I volunteered at a thrift store years ago, and I was in charge of looking at the condition and prices of books that were donated. One person dropped off about 10 boxes filled to the brim with Playboy cartoons. They weren’t worth anything and couldn’t be put out on the floor anyway, so they were thrown out. I also remember that someone donated a biography of Benjamin Franklin from 1835. The cover was coming apart, but the pages were in wonderful condition. We sent that to a bigger thrift store in the area that ended up auctioning it for about $350.
I saw a jacket full of syringes at GoodWill.
My GF worked for a thrift shop, and when I picked her up after work she was admiring a 2 foot statue of Venus that had just been donated. So I bought it for her. That evening she was cleaning it up and noticed the wooden box at the foot of the figurine was hinged, but locked. I opened it with a bent paper clip and inside was a bag containing - a butt plug and anal beads. Then we figured out that if you twisted the head, it pulled a dildo out of the body.
Whomever draws the dildo from the statue shall be crowned king or queen of degeneracy.
Damn. That would be me!
“I’ll give you $5 if you sniff it.”
You gotta admire the creativity and craftsmanship
/thread
I haven’t seen things that’ll blow you away with how weird they are. Just things like old antique standing doll figure things or the odd looking mug.
A full wallet among other wallets, perfectly disguised. Somebody left it there a few hours before. It was a guy from Scotland on a trip with his friends who went shopping for party clothes. He answered on Instagram (after much stalking) at midnight when I was already inside a club and they were on their way to the club too. So we rendez-vous at 6 AM after clubbing because they had a train at 8AM for another city. They left some joints at my place as a thank you. Also offered some ketch for a, I shit you not, “crunchy landing”.
This thing!
It’s hilarious, and a damn good phone holder. Freaked out a few family members when they saw just one part of it sticking out of my luggage, before I could explain 😅
Used to work at one a long time ago. The weirdest stuff is the stuff that never makes it to the floor. Take for example this framed picture of young Michael Jackson which we promptly hung on our wall in the back.
Oh also I got an oxygen concentrator from the wholesale Goodwill where everything is sold by the pound. Paid $13 for a $800 medical device.
I use it to get my fireplace going. Works like a charm.
Breville toaster oven, in perfect shape, for $25. That’s around $300 off.
Rang up at about $17 due to a sale.
My best haul was a Janome sewing machine which retailed around $1800 for $30. I think someone had priced it for a friend or themselves because it was on a bottom shelf behind other items despite being on the shelf for under an hour. I went back 2 days later and got the extension table for another $8.
I found a 40-inch 1080p TV for only 20 bucks at the thrift store, I’ve been using it for a year now and it’s great!
I got a 28" 4K monitor for $50 and a 55" 4K Roku TV also for $50 (not at the same time). The Roku needs replacement lights on one side and I haven’t done that yet.
4K is actually such a steal. If my tv ever breaks down, that’s exactly what I want to upgrade to (and hopefully something thrifted)
Breville is such a good brand. Not very well known in the USA since they’re an Australian brand. Kinda expensive, but very high quality.
Not so much a weird thing, but more a weird price.
My local thrift store are known to have high prices. Not because they sell high-quality stuff, the prices are just high. The most insane thing there is what’s clearly a jar that used to hold pickled beets. It’s clean, though, I’ll give them that. Pickled beets are cheap and available in all groceries here. The thrift store chose to price this, empty, jar at 150% the price of a new jar including pickles!
Sounds like they were in quite a pickle.
We live in the same place. Pickled beets and overly expensive thrift stores.
does it rhyme with Schmennsylvania? lol
Front for money laundering?
Not so much weird, but it’s weird that it’s simultaneously hilarious and day-ruiningly depressing.
I saw a little bowl with small jewelry in it like charms and earrings. Among them was the right half of a heart that read “FRIENDS” and just below that was “EVER”. I’m 100% certain that there exists somewhere the left half of that heart that reads “BEST” and “FOR” with identical formatting, and that friendship either ended dramatically or fizzled out over time.
It made me think about some previous close friendships I’ve had and how people can either just grow apart or have a violent falling out. And I wondered who in their right mind would buy just half of that best friends forever charm. Why would a thrift shop even have that available?
Kinda fascinating that an entire coming of age story can be told by just half of a piece of jewelry I found at a thrift store, and I’ll never know the truth, yet I’ll never forget it.
I once bought a custom engraved Zippo that said “Daddy believes in you” at a pawn shop for $15. I bought it for very similar reasons.
You were supposed to buy the charm and use it to find your soulmate
And I wondered who in their right mind would buy just half of that best friends forever charm.
anyone who would like to joke with their depression. I can imagine doing that.
now I actually want something like this
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3.5€ for a brand new cast iron wok. Instabuy.
I was in a Goodwill when an insane person took over the stores PA system and started saying crazy shit. The weirdest thing was that I didn’t see a single person reacting at all, it kept going on and on but everyone in the store was acting like it was totally normal. I couldn’t handle it and had to get out of there because I was laughing too much and feeling creeped out at the same time.
If you don’t mind, can you define crazy shit?
Like weird? Gross?
Untreated Schizophrenic ramblings?Just weird nonsense, nothing explicitly gross. Closer to schizophrenic ramblings but more comedic because they were doing strange voices and sounded like they were having fun.
Anything along the lines of “birds num nums”?
It’s great place to source wood if you like woodworking.
As old people die, their furniture ends up there. Young people seem to prefer particle board style furniture.
Happy me prefers real wood.
Young people seem to prefer particle board style furniture.
As a young(-ish) person myself, I can assure you that it’s not that we prefer particle board, but rather that that’s the majority of what’s affordable out there. As I’m sure you’re probably aware, unless you go thrifting like you just said, real wood stuff in general, let alone furniture, is usually very expensive.
id thrift more wood pieces but i dont have the tools/space to fix it up. also i move a lot and that stuff is HEAVY
Exactly. That’s my situation too. I’ve found great furniture at Goodwills and (at the time) had the money to buy it, but I didn’t have the room in my car for it, nor did I know anyone who did.
Prefer or can only afford great idea i never thought of non the less
I always wonder why the heirs don’t keep the furniture for own use.
I always expect it’s they don’t have the room. Grandma did a reverse mortgage. So you don’t get the house can’t pay for storage fees. Might as well get rid of it.
Probably because it’s brown and makes the room look like a barn. But not a trendy one.
Maybe there aren’t any heirs. Or they’re across the country, or it doesn’t go with their decor. Etc.
Prefer?
Nobody prefers particle board. Particle board is hot garbage.
Would love real wood if I wasn’t so deathly afraid of bedbugs. The risk is too high, especially with used wood furniture having all sorts of small nooks and holes maybe even in areas that can’t be seen.
It is sadly also more convenient for me to order IKEA stuff delivered than doing a carshare ride out to it (the Montreal one is so far and way out of the way from downtown / west core)
Bob Ross head chia pet. I really wanted it so I opened the box to make sure the pot was inside. Found a dead lizard instead. Store employee had to properly dispose of the whole thing.
Like, no Bob Ross chia pet? Just the dead lizard? That’s fucked.
Sorry, should have been clearer. The chia pet was inside too. Well, at least the pot was. I didn’t really want to stick my hand in to see if the seeds were there too; on account of the dead lizard
Did the dead lizard have a green afro?
