Twice a year, you can get your hands on used books at the Friends of Tompkins County Public Library Book Sale. Among the items for sale, there is one with a higher price tag than most.

A unique painting made its way to the Tompkins County Public Library’s biggest fundraiser.

“Never seen anything like this. It's one of the largest book sales in the country, it's just unusual it happens to be in this tiny little college town in Upstate New York,” said Michael Scholtz, a volunteer of Friends of Tompkins County Public Library.

Every six months the warehouse is filled with treasures and then cleared out for the next sale. Thanks to the work of around 170 volunteers, the sale makes $500,000 every year.

“If you were to come by here in four weeks, all of this area with all of the shelves would be empty,” Scholtz said.

Among the quarter of a million items donated to be sold at this sale, one of them was a painting; which a volunteer decided, needed a second look.

“I thought it would go well in our bedroom. So we ended up buying it at a local thrift shop, I think, for maybe $4 or $5,” said Jim Martin, who found the painting.

Martin donated the painting of a royal poinciana tree over the summer.

“As much as we liked the painting, it was time for a new home,” Martin said.

A volunteer with some art history knowledge decided it needed to be appraised, and it was for $1,250.

“I thought immediately to text my wife and say, ‘oh no,'” Martin said.

The painting is by Alfred Hair. Hair was a black Florida artist who couldn’t get his art shown in galleries. So he sold his paintings, along U.S. Route 1, and mentored 26 young black artists. 

They also sold their work along Florida’s highways in the late 1950s. They were known as The Highwaymen — a group inducted into Florida’s Artist Hall of Fame in 2004.

“The library can benefit from it, that’s what’s really important,” Martin said.

A painting that may soon be on someone else’s bedroom wall.