Charity Shop & Poundshop Finds

[graylien]

So, what wonders have you found then? I'll kick things off with a couple of Egyptian themed items I bought from a local charity shop. That's a little resin bust of Tutankhamen and a wooden figure of Thoth the Moon god, sporting a rather fetching shawl.

 

[Frideswide]

That's a really nice Thoth! what's the scale?

 

[graylien]

Dunno. How big is Thoth? The figure is exactly 6 inches tall. Here's a selection of CDs

The Magical Music of Burt Bacharach, featuring an uncredited orchestra, is typical of the kinds of CDs you only find in charity shops. It features a most startling arrangement of Walk on By. It begins in mock baroque mode, toddles along for a bit, then suddenly switches to a fast bossanova beat while a trumpet goes all Dizzy Gillespie. Then it calms down again to end on a mellow note.

 

[stu neville]

Erm... that would be Babi, not Thoth. Thoth has the head of an Ibis (the bird, not the reasonable hotel chain..) Babi has the head of a baboon. God of virility, bits of the underworld, and sundry other stuff.

 

[Moooksta]

Adamski's classic paperback "Flying Saucers Have Landed" (1953), really good condition for 50p in a second book shop in Soho....


(awaits comment regarding second hand bookshops in Soho)

 

[Swifty]

I bought one of these for two pounds from a charity shop last year. It's meant to have DVD's inside but I'm not complaining for the price. He's sat with my other film collectibles

 

[Mythopoeika]

That's actually rather good!
And a bit unsettling.

 

[Loquaciousness]

I mostly buy lots of CDs in charity shops. Latest acquisition was a set of 80's compilations.

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

I used to buy loads of LPs from charity shops, but in the last year or so the prices have skyrocketed (I blame #hipstas).

Obviously I don't have a problem with paying what they're worth, I'm not looking for crazy cheap prices and I don't want to rip-off a charity, I just enjoy crate-digging.

But if I see another "classic" Mantovani for £9.99 or "first pressing -rare" Beatles LP complete with barcode printed on the back I'll.....I'lll....go somewhere else.

 

[ramonmercado]

Some charity shops sell books too cheap. So I buy good books for 50c each and give them directly to Oxfam who sell them for €3.

I'm supporting two NGOs at the one time.

 

[Swifty]

That's actually rather good!
And a bit unsettling.

He is isn't he ! ... we've got him in our dining room in case any filthy humans decide to come round .

 

[graylien]

Scream snowglobe thing

 

[Frideswide]

Erm... that would be Babi, not Thoth. Thoth has the head of an Ibis (the bird, not the reasonable hotel chain..) Babi has the head of a baboon. God of virility, bits of the underworld, and sundry other stuff.

impressive!

 

[Frideswide]

Some charity shops sell books too cheap. So I buy good books for 50c each and give them directly to Oxfam who sell them for €3.

wild applause! I used to volunteer to do the accounts for Oxfam West of Scotland.

And they accepted! Otherwise it sounds as if i went into the shop every weekend and made the offer, undeterred by the previous rejections

 

[Monstrosa]

Scream snowglobe thing

Would I be right in thinking the red stuff is "blood"?

 

[graylien]

It's supposed to be, but when you shake it up it looks more like he's standing in a shower of rose petals.

 

[Frideswide]

It's supposed to be, but when you shake it up it looks more like he's standing in a shower of rose petals.

that's so sweet! I want one!

 

[escargot]

The Magical Music of Burt Bacharach, featuring an uncredited orchestra, is typical of the kinds of CDs you only find in charity shops. It features a most startling arrangement of Walk on By. It begins in mock baroque mode, toddles along for a bit, then suddenly switches to a fast bossanova beat while a trumpet goes all Dizzy Gillespie. Then it calms down again to end on a mellow note.

Charity shop records on YouTube!

 

[OneWingedBird]

I used to buy loads of LPs from charity shops, but in the last year or so the prices have skyrocketed (I blame #hipstas).

I've had a lot of good charity shop finds over the last quarter century but tbh never a good LP find that I can recall.

Some charity shops used to sell the good stuff straight onto dealers so you never got to see them, others had that big book of what records were worth but didn't realise they were dealers prices for mint examples if they wanted to have them in the window for perhaps six months before someone would bite. So you find something and think"well maybe, it's for charidee" and then take it out to check it and it's scratched to f*ck.

