Every August I look forward to the Chicken Alley Sale at the Vineyard Haven Thrift Shop. For 10 years, Olga Hirshhorn has organized, supervised and advertised her pet Vineyard project and her hard work and imaginative impulses have been richly rewarded. The Chicken Alley Sale has made hundreds of thousands of dollars for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services and given hundreds of people a chance to snatch up a vast number of donated items, proving the theory once again, that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

People begin to line up for the Sunday sale well before the doors open at 1 p.m., and although there were clouds and raindrops in the forecast, this year’s crowd was bigger than ever. I stood in the middle of the line for 40 minutes, chatting with several women who had their shopping bags at the ready and their running shoes firmly laced.

Anticipation hung in the air as the line snaked around the building. Troves of treasures, every one appraised and tagged, waited to be picked up, perused, and perhaps purchased. Under the white tent that flanked the entrance to the thrift shop hundreds of paintings, photographs and posters were displayed, some in bins, some hanging, others in folders, but as soon as the clock struck one they began disappearing like Houdini’s pigeons.

As the crowed struggled to find its footing inside the shop, chock full of everything and anything one could possibly imagine and more, I edged my way to a bookshelf that held an array of china objects and grabbed up an interesting looking plate that had been made to celebrate the coronation of Edward VIII which never took place. When the King of England abdicated in 1937 to marry the woman he loved, warehouses, filled with commemorative souvenirs went begging for buyers, but 74 years later I knew the plate with the king’s picture and coat of arms was worth a lot more than the $20 marked on the price tag. I put it under my arm and made my way gingerly through the crowd past the jewelry cases, stacks of books, kitchen items, vintage clothing and bric-a-brac to a table holding, among other things, a handsome ship’s wheel thermometer; though blackened with age, it appeared to be working and held out the possibility with a good bit of elbow grease of being brass. For $8 I was willing to take a chance. My third item was a colorful ceramic fish made by a Vineyard potter. Pleased with my potential purchases I showed them to Olga, who pronounced the coronation plate “way under-priced.”

“You always find interesting things,” she said, as she sat under a sign that read Olga’s Corner, where a number of oil paintings she had personally selected, hung on the wall above her. I happily agreed, for since the very first time I began coming to Chicken Alley I have always left with two or three things that I truly loved.

After chatting with a few friends who, like me, had their arms full, I headed for the cash register to ante up.

As I passed by a wall of pictures, a small, gold, gilt-edged frame that held an etching of a young man’s head caught my eye. He was heartbreakingly good looking in the way most 18th century men of means seemed to be. Below his picture was a signature that I assumed to be his, but my glasses were buried in my bag and I struggled unsuccessfully to read it. Instinctively I pulled the frame from its place among many larger offerings and took my place at the end of the payment line. When I reached the cashier, I was told my total was $48. The man in the frame was $15 and I actually had enough cash to pay for my four finds, did so, and happily went on my way.

I walked past the post office toward Main street and stopped, put my new purchases on the hood of a parked car and rummaged through my bag for my glasses. Curiosity had overtaken me. I had to know who the young man in the picture frame was. With the assistance of a second set of eyes I found out. He was John H. Newman. As a graduate of a Convent of the Sacred Heart, I knew the name John Cardinal Newman to be well known in the annals of the Catholic Church but in this picture the man was not wearing a Roman collar and I was not sure Cardinal Newman’s middle initial was H.

I took off my glasses, shoved them back into my bag and raced home to my computer to google John H. Newman. When I did a long list of Web sites appeared.

When I clicked on one of them, the picture in my frame appeared on the screen. And the information I read stunned me. It said that John Henry Newman, a convert from the Anglican Church to Catholicism, not only became a Cardinal, a respected theologian, and historian, he was about to become a saint! Oh my God. I picked up the frame in my trembling hands and turned it over only to discover that a piece of cardboard taped to the back of the frame was held in place by nine small nails, but not for long. I found a screwdriver, and pried the nails lose. Under the cardboard was the picture, and under the picture was the signature that was attached to a letter! Dated Feb. 2, 1877 from the Oratory it read, “Dear Sir, I have much pleasure in hereby complying with your request and am, Yours faithfully, John H. Newman.”

So now, thanks to the amazing sale at Chicken Alley I own a thermometer that did turn out to be brass, a plate commemorating Edward VIII’s coronation (that never took place), a ceramic fish, and a letter written by a soon to be saint.

My friends are curious about why I decided to take the frame apart and look under the picture, and I say, “They don’t call me the prying mantis for nothing.”

— V. V. Harrison