party company, SIA Photo Match, to verify the matter.

The company matched the jacket’s texture details to three authentic photos of Chamberlain – two taken during the 1972-73 NBA season, and one taken during the 1972 NBA Finals.

In 1972, the Lakers beat the New York Knicks in five games to win the championship, the first since moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.

The victory was in no small part due to Chamberlain, who was named MVP. It was his second and final NBA championship, and he later revealed that he had played Game 5 with a broken wrist.

“This jacket is sports history,” said Suthu on its bidding page.

It is valued at between $150,000 and $250,000 US by Sotheby’s, and is on sale until July 29. Bidding was up to $15,000 US as of Monday afternoon.

Another Chamberlain warm-up jacket, worn during the 1968-69 season, sold in 2022 for $56,400 US At Gem Auctions. In 2023, his 1972 Finals jersey sold for $4.9 million in Suthini.

Regardless of how much this jacket sells for, Suthu will come out on top, although Brown refused to reveal how much.

Suthu did not respond to a request for comment.

Brown says he thought about holding on to the jacket for a while, as he suspected it would increase in value.

“But I also know that now I can spend money and play it safe and just put the money in, maybe put it in an index fund,” he said. “I really hope it goes to a true fan who will be able to appreciate the history of the jacket.”

He says that he is still thinking about his colleague who was carrying the jacket in his hands, but he has stopped. You know what it’s like to leave something important in the bins.

“I feel really guilty about it,” he said. “But how it works.”