$30 Thrift Store Find Actually A $223,000 Jet Engine Valve

A Washington State online reseller has become the darling of his community after he snagged the deal of the year, at least on paper. Zach, 35, (he wouldn't tell Newsweek his last name or hometown) paid $30 at a thrift store in central Washington for an engine air supply valve that aftermarket aircraft parts dealer Aeroval says had a "reference value" of $223,520 in 2011. According to Honeywell's Web site, the part belongs to a GE CF6-80 engine from an A330-300, perhaps as part of the anti-icing system.

Zach says he has no idea how the Goodwill store got hold of it or what its actual value might be. The section of the device with the Honeywell part number (3290628-4) is attached to other things on the assembly and they may have some theoretically astronomical value, too, but he's not banking on a quarter million dollar profit. For one thing, it didn't come with any of the paperwork that would make it possible to use it for its intended purpose.

"Now, I totally recognize I won't be able to get anything remotely close to that—if I can sell it at all, for that matter," he said in a Reddit post. "It's just really amazing that someone discarded hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of commercial aviation parts, even if they are non-functional." We couldn't get hold of Honeywell on the weekend but we'll try Monday.