For most shoppers, the painted coffee table sitting on the sales floor of Goodwill in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, might have looked like nothing special. But to frequent thrift hunter Jennifer Armstrong, 56, the telltale midcentury-modern legs made her stop in her tracks.
Armstrong had popped in for one of her regular “quick sweeps” through the store’s restock carts and shelves.
“Saturday is the big donation day, but Goodwill puts out new items daily,” she told Newsweek. But when she spotted the “ugliest gray-painted coffee table,” one detail made her look twice.
“I immediately recognized the shape of the legs and was hoping they were original midcentury-modern—not just a modern reproduction,” she said.
Her intuition was right. When she flipped the table over, her hunch was confirmed: the table bore the mark of Lane, a celebrated American furniture company known for its durable and stylish midcentury designs.
“My heart skipped a beat when I saw the Lane brand name, style, and serial number,” Armstrong said. Wasting no time, she tore off the customer receipt and hurried the table to the checkout counter before anyone else could notice the hidden gem.
The serial number confirmed the table’s authenticity and showed it was made on August 25, 1956. At Goodwill, the price tag was just $7.99—and since it was Wednesday, Armstrong saved another 30 percent with the store’s 55+ discount, meaning the table only cost her $5.59.
Comparable Lane tables in good condition often resell online for anywhere from about $650 to nearly $3,900, with many averaging around $1,300.
Restoring a classic
The table had been painted over in a flat gray and had some corner damage. “It looks like a puppy chewed it,” Armstrong joked. But knowing the quality of the piece, she got to work restoring it.
“I used a carbide scraper to strip the paint and original stain,” she said, with the clip showing glimpses of the original wood beneath the paint as she began to scrape away the “awful” paint. “Next, I’ll be finely sanding and re-staining. I’ll also repair the corner before listing it for sale,” she added.
Armstrong, who has shared the discovery and restoration on Instagram, plans to post the refinished coffee table on Etsy and eBay, complete with national shipping.
While she admits she would love to keep the piece, her mini schnauzer has other ideas. “He’s very attached to the vintage skirted ottoman in our living room,” she said. “That’s his bachelor pad—he likes to hang out underneath it.”
Beyond the thrill of her find, Armstrong sees her Lane table as part of a broader cultural shift as people opt for furniture that doesn’t last and is more likely to be thrown away.
More and more solid wood classics like the Lane table, built to endure decades, are ending up in donation bins or, worse, in landfills.
That waste adds up quickly. EPA data show Americans generated 2.2 million tons of furniture waste in 1960. By 2018, that figure had climbed to just over 12 million tons a year.
The vast majority of this material, more than 80 percent, is sent directly to landfills, with only a small fraction recycled or combusted for energy recovery.
Armstrong worries this trend is unsustainable, and is passionate about finding and restoring quality, classic furniture. “People are discarding quality, solid wood furniture and replacing it with what I call ‘fast fashion’ furniture,” she said. “The amount of furniture piling up in landfills is growing exponentially.”
This isn’t the first time a shopper has found something incredible hiding in a thrift store. One woman shared how she found a couch worth thousands in a local Goodwill for just $129, while another thrifter recently found a marble table worth thousands for just $100.
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