MRrogermoore
Member
Is Goodwill a thrift store? there's a big store close to me but i'm not too sure if ill find any cool item in there.
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Yard Sale / Thrift Store Finds Thread
- Thread starter That Damn Kid
- Start date
MRrogermoore
Member
Here's by best deal last weekend. Logitech Driving Force GT racing wheel for $10. Works fine.
Some other recent deals I got are...
Apple Airport Express- $2
2011 Macbook Pro that needed just a new hard drive, use it as my main computer now - $50
Boba Fett Star Wars talking helmet- $2
which store did you get this? which thrift store.
That Damn Kid
Member
whoops sorry meant to say those were all yard sale finds
Supa Necta
Banned
Goodwill now ships most desirable items to a central distribution center to be auctioned at their own site. Good finds are few and far between so I seldom go.
I have many I can list. For now though, I'll mention this one. Do you guys remember me posting this thread years ago? I found four Cobalt Flux pads for $5 each. It remains my best thrift store find and I do this all the time and you guys helped me out a ton! I ended up selling them for $615 and a few games.
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=454779
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=454779
Not true at all. I have found awesome stuff at my Goodwill normal stores and outlets.
Supa Necta
Banned
I guess it's a regional thing. I was told by a store manager that any video games or lego (two things I'm looking for) go to shopgoodwill.com.
Yeah, it's a regional thing. Even then they don't pull everything that is worth finding. Trust me, they miss a ton of stuff, all the time. The bins is the best place to go. People donate directly to that location and that stuff is never sorted and goes straight to the floor. That's how you find the amazing finds at the bins. It's almost never stuff that was previously in stores and then made its way to the bins.
We have a regional "store" on their auction site here but I've still been able to find stuff locally. Heck, almost every time I go in I find something. I found this just the other day for around $2, my first Steiff plush ever...
Eye for an Eye
Member
I'm guessing it's the individual stores, and the team sorting the items. If they've got a couple good people to spot stuff, it's less likely to end up on the shelf. Other stores seem to have people that couldn't care less and some good stuff winds up out there for sale for really cheap. There's a couple of Goodwills that we will shop at because it's more likely to find something and there are a few of them that we never bother with because they never have any good items. There's plenty of other thrift stores that are more local and will put everything out.
On the other hand, I did buy an item from Goodwill off Ebay. It was a Tetris game for the PS1. Surprisingly, it came in great condition. They tend to use stock photos and not very good at describing the item condition. It was a couple bucks less than another seller that had actual photos of the game, but I'm pleased with taking my chances.
Yeah, it's a regional thing. Even then they don't pull everything that is worth finding. Trust me, they miss a ton of stuff, all the time. The bins is the best place to go. People donate directly to that location and that stuff is never sorted and goes straight to the floor. That's how you find the amazing finds at the bins. It's almost never stuff that was previously in stores and then made its way to the bins.
We have a regional "store" on their auction site here but I've still been able to find stuff locally. Heck, almost every time I go in I find something. I found this just the other day for around $2, my first Steiff plush ever...
holy..that bear must've been expensive as hell back in the day.
friskykillface
Banned
I've paid $12 total for 3 sega nomads over the years
$5 at a yard sale
$3 + tax each at a savers, once when it opened back in 2012 and another a few months ago
Was awesome , I need to see if this guy on YouTube still takes in nomads and replaces the screen with an lcd one
$5 at a yard sale
$3 + tax each at a savers, once when it opened back in 2012 and another a few months ago
Was awesome , I need to see if this guy on YouTube still takes in nomads and replaces the screen with an lcd one
It's still in the $300 range or so. I haven't listed him yet though. He is my eBay shipping area mascot for the time being, haha.
That Damn Kid
Member
This morning I bought a Game Boy Advanced SP with Pokemon Blue for $15 at a yard sale. Everything works!
I have to be just down the block from a Goodwill once or twice a week so I always like to slip in and check out if there are any quality finds.
