Finding an unexected bargain in a chazza

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

CDs you always find at least 3 copies of in charity shops round my way:

Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This
Sandi Thom - Smile, It Confuses People
Madonna - Music / American Life
Anything by former X Factor / Britain's Got Talent contestants (particularly G4 and Paul Potts)
Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle
Mysterious unsealed TDK CD-r's in the thin plastic covers from a multipack but with nothing written on the discs. 

Vinyl albums I always see in them:

Paul Young - No Parlez (obviously)
Cliff Richard - specifically late 80's fodder like Stronger and Always Guaranteed
Various Ronco / K-Tel chart compilations  (Chart Hits '82 and Raiders Of The Pop Charts particularly).
Carpenters - The Singles 1969-1973
The Shadows - 20 Golden Greats
Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream
Numerous Howard Keel country albums on the Telstar label.

[idunnosomename]

i do love looking at all the complete shite that people bought in the early noughties particularly. stuff like No Angel (ok, 1999). fuckin tons of them. all this detritus of capitalism by forcing people to buy shit music on optical media.

I think charity shops tend to be more canny with pricing now and usually price stuff accordingly with discogs.

[phantom_power]

CDs you always find at least 3 copies of in charity shops round my way:

Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This
Sandi Thom - Smile, It Confuses People
Madonna - Music / American Life
Anything by former X Factor / Britain's Got Talent contestants (particularly G4 and Paul Potts)
Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle
Mysterious unsealed TDK CD-r's in the thin plastic covers from a multipack but with nothing written on the discs. 

Vinyl albums I always see in them:

Paul Young - No Parlez (obviously)
Cliff Richard - specifically late 80's fodder like Stronger and Always Guaranteed
Various Ronco / K-Tel chart compilations  (Chart Hits '82 and Raiders Of The Pop Charts particularly).
Carpenters - The Singles 1969-1973
The Shadows - 20 Golden Greats
Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream
Numerous Howard Keel country albums on the Telstar label.

Don't forget a Herb Alpert & His Tijuana Brass album, some Perry Como, a battered Neil Diamond album and a fuck-load of marching band music

[idunnosomename]

checks out



though they're never that much now. quid, tops.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

I think charity shops tend to be more canny with pricing now and usually price stuff accordingly with discogs.

Bastards.

[Brundle-Fly]

CDs you always find at least 3 copies of in charity shops round my way:

Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This
Sandi Thom - Smile, It Confuses People
Madonna - Music / American Life
Anything by former X Factor / Britain's Got Talent contestants (particularly G4 and Paul Potts)
Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle
Mysterious unsealed TDK CD-r's in the thin plastic covers from a multipack but with nothing written on the discs. 

Vinyl albums I always see in them:

Paul Young - No Parlez (obviously)
Cliff Richard - specifically late 80's fodder like Stronger and Always Guaranteed
Various Ronco / K-Tel chart compilations  (Chart Hits '82 and Raiders Of The Pop Charts particularly).
Carpenters - The Singles 1969-1973
The Shadows - 20 Golden Greats
Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream
Numerous Howard Keel country albums on the Telstar label.

Grease OST
The Sound Of Music OCR
Carousel OST

[sutin]

At my secondary school you were either a 'chazza' (possibly 'shazza') or a 'grunger'. I was informed upon joining that I must be the latter, on account of wearing trousers rather than a skirt and having a Jansport backpack.

ANYWAY. Got a few decent hauls of CDs for £1 each in the Archway Crisis shop over the years, just rip them straight to my laptop and whack them on my iPod. Sadly I don't have any means to play vinyl but I still enjoy a good browse. The Oxfam bookshop in Crouch End normally has a good selection, I guess even millionaires run out of space or die sometimes.

I was thinking of starting a stupid thread a while ago about those certain albums you ALWAYS see in charity shops. On CD, the main ones I seem to notice everywhere are early-mid 2000s hyped-but-somewhat-flash-in-the-pan sort of albums, like

Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV
KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
The Automatic - Not Accepted Anywhere

and that sort of thing.


_{Maybe in the next few months they'll be inundated with heaving binbags of Killers CDs, and various chazzas will have competitions building forts out of them, like Oxfam did with donated copies of Fifty Shades of Grey in 2012.}

I'd never known charity shops to be nicknamed anything before this thread.

[SpiderChrist]

I think charity shops tend to be more canny with pricing now and usually price stuff accordingly with discogs.

yeah but they don't seem to check the condition - once saw a copy of Wings' Wild Life on vinyl in a BHF shop, fucking £10 they wanted for it, the cover was tatty as fuck and the record looked like ants had been speed-skating on it .

[Bobby Treetops]

We frequent the same chazza shops. I wonder if we've rubbed shoulders? Have you checked out the Oxfam book/music shops in Muswell Hill, Angel & Kentish Town? Get some real gems in there. Mind In Camden up Archway Road oppo Highgate tube is worth a peep too.

I also frequent the same charity shops so we all could have had a unbeknown mini meet at some point

I was in a charity shop in Archway the other day (Air Ambulance Trust I think, across the road from Crisis anyway) and I saw a record dealer (I'm guessing he was a record dealer) coming out from the back with a big pile of records, giving them £20 for the lot. 'Give us a call when you get some more records in?' was his leaving remark. So even if they if they don't check the price on Discogs before they put them in the shop, the record dealers are getting in there first.

