It gave them much pleasure.
A dumbfounded thrifter snagged a sweet deal while shopping in Westchester County, purchasing a “priceless” letter bearing Winston Churchill’s signature for a meager dollar.
“I felt like I was stealing,” the lucky Redditor wrote this spring in the forum r/ThriftStoreHauls under a photo of the framed artifact. “I even talked about the frame nervously as the gormless shopgirl took my money. I just wanted the transaction over and done with!!”
The note, dated April 19, 1955, reads: “Thank you so much for your kind message. It gave me much pleasure.”
Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister on April 5, 1955.
He held the position from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. He died in 1965 at the age of 90.
The letter, embossed with a House of Commons stamp, was addressed to the Jackson College for Women in Massachusetts, which is now part of the Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences.
Authenticated signed letters by Churchill have fetched thousands of dollars online.
While the message appears to be handwritten, one Reddit commenter pointed out that it could be “pre-printed facsimile,” or, in other words, a perfect reproduction.
“It certainly has nominal value as an interesting piece of historical ephemera from a famous figure, but it is not the jackpot that many here are thinking,” the commenter wrote.
That concern didn’t deter fellow Redditors from sharing their envy of the “ultimate” find.
“For a dollar??? Somebody didn’t have a clue,” chided one user.
“I think you won. You found the ultimate thrift store haul,” championed another.
“Guessing Tufts wouldn’t mind buying that from you to have in their archive, but I’d keep it,” advised someone else. “You’ll probably never ever come across a piece of history like that again at a thrift store.”
The Redditor did not disclose the shop that sold the memorabilia, just that it was in the northern part of Westchester County.
The Post reached out to the Redditor for comment.