Recently I got:
Vintage Ray-Ban Wayfarers in good condition - $7
Suncloud polarized sports sunglasses - $4 - not my style but I wanted a pair for running and they're good
A really nice wood frame - $4 - perfect for an oddly sized print I recently purchased
Brand new well reviewed mandoline slicer for the kitchen (plastic film still on the blade) - $5
There was a humble bundle t-shirt there last time I was in and I'm tempted to grab it.
Recently I got:
Vintage Ray-Ban Wayfarers in good condition - $7
Suncloud polarized sports sunglasses - $4 - not my style but I wanted a pair for running and they're good
A really nice wood frame - $4 - perfect for an oddly sized print I recently purchased
Brand new well reviewed mandoline slicer for the kitchen (plastic film still on the blade) - $5
There was a humble bundle t-shirt there last time I was in and I'm tempted to grab it.
Supa Necta
Banned
Today I found a bag of about 20 lego bionicle figures for $5.
Yesterday picked up a Sony PS-T33 turntable for $20.
Yesterday picked up a Sony PS-T33 turntable for $20.
Last night found my first decent thing in a while at Value Village
Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game
Return of the King base set
Warriors of Minas Tirith starter set with paints.
80% of the minis were still on the sprue in the base set, and the starter set hadn't even been open yet.
Total cost was $5.99.... or the cost of a single new release book at that location.
Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game
Return of the King base set
Warriors of Minas Tirith starter set with paints.
80% of the minis were still on the sprue in the base set, and the starter set hadn't even been open yet.
Total cost was $5.99.... or the cost of a single new release book at that location.
One item I like to collect, buy and resell at times is old yearbooks. I enjoy looking through them, reading comments, all of that stuff.The other night I was going through a few that I bought in a lot locally at a yard sale last year and I noticed one was from Western Kentucky University in 1966. It is legendary horror film director John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From New York, The Thing).
His picture is in there two other times as well - National Honors Society and National Forensic League. Twelve years before Halloween.
I kept looking and I also have the WKU yearbooks for 1967 and 1968, the final two times he was featured in them before he transferred to California. His photograph is of course featured in both of those as well.
I also found these yesterday at Goodwill. Just local stuff, but I'll take em...
His picture is in there two other times as well - National Honors Society and National Forensic League. Twelve years before Halloween.
I kept looking and I also have the WKU yearbooks for 1967 and 1968, the final two times he was featured in them before he transferred to California. His photograph is of course featured in both of those as well.
I also found these yesterday at Goodwill. Just local stuff, but I'll take em...
One Eyed Willy
Member
Those yearbooks are cool
By checking often. If you want consistent finds, to really find a lot of good stuff, you have to be just as consistent on checking in on these places.
Supa Necta
Banned
As I mentioned above, I work right across the street from the best thrift store I've ever been to. I stop in 3-4 times daily as new stuff comes out throughout the day.
sixteen-bit
Member
throwback from a few years ago
Check often. I usually walk out with nothing.
Also I live in a good neighborhood for it. Lots of old money in the general area and lots of new wealthy young people moving in and (unfortunately) gentrifying things. They bring in good donations but the shoppers are still overwhelmingly the older Asian population of the neighborhood and aren't as interested in some of the things that I am so they probably last a little longer.
As an avid Goodwill shopper, I can freely admit that their donated records selection is usually horrible. That being said, I managed to pick up Jimi Hendrix's 'Are You Experienced', the Beatles' 'White Album', Cream's 'Disraeli Gears', the soundtracks to 'The Godfather' and '2001: A Space Odyssey' in one visit. All for 50 cents a piece, and all WITHOUT scratches or even noticeable cover damage. Thank God for people who throw out their family's awesome stuff to the delight of me.
As far as other things I buy for my personal collection it would be signed books. I happen to find them fairly often. I should make a list of all that I've found over the last year because it's quite crazy. This was my best single haul though. All books have smoke damage as you can see but they are all legit signed. The best one here is the complete band signed Aerosmith book.
