Op shop bargain art could be worth $50,000

Four women rummaging through a box in a Northland second-hand shop were happy to pay $5 for an old oil painting.
The women, on holiday from Waikato, raided their car for meter money to scrape up enough change for the unsigned piece that had taken their fancy.
It turns out the painting is by one of Canada's most famous painters, the late Lawren Harris. The small painting of a river scene goes to auction in Hamilton on Monday evening and carries a pre-sale estimate of $20,000-$50,000.
A work by Harris sold at a Toronto auction for $2 million Canadian, four times the pre-sale estimate, in 2008.
It is the second time in a year that a valuable early 20th-century oil painting has sold for $5 in a Northland second-hand shop. A piece bought at North Haven Hospice's Allsortz shop in Whangarei in June last year later fetched $8300 at an auction in Auckland.
Everyone involved in the Harris find is keeping mum about the identity of the women and where in Northland they bought the painting early this year. The women are hobby collectors and sellers who limit their purchases to $20.
Raewyn Pauwhari, manager of Aesthete Gallery which is holding the auction, said that although the piece immediately created excitement, when word came back it was by Harris it was a "hair standing up all over my body" moment.
When the women bought the painting they were told it had been a gift to a woman who moved from Ontario to New Zealand. It had found its way to the second-hand bin after her death.
The painting is not signed but is in its original frame which bears a label stating it was framed in 1941 by Stedman's Book Store in Brantford, Ontario. Harris, a founding member of the "Group of Seven" landscape artists in the 1920s, was born in Brantford in 1885. He died in 1970.
"I'm as sure as I can be from the research I've done that this is one of his paintings," said Grant Bezett, director of the Fine Art Society New Zealand and curator of the auction at Aesthete Gallery in Hamilton.
Sotheby's Canada president David Silcox, who has written two books on the Group of Seven, said the painting appeared to be the real thing. Mr Silcox said it was no surprise the painting was not signed. Harris did not sign many of his works, saying he wanted them to stand on their own merit.
Mr Silcox said the painting was likely to be an early Harris work, "which means it's not as valuable as some of the others that he [has done]".