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Charity Shops

Started by Captain Crunch, March 01, 2008, 09:06:42 PM

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non capisco

There's also usually at least one Viz annual and a prominently displayed hardback copy of The Da Vinci Code that seems slightly too big. And the cliches about 'Frampton Comes Alive', The James Last Orchestra and The Tijuana Brass always being in the record section are absolutely true.

Have you ever noooooooooticed etc.

Niall Quim

For 99p today, from Age Concern, I got A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary. Is it worth anything? Amazon Marketplace seems to suggest so, but whether or not anyone would actually pay those prices is another story...

Hank_Kingsley

Quote from: Niall Quim on March 03, 2008, 01:41:54 PM
For 99p today, from Age Concern, I got A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary. Is it worth anything? Amazon Marketplace seems to suggest so, but whether or not anyone would actually pay those prices is another story...

They don't tend to, but if you offer yours a little bit cheaper someone will bite. Maybe say, a tenner?

This isn't selling stuff is it? We're not going to be sent to a CaB gulag are we?

Come Natasha, we must leave this place!

Niall Quim

Oops, wasn't fishing for offers there, 'onest guv! Blush. Please don't put a wet towel down my throat, Vladimir.

Ronnie the Raincoat

Just about everything I own is from a charity shop, and it's no exaggeration.  Nearly all of my books, most of my rare CDs and quite a lot of my clothes and shoes I've found in charity shops.

There are some brilliant ones around here; there's two excellent Cats Protection League bookshops on this road, then a Christian Aid odds and sods shop a few doors down.   I got a massive, great quality desk from that one for a fiver. 

The bookshops are the best, though.  There's a really good Oxfam one in Crouch End.  I love secondhand books.  A few weeks ago I bought a book and a photo fell out of it.  I can only assume it was the owner, or the loved one of the owner.  It was extremely intimate, a photograph of a woman in a hospital gown, smiling with a newborn.


thepuffpastryhangman

The two (Cancer Research (all sorts) and Oxfam (books, music, vids) in Marylebone High St are good, well they would be. I hear Chiswick has a few decent ones, and apparently there's a couple near Earls Court. That last sentence being so vague I needn't have bothered.
South of the river - Beckenham is bathing in charity shops.

I always feel I have to jutify purchases to non-charity shoppers, not in the moral sense, but in the 'yeah, I got that for a tenner but I spend three hours a week looking, so in terms of time and effort, maybe it's not such a good deal'.

Maybe things go in cycles, maybe they just disappear altogether; at one time every charity shop ever seemed have at least three of those fired clay light tan 'jars' with LOL NO darker brown rim, the country kitchen staple, ideal for keeping utensils in. Now I can't find one anywhere, oh well.

madhair60

I'm always in charity shops.  They have serviced my Viz collection quite ably and if I were interested in old X-Files VHS I'm sure I'd be in seventh heaven.

More things besides X-Files VHS that are always in charity shops, at least in and around Cambridgeshire:

Colour Me Badd albums
Run DMC Vs Jason Nevins single
Fifa 99/2000/2001/2002/2003/2004 etc

Hank_Kingsley

Quote from: madhair60 on March 05, 2008, 11:22:50 AM
I'm always in charity shops.  They have serviced my Viz collection quite ably and if I were interested in old X-Files VHS I'm sure I'd be in seventh heaven.

More things besides X-Files VHS that are always in charity shops, at least in and around Cambridgeshire:

Colour Me Badd albums
Run DMC Vs Jason Nevins single
Fifa 99/2000/2001/2002/2003/2004 etc

Is Sally Ann's still going? That was a terminally depressing charity shop.

Cog Sinister

I've been known to 'help out' in the local Oxfam book place, an expensive little venture given that I get first dibs on new stock.  Thus far my charitable endeavours have provided me with a first edition of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, a few first edition Vonnegut's and (in my lunch break, when there are other charity shops to pillage) many tweed jackets.