Musha_Soturi
Member
I got a copy of Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman in a second hand bookshop and it turned out to be signed!
marimorimo
Member
Mostly just books for me, specifically language/reference books. But I've been able to find a lot of good stuff from 2nd hand bookstores that my friends envy me for. I've even bought a few that looked never-used.
I just found another pair of sunglasses. Polarized Ray-Ban Aviators. With the Wayfarers I found 3 weeks ago and the Sunclouds last week I'm up to $400 worth of shades for this summer for $15.
A guy on the other side of the aisle looking at t-shirts noticed what I had and immediately stopped the conversation he was having with a friend to come over and look through the sunglasses, but he was too late.
A guy on the other side of the aisle looking at t-shirts noticed what I had and immediately stopped the conversation he was having with a friend to come over and look through the sunglasses, but he was too late.
Here is a good example of what I do a lot. I love selling all kinds of hats. I find them all the time and most people don't place any sort of value on them at all. Today at a flea market I had someone just give me one because it was a little bit dirty. I bought this one this morning for $0.50 at a yard sale and it sold in less than six hours for $30. It isn't anything mindblowing, but it adds up over time. Besides, you can't beat when something sells that quick.
sixteen-bit
Member
Here is a good example of what I do a lot. I love selling all kinds of hats. I find them all the time and most people don't place any sort of value on them at all. Today at a flea market I had someone just give me one because it was a little bit dirty. I bought this one this morning for $0.50 at a yard sale and it sold in less than six hours for $30. It isn't anything mindblowing, but it adds up over time. Besides, you can't beat when something sells that quick.
Nice! One person's trash is another's treasure.
Tell me about it. I'd say I've made at least $10k on flipping hats alone over the last year.
7DollarHagane
Banned
Would be nice to have the time to rummage and thrift but I find it requires too much time investment to be worth it, and not just a crapshoot.
I used to go a lot in college and before I worked full time. I spend my free time at the gym most nights and trying to keep up with new games.
About two years ago I did get lucky with a SNES lot that had super Bomberman party pak and about 10 other games complete in box and mint. Bomberman went for $300 by itself.
I used to go a lot in college and before I worked full time. I spend my free time at the gym most nights and trying to keep up with new games.
About two years ago I did get lucky with a SNES lot that had super Bomberman party pak and about 10 other games complete in box and mint. Bomberman went for $300 by itself.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
My random guess as someone who works electronics at a normal Goodwill store is that we can't do much with a lot of it if it doesn't sell. We can recycle anything computer related through our Dell program. But, outside of that, a lot of our electronics can't be recycled. So, if an electronic just isn't selling, and we can't recycle it, we either sell it for cheap as fuck at the outlet stores, or it goes in the trash and costs us money.
Since I started there, the company has been doing all it can to cut back on trash, 'cause we pay for trash by weight, so of course it's a fuck ton of money. It's just in the last year that we started selling electronics in bulk like that, at least in our area. Before that, if an item didn't sell after so long, it just went in the trash. Fucking massively wasteful, and expensive for us. So, the outlet thing is great.
It depends on what you're looking for. I do a lot of the shipping out for our store, and most of what I see I wouldn't give a fuck about. It's like paintings, or small figurines that they think might be antiques, or books that are of a certain age. The biggest thing that people would care about are the video games. And that sucks for us too, because with someone like me around who knows what shit is worth, our store could be making a lot of money at times off those games, whereas we don't really get credit for online sales.
Honestly though, we don't get a ton of video games. I've been there for two years and haven't really seen anything mind blowing, and I see 100% of it as I am literally the only person who does electronics at my store. I've seen one boxed NES. That's really the only exciting thing I've seen. Outside of that, we get the occasional gameboy and lots of old sports games, mostly.
What ruins it is that we have people in our store we see literally every day, going through our electronics with ebay open on their phone, just looking for things to resell. I've literally seen people go through our 1,000+ books scanning every single one with an app on their phone telling them what they're worth. So, the company sees that shit and obviously learns that we are letting valuable things go for too cheap, and responded.
