Charity store bin diving? Am I the only one that suffers this addiction?
Pretty much as the title says, lol. I frequent a number of local charity store or thrift shops if you prefer. There are good and bad days for lp,s and cd,s.
Today was an exceedingly good day!
4 original Deep Purple albums, Billy Cobham, Grand Funk, Styx, Animals, Live, Metallica. etc etc
Bob Just my opinion but you should steer well clear of any pawn shops, you are correct that ANYTHING in there is either way over priced or had a very hard life.... or both.
Goodwill tends to have more knowledgeable staff checking through the donations before offered to the public so sometimes you never see "the good stuff" as they take it out and list on ebay themselves.
However I am not saying we should all run along and see what we can get to resell for a profit from the charity shops.
My main aim was to see what others experience in charity /thrift stores was like.
I have had relatives tell me about nice clothes they found at Goodwill, but I seldom ever went there, and especially not for electronics. Same with pawn shops. I assumed that any equipment at such places had lived a hard life. Now, had I known what to look for and could repair items myself, I probably would have. But I would think that if the item played in the store, it would shortly breathe its last gasp back at my house.
More than likely I would be the guy on PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” who would approach the appraiser, hopeful for some good news: “Bob, you say you paid $75 for this artwork?” ”Yessir!” ”Well this signature down here that looks like Van Gogh . . . that is actually “van lines” and this is probably an advertisement for a moving company. If you like the picture, then you can keep it. Otherwise, line your bird cage with it”.
But reading the entries here has me thinking I should make the rounds and see what I can find. The ritzy areas here have Goodwill’s and maybe even a Salvation Army store, but for the church-affiliated thrift stores and the pawn shops, those are in the poorer areas of town and I assumed they wouldn’t have much. But I can check and see.
I have to say Goodwill are probably the last charity shops I will visit anyway. The pickings are very slim and the CEO awards himself a huge salary, yes very charitable. Now The Salvation Army is a total different story. Better goodies and a CEO that takes a nominal small salary.
GW's in my neck of the woods are pretty slim pickings. Craigslist is where the action is. Fortunately we have a local book store with an impressive selection of $2.00 vinyl.
Short arms, deep pockets. Books are my Shangri La at the local thrift stores. And not all are charity by the way. Never much luck with the audio equipment. Joe
Back in the early 90's, my local Goodwill was a treasure trove of LP's as people were dumping their record collections for CD's. I must have pulled over 300 of them out of there. I stopped there almost every day after work.
That store also provided me with a Thorens TD-165 table with a Shure V15 III for $3. When I was checking out, the cashier said "too bad the speakers aren't with it". Yeah, what a rip-off!
I have to admit that today I found the album equivalent of a Faberge egg.
I picked an album up in truly mint shape that I had a feeling was rare.
It was not till I got home and added it to my discogs catalogue that I found out how rare. My cost $1.89. Only one for sale on discogs in the UK. Their price ....£1000 Sterling. My oh my......
The list is near endless eg, from the same place...the system I’m using right now to type this, at the workshop: Denon UD-M31 CD amplifier/tuner Monitor Audio Bronze B1 with a Velodyne Vx-10B subwoofer. About $40 cdn in total, for the three pieces.
In the main shop workspace, from the same thrift store:
the aforementioned Rotel RA-980 integrated, all modified to the nines Musical Fidelity V-Dac,heavily modified Fujitsu laptop as a server for the net (music stations) (into the V-Dac) Target TT-5 metal audio stand. Kenwood KT-6550 Tuner, stunning shape, totally rebuilt Denon DCD-1930Ci DVD/SACD player, totally rebuilt, opa627’s etc. NAD 7020, rebuilt, happens to be on the stand. Monster cable power conditioner. Monster cable speaker wire. Mirage 750 speakers. target speaker stands (16") for the Mirage speakers
I only kept the Heresy's for a few months. I advertised in the local free buy/sell paper and soon found a buyer nearby. He paid me $375 for the Heresy's and was very happy! I went to my friend Marty in New Rochelle (a big Altec/JBL fan and tube gear collecter). He sold me a really nice pair of Altec 872 Madrid's (with the 15" Duo-Flex woofers for the $375 I made from the Heresy sale. I was very happy!
I frequented that CT Goodwill store for years buying $1 LPs and $3 CDs. Plus various vintage receivers, integrated amps, cassette decks, CD players ... speakers (Advent, JBL, KLH, Ohm Walsh, Snell ...). For dimes on the dollar or less!
I did find an old SOTA table in a store about a year back, was not that good of a bargain but still a nice score.
TBH I have found our local Goodwill stores to be pretty poor for anything music related, we have a couple of independent smaller stores that is where I am having the best luck.
How about this: I walked into my local Goodwill in CT and what did I see near the cashier? A mint condition pair of Klipsch Heresy's in oak finish. The price - $25 for the pair!!!!! I asked the cashier if that was for just one? No, she said - $25 for two!!!! OMG! I dug the money out of my pocket so fast and paid for them! $25 + 6% CT sales tax! Can you beat that!!!!
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