"Having it appraised puts a dollar to it, but that's not really the value to us. It doesn't matter if it's $12 or $1,200," the cassette's new owner said.
For this North Carolina couple, one man's trash is truly another man's "Thriller."
Mike and Amber Hernon of Concord were scouring their local thrift store when they purchased an old Michael Jackson cassette for 25 cents.
That seemed like a reasonable price, until days later, they realized it was signed by the King of Pop himself.
"We were ecstatic," Amber told InsideEdition.com, "kind of in shock."
She said they were looking around their local thrift store, Heavenly Treasures, when two cassettes caught their eye — one by Fleetwood Mac and Michael Jackson's "Bad."
Mike joked that even though one of their cars had a cassette player, they hardly ever used it.
But both their families had been huge fans of Michael Jackson, and for just a quarter, "we couldn't pass it up," Amber said.
They tossed it aside, but days later, Amber said she wanted to show their sons pictures of the superstar behind such hits as "Billie Jean" and "Man in the Mirror," and what she found inside the cassette was truly shocking.
"We opened it up and realized it was signed," Amber said.
Susanne Lambert, the owner of Heavenly Treasures, told InsideEdition.com most of the goods they sell are purchased in estate sales.
"There's no telling what house it came from," Lambert said of the cassette. "They might have passed away."
Amber said the piece of memorabilia is "pretty priceless to us," and her husband insisted they weren't interested in finding out the cassette's monetary value.
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Amber said while selling the artifact was out of the question, they would consider having the signature appraised, to confirm that it is the John Hancock of the real Michael Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50.
Darren Julien of Julien Auctions in West Hollywood, California, told InsideEdition.com that if the signature is authentic, it could fetch between $1,000 and $3,000.
"Having it appraised puts a dollar to it, but that's not really the value to us," Mike said. "It doesn't matter if it's $12 or $1,200. How we got it and who we got it from is worthless in value to us."
Watch: Man Discovers Heartwarming Letter Tucked Inside Used Record: 'Play It Loud For Mark'