All hail the charity shop.

Ginyard

Seconded, Cog Sinister.

I found the great 1976 Hancock/Jarrett/Tyner/Corea (Atlantic) album in absolutely perfect condition the other week from a local hospice charity shop. What insane backpassage thinker threw that out?!.

Buy from charity shops, sell on ebay....but not this baby.

jennifer

Quote from: Niall Quim on March 03, 2008, 01:41:54 PM
For 99p today, from Age Concern, I got A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary. Is it worth anything? Amazon Marketplace seems to suggest so, but whether or not anyone would actually pay those prices is another story...

I'd keep it and read it first, it's ace.

Today's trip around charity shops (today taking me to sunny Basildon) wasn't so good.  It must be my turn to find something rare again soon.

gloria

Really ancient paperback copies of 'Jaws' used to be the commonest item whenever I went into a charity shop in the '90s.  Now it seems to be copies of 'Bridget Jones's Diary'.

What's great about buying books from charity shops is that you're so much more likely to take a punt on an author or subject you wouldn't normally go for.

Quote from: gloria on March 07, 2008, 11:14:50 AM
Really ancient paperback copies of 'Jaws' used to be the commonest item whenever I went into a charity shop in the '90s.  Now it seems to be copies of 'Bridget Jones's Diary'.

It seems to be books by that Ben Elton wherever I go.

Brundle-Fly

Vinyl charity shop stalwarts: The Sound Of Music OST, Grease OST, Joseph And His...OCR,  Nightflight To Venus by Boney M, No Parlez by Paul Young, marching band albums, stereo test LPs, K-tel compilations and all those bloody Beatles acetates and promos that clutter the Sue Ryder record section in Muswell Hill.

Futurebobbers

I donated a Viz annual among some other stuff last year and about three months later accidentally bought it. I only realised when I found something I'd doodled on the inside back cover. I paid 50p for a book which was mine anyway only now it was in worse condition having been outside in the rain. Interestingly, someone had written "Unsuitable" on the cover in pencil.

I bought an album at the same shop for 50p which contained not the LP depicted on the cover, but a badly scratched record of children singing Christmas songs.

madhair60

Quote from: Hank_Kingsley on March 05, 2008, 11:36:18 AM
Is Sally Ann's still going? That was a terminally depressing charity shop.


Unfortunately, it is.  They wouldn't let us film a zombie movie in there, either.  Bunch of stuck-up cunts.

Hank_Kingsley

Haha! Excellent, (not the being denied zombie privileges part...). Were you doing that as part of a film studies course or just for shits and giggles?

Maybe they didn't like their bright and cheery little shop being associated with the living dead...

The Amnesty International bookshop on the same road sometimes has some very interesting books from minor presses and whatnot, I've found some gems in there. It does smell a bit odd though, for some reason.

It's not a charity shop, but have you ever been to the 'Alternative Bookshop' further down Mill Road? It's quite funny to see what sort of books the credulous hippies of Cambridge are reading.

However, last time I was in there I found a load of books and magazines full of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Worrying to say the least..

madhair60

Yeah, if it sells books and is in Cambridge, I've most likely been there.  The Amnesty shop is most spiffing to be sure, but Alt, not so interesting.  I'm quite keen on those anti-semetic theories, though.

Anywhere else you can recommend?

Caroline

Quote from: Futurebobbers on March 08, 2008, 03:19:27 AM
I donated a Viz annual among some other stuff last year and about three months later accidentally bought it. I only realised when I found something I'd doodled on the inside back cover. I paid 50p for a book which was mine anyway only now it was in worse condition having been outside in the rain. Interestingly, someone had written "Unsuitable" on the cover in pencil.

On a trip round the charity shops in the town where my parents live I picked up what I thought was quite a cool ashtray made out of marbled black and white plastic, and when I showed it to my dad he groaned and said "If you wanted that you should just have asked me!" Turned out he'd donated it a couple of weeks earlier in a whole box of stuff.

