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The Wilt Chamberlain-worn warmup jacket found by a Portland teenager at Goodwill has sold at auction for $89,600.
It’s a significant payday for 19-year-old Quinn Brown, especially considering he originally spent $3.07 on the Los Angeles Lakers jacket in January. But the Sotheby’s New York auction did not quite reach the heights of $150,000 to $250,000 that the company estimated when it opened the auction for bids on July 1.
After first being reported in Willamette Week, Brown’s true-life tale of found treasure catapulted into national news over the past month.
Brown says he plans to invest the earnings from the Chamberlain jacket in either property or the stock market, after first taking a vacation with his friends to Vietnam. He learned how to thrift from his older sister while a student at Lincoln High School.
Brown found the jacket Jan. 15 at one of the Portland-area Goodwill Outlets, known as the Bins. At first he wouldn’t reveal which one, but he has since revealed that it was the Hillsboro location. It is unknown how the jacket made its way from Los Angeles to Hillsboro.
The warmup jacket is short-sleeved, collared and Lakers yellow, with a team logo on the chest and “Chamberlain” stitched across the back in purple. Sotheby’s authenticators matched it to photos of Chamberlain at three NBA games, including the 1972 NBA Finals.
Chamberlain is known as one of the 10 greatest basketball players of all time, and still holds the single-game scoring record of 100 points, set in 1962.
Sotheby’s called the jacket “rare and significant.”
Brown was not immediately available for comment about the final sale price.
Shortly after finding the jacket, Brown told WW, “This is a crazy experience. A couple of days ago I had found nothing crazy, then this. It’s amazing.”