And, it's not like you could even feel good about it. I mean, if you wanted a copy of Earthbound and found it for $1, I'd be happy for you. But, you were never going to get that Earthbound. The guy who comes in every day looking for SNES games to go resell was going to find it, and go home and sell it for enough to cover a nearly a weeks worth of a minimum wage employees pay. So, since not every store has someone like me around, it all goes to be sold online where they know they'll get what people are willing to pay for it.
I suppose the company wins in the end, but I work at a store that struggles to make budget every month, so we don't exactly feel good about having to send off those valuables, either.
I went to a thriftstore yesterday, telling myself to buy only something "useful" yet I still ended up with this gnarly Tarot card deck. (The internets tells me it was made in either 1880 or 1905, based on an 1750's deck)
I'm hopeless, maybe I should use it to tell whether I'll ever be able not to buy wacky, usless stuff in the future...
I'm hopeless, maybe I should use it to tell whether I'll ever be able not to buy wacky, usless stuff in the future...
I went to a thriftstore yesterday, telling myself to buy only something "useful" yet I still ended up with this gnarly Tarot card deck. (The internets tells me it was made in either 1880 or 1905, based on an 1750's deck)
I'm hopeless, maybe I should use it to tell whether I'll ever be able not to buy wacky, usless stuff in the future...
Wow, that's a very cool find!
Of the has I bought for less than a buck yesterday two others have sold since the one I posted above. One for $20 and another for $30.
That Damn Kid
Member
where is the best place to sell hats? I've been trying to sell a few sports hats on Craigslist and OfferUp and not getting much interest, despite the cheap price.
I know that feeling but these are still pretty cool tbh.
Yeah, it's a regional thing. Even then they don't pull everything that is worth finding. Trust me, they miss a ton of stuff, all the time. The bins is the best place to go. People donate directly to that location and that stuff is never sorted and goes straight to the floor. That's how you find the amazing finds at the bins. It's almost never stuff that was previously in stores and then made its way to the bins.
We have a regional "store" on their auction site here but I've still been able to find stuff locally. Heck, almost every time I go in I find something. I found this just the other day for around $2, my first Steiff plush ever...
I am totally jealous! I have collected Steiff since I was 18! My mother started collecting them when she was a kid and I always loved her collection, she gave me her collection on my 18th birthday and I have added tons more since that time.
On eBay, only eBay. You can do alright on Etsy as well but you will not get what you can get on eBay. It's useless to try to sell them on the local apps and FB Marketplace as well. The folks there just want them very cheap or they want them cheap to then flip them on eBay. It also depends on what you are trying to sell. Certain sports hats just aren't going to bring a lot period.
Here is another one I sold earlier today...
That is amazing! How many do you have now? It must be some collection!
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
I got a 1st Edition Fiend Folio for $5. I always thought it was pretty sweet.
At a Goodwill, found a good Harmony remote attached to a crap subwoofer marked $50, asked the clerk how much for just the remote, and bought it for $2.
Got a DS at a garage sale around 10 years ago for ten bucks, they told me it didn't turn on, but after charging it all night if worked great.
Bought a portable Sirius receiver at a garage sale for 20. They told me that their new car had it built in so they no longer needed it, but it turned out to have a lifetime subscription that they forgot about. Used it nonstop for 6-7 years until it broke.
Got a DS at a garage sale around 10 years ago for ten bucks, they told me it didn't turn on, but after charging it all night if worked great.
Bought a portable Sirius receiver at a garage sale for 20. They told me that their new car had it built in so they no longer needed it, but it turned out to have a lifetime subscription that they forgot about. Used it nonstop for 6-7 years until it broke.
What's so special about this cap?
Marky Mark
Member
Probably the "VTG" tag in the description.
what does that mean
Marky Mark
Member
I'm assuming vintage but in a manner cool kids would search for the word.