Speaking of hipsters, a while back I overheard an hilarious conversation between a couple of the staff at a local 'vintage' branch of Sue Rider... one of them had decided it would be cool to have a retro phone, so bought one that came in, only it was nicotine coloured(!) so she had to paint it, after which she found the ringer didn't work.

The phone worked but only if she could guess when someone was ringing her!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Last week I overheard a conversation in which an over-enthusiastic assistant explained to an interested customer that the objects in the cabinet she could see were just the cheap things from a house-clearance - many of the things in the back were worth "tens-of-thousands of pounds!" They would go on E-Bay. Well, thank-you for the tip-off - there are people in that town who would hire a JCB for such insider-information - even bollocks from a muppet!

I don't want to celebrate things which have slipped past them*, since they are supposedly raising money for good causes; I do, however, feel that the foot-fall they used to enjoy will be decimated as people abandon them to pay the same amount online with the benefit of a search facilty!

I still find it hard to pass one without looking in but I'm sorry to say that the glory days of the charity shop have passed, unless you are actively seeking kitsch and second-hand silver-wedding detritus - surely the most depressing merchandise on earth, even when new!

*North by Northwest Bluray for a quid springs to mind.

edit: Eek! Slipped past not passed, I think!

 

[OneWingedBird]

You can't really have it both ways though... the real bargains for the customer were the loss for the charity shop in their own way.

I recall a volunteer once spotting a slightly beatup bronze colour Quad ESL57 which almost went in the trash, as they had a tendency to be mistaken for space heaters.

 

[Ulalume]

I could fill up this thread with my charity/thrift shop finds (I love 'em) but here is one of my favorites that I happen to have a photo of at the moment.

It's a flask, actually, hollow, with a glass bottle inside and a top that screws on. It weighs about five pounds though, so I can't imagine what anyone would be drinking out of it?

Its one drawback is that the face resembles my gynecologist (though a tad friendlier).

 

[Naughty_Felid]

View attachment 592

I could fill up this thread with my charity/thrift shop finds (I love 'em) but here is one of my favorites that I happen to have a photo of at the moment.

It's a flask, actually, hollow, with a glass bottle inside and a top that screws on. It weighs about five pounds though, so I can't imagine what anyone would be drinking out of it?

Its one drawback is that the face resembles my gynecologist (though a tad friendlier).

I guess it's not the sort of job you'd want to be laughing out loud very often.

 

[graylien]

What is this? That's not a trick question. I really don't know what it represents. It looks woollen but it's ceramic.

 

[stu neville]

It's part of the Slipknot rigid-beanybaby range that wasn't all the rage among irritating Emo teens some years ago.

Serious answer - no idea. I'm confident that it isn't an Egyptian god of any kind, if that helps.

 

[Peripart]

You can't really have it both ways though... the real bargains for the customer were the loss for the charity shop in their own way.

I don't entirely agree, as you get no sort of guarantee with charity shop finds, so the price has to be lower than other sources, I would say. Certainly, I'd never dream of taking faulty goods back to a charity shop, but I'm prepared to take the chance if it's in a good cause.

That said, I'd never haggle in a charity shop, either - I've seen people try it, and I think that's pretty low (unless an object is clearly marked way too high, such as the LPs previously mentioned, in which case a polite word to the manger would be in order).

As for bargains, I've found boxes of Lego* (a guilty pleasure of mine) at silly prices, as well as model-railway related stuff, which I'll take a punt on, reliability-wise, if the price is low enough. I try to tell myself that both parties benefit from such bargains - after all, the shop haven't had to pay for the stock, and it's unlikely they have to pay much in the way of wages, either, so profit margins must be OK.

I recall a volunteer once spotting a slightly beatup bronze colour Quad ESL57 which almost went in the trash, as they had a tendency to be mistaken for space heaters.

Ah, the old ESL57, good old Quad ESL57, old Quaddy-Quaddy... what's that, then?


*Edited to add - Lego has to be proper Lego. None of your Megablocks nonsense, or worse.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Quad ESL 57

You really need to see the bronze version to understand why a high end loudspeaker of yesteryear would get mistaken for a space heater.

 

[Peripart]

Ah - magnifique (et la femme, aussi)! Merci beaucoup.

 

[sherbetbizarre]

I bought one of these for two pounds from a charity shop last year. It's meant to have DVD's inside but I'm not complaining for the price. He's sat with my other film collectibles

View attachment 588

I'll give you £3 for it...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/testa-scimm...ef=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1432383228&sr=1-1

 

[Mythopoeika]

Whoa! Hang on to that!
They're selling it for around £150!