A couple of days ago I bought a beautiful Paul Smith mod suit for $2.50. Perfect fit, single-breasted two button, dove grey with lavender pinstripes, looked unworn, retails for about $1500. Score!
Yeah, I know. It still disgusts me though. Especially when stories are concocted about how it’s supposedly not racist, but pro-black instead. See the ridiculous meme going around about the black lawn jockey. :mad:
Crazy folk, apparently. Actually, the place serves multiple counties and there’s lots of leftovers from yard sales and great aunt Maude’s passing. Some of the decor that comes in wasn’t in style when it could’ve been in style. No one needs that many ducks with dusty rose ribbons, bright colored XL macrame or plaques made out of clothespins / more macrame / pasta shells. It’s just scary sometimes.
A three-foot tall, wooden, totally nude male marionette. Not anatomically correct.
Probably because that would have required an extra string.
My wife went with me to a meeting in Palm Springs a few years ago, and she found great stuff in that place. The Times did a piece on Palm Springs - maybe a 36 hours in column - and mentioned it also.
I got a pants press for $50 at our thrift store, a good deal but not that weird. I also found a book of dirty crossword puzzles there. And a Puzz-3D puzzle of the Great Mosque in Mecca, which I have not seen in any catalog or ad.
And when he lies, watch out.
A couple of years back this happened to my brother in Salt Lake City.
He was browsing his local GW when he saw a toddler in his mother’s shopping cart with a C. F. Martin (yeah, the famous guitar maker) soprano ukulele. The uke was being banged against the cart by the kid. My brother gave the mother such a look of abject OMG/give-it-to-me that she relinquished custody.
He paid the 2 bucks that GW was asking and found it was worth 700-900 dollars.
New in box adapter for a 1998-2003 VW headunit to Panasonic CD changer.
Unlikely because I knew exactly what it was, having spent several weeks in 1999 looking for that exact thing.
The VW cd changer was made by Panasonic, but it cost $1200 installed in the car. The same Panasonic unit was $150, and the installation consisted of two screws. However, they used different plugs. You needed this adapter to go from one to the other. The adapters were often hundreds of dollars, if you could find one.
Other than that, I don’t go to my local Goodwill very often. There’s a Target down the street, and the Goodwill is basically where they dump all the returns and stuff too damaged to sell.
I saw a Harvard bumper sticker for sale in a thrift store in Alabama.
I am a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals. I got a 2 foot x 3 foot wood mounted blow up of the Newsweek magazine with the cover story “CATS pounces on Broadway” for $25!!! I danced walking home with it.
I didn’t realize there could be unlikely things at a consignment shop? They are full of everything and anything.
I am a huge fan of track and field and road running, and I collect memorabilia and books related to it. Fortunately that’s a cheap hobby because almost no one else wants these things.
The coffee shop/used bookstore in the nearby college town has given up a shocking number of rare, out of print books. Time and time again I’ve walked away with stuff that goes for $40-$100 on eBay, paid for with nothing but $3-4 of trade-in credit. The one I’m kicking myself for not picking up was the Jogger’s Catalog, an true early 70s timepiece in the same style as the Whole Earth Catalog.
I don’t see this. For example a very common item in households are tools–ranging from a hammer to an electric drill. Lots of thrift shops don’t stock them.
Free-weights, a set of Good crystal cognac glasses, A set of electrical cut records of Vivaldi (La Mer) from the 1930s, and just once… an electric guitar.
(…ok, I lied… they were at garage sales… but man I won’t top those…)
I found one of those old pre-popup toasters, kind with the two side wings that open, and you have to monitor the progress of the toast and turn it over when ready. My mom had one. The one I found in a thrift shop in Falls City, Nebraska, was clean and new-looking, barely used if ever. I burned lots of toast in it.
The one I work at does.
It’s a daily occurrence when I’m shelving goods to pick up an object and have no idea what it is. Sometimes, a co-worker knows. Other times, a customer does. 