My latest good charity shop purchase (which is probably my best ever) is a fantastic adjustable external flash for my camera for £2.50. Seriously good value.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: madhair60 on April 16, 2008, 02:21:16 PM
I'm quite keen on those anti-semitic theories, though.
NAZI

Hank_Kingsley

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on April 16, 2008, 02:24:15 PM
NAZI

It's a cambridge thing blud, you wouldn't understand.

Quote from: madhair60 on April 16, 2008, 02:21:16 PM
Anywhere else you can recommend?

There's a place my friends are always going on about which is seemingly stacked to the rafters with old 2000AD progs and lots of interesting British comics (obviously not Forbidden Planet then..) but for the life of me I can't remember where it is (under a bridge somewhere perhaps?).

I'm usually too lazy for that sort of treasure hunting and prefer being ripped off on the internet, or letting people buy things for me.

madhair60

Oh yeah, the "Arches", under the Coldhams Lane bridge.  There's also Bowes and Co on Burleigh St (a hive of charity shops as it is), but B & C smells like shit.

Hank_Kingsley

That's the spice, Arches.

Yes, I remember Bowes and Co. from when I still bought cds. For some reason they always had loads of stuff from Amphetamine Reptile in there. One of those odd charity shop anomalies I suppose.

There are a few decent big car boot sales around the Cambridge area that can yield some interesting treats, the Addenbrookes one used to be quite decent. If you're ever in the Arbury area when one of the schools is having a car boot sale I'd recommend it, if you can brave the roughness there are sometimes the most amazing bargains there.

Captain Crunch

Awesome new DLR watch I got last week:

Spoiler alert
[close]

Pound!

madhair60

Quote from: Hank_Kingsley on April 16, 2008, 02:37:46 PM
That's the spice, Arches.

Yes, I remember Bowes and Co. from when I still bought cds. For some reason they always had loads of stuff from Amphetamine Reptile in there. One of those odd charity shop anomalies I suppose.

There are a few decent big car boot sales around the Cambridge area that can yield some interesting treats, the Addenbrookes one used to be quite decent. If you're ever in the Arbury area when one of the schools is having a car boot sale I'd recommend it, if you can brave the roughness there are sometimes the most amazing bargains there.

I didn't know there was an Addenbrookes one.  I'd be a wee bit nervous that I was buying some cancey old biddie's legacy, though.

Hank_Kingsley

Old copies of Viz and Star Wars toys? Nah.

mothman

Quote from: Mrs Trousers on March 01, 2008, 09:18:46 PM
The Amnesty International book shop on Gloucester Road in Bristol is fab, anything and everything seems to come through there and there's a nice mix between dirt cheap charity shop tat and slightly more expensive (but still reasonable) books in good nick.
It's also mostly staffed by mad old women, which is the bare minimum I expect from a charity shop.

I'm definitely going to check this out. <middleclass>Of course, I can never find anywhere to park on Gloucester Road, though.</middleclass>

Spang!

Quote from: Hank_Kingsley on April 16, 2008, 02:37:46 PM
There are a few decent big car boot sales around the Cambridge area that can yield some interesting treats, the Addenbrookes one used to be quite decent. If you're ever in the Arbury area when one of the schools is having a car boot sale I'd recommend it, if you can brave the roughness there are sometimes the most amazing bargains there.

The one that used to be on Oakington airfield was always quite good. I work near Burleigh St so do a sweep of the charity shops there a couple of times a week.

Hank_Kingsley

Quote from: Spang! on April 16, 2008, 03:17:21 PM
The one that used to be on Oakington airfield was always quite good. I work near Burleigh St so do a sweep of the charity shops there a couple of times a week.

Another Cambridge cat! I've never been to the Oakington one, is there an American airbase near there or am I imagining things?

When Andy's records was still in existence they used to have some great stuff upstairs, the bargain vinyl section was a veritable trove.