All the bargains I've found in the past few years have all come from boot sales, I find charity shops shallow pickings now a days, although it doesn't stop me looking.

[Brundle-Fly]

I also frequent the same charity shops so we all could have had a unbeknown mini meet at some point

I was in a charity shop in Archway the other day (Air Ambulance Trust I think, across the road from Crisis anyway) and I saw a record dealer (I'm guessing he was a record dealer) coming out from the back with a big pile of records, giving them £20 for the lot. 'Give us a call when you get some more records in?' was his leaving remark. So even if they if they don't check the price on Discogs before they put them in the shop, the record dealers are getting in there first.

All the bargains I've found in the past few years have all come from boot sales, I find charity shops shallow pickings now a days, although it doesn't stop me looking.

Ten years ago, the Marie Curie shop in Archway used to be like a Poundland Gosh Comics/ Sister Ray for a while. You could regularly pick up recent graphic novels/ latest albums on promo CDs for a couple of quid each. Clearly, these gems were donated by some local book/ music reviewers' freebie copies. For my money, this delightful state of affairs was delivered by Paul Morley who lives down the road from me. Or possibly another N19 local, journo, Simon Price.

I STUPIDLY once remarked "Fucking hell, bargain!!!" when I picked up the Gahan Wilson 2009 book collection for £4. The prices went up after that.

Anyway, today the shop is now just a desert of Fifty Shades novels, Travis CDs and Peepshow Series 1 to 3 boxsets.

[Psmith]

 a cassette ,I'm not proud,of Loveless.This was in 1992,obviously been rejected PDQ.I liked the Bloody.Upgraded to CD since I wore it out.

[holyzombiejesus]

I wonder if we've rubbed shoulders?

*vomits*

[flotemysost]

We frequent the same chazza shops. I wonder if we've rubbed shoulders? Have you checked out the Oxfam book/music shops in Muswell Hill, Angel & Kentish Town? Get some real gems in there. Mind In Camden up Archway Road oppo Highgate tube is worth a peep too.

I moved to South London a year ago but I did spent an inordinate amount of time mooching round charity shops when I lived in that area, so yeah, it's possible! All the places you've mentioned are great.

[Brundle-Fly]

*vomits*

I said 'shoulders' not 'genitals'.

[The Mollusk]

Ha, I've also been a frequent visitor of the chazzwazzers in Muswell Hill and Archway. They're among the best I've ever been to, they always keep me going back. Among all the cracking music I've dug out, I've also come out with some great clothes. Got a very tasty figure-hugging black denim Ralph Lauren jacket for £15 round there once. Love wearing a banging bit of clobber and receiving compliments on it and practically bursting about how little I paid for it. Whether you're a charity shop veteran or a complete stranger to the hobby, every fucker loves a bargain. Anyway...

i do love looking at all the complete shite that people bought in the early noughties particularly. stuff like No Angel (ok, 1999). fuckin tons of them. all this detritus of capitalism by forcing people to buy shit music on optical media.

I think charity shops tend to be more canny with pricing now and usually price stuff accordingly with discogs.

Is that the case with vinyl? I've never noticed that with CDs, which are always priced universally and are often only more expensive if they're double albums or the like. The only price jumps I've noticed are dependent on the area they're situated. Basically the more upmarket areas of London will have CDs priced at £2-3 whereas others will generally be £1. Always love having a rummage through the discs and finding something eye-catching like some bizarre Prince album or a cult classic sludge metal piece nestled between Dido and Bublé and then noticing a sign on the rack saying "All CDs 50p". I must look a right tit stood there grinning a pile of near-obsolete obscurities. I've never caught anyone else doing it.

And on the topic of CDs you always see in charity shops, surely the biggest stinker of them all is this:

[Brundle-Fly]

One for the bad record sleeves thread. Why do so many artists have to make a stab at their 'Sgt. Pepper album cover moment'.

[Dusty Substance]

Still live in hope that one day I'll wander in and find Chill Out in a charity shop that someone's accidentally stuffed with the library music/own-brand cover albums

A friend of mine has that on LP but she never, ever plays it and I've run out ways to drop hints that I REALLY REALLY WANT IT!

[Dusty Substance]

Basically the more upmarket areas of London will have CDs priced at £2-3 whereas others will generally be £1. Always love having a rummage through the discs and finding something eye-catching like some bizarre Prince album or a cult classic sludge metal piece nestled between Dido and Bublé and then noticing a sign on the rack saying "All CDs 50p".

Average Chazza CD price is four for a quid down my way. 95% usual crap, of course, but every now and again I'll find something great.

[honeychile]

Not a chazza[nb]thought this was a thread about pigs to begin with[nb]little yiddish joke for you there[/nb][/nb], but at a record and CD fair last year i saw a 3-cd northern soul compilation not from the usual labels for a mere £3, so took it to the counter. Handed it over to the bloke running the stall, along with my three little pounds:

Him: "That'll be... hang on...three pounds?"
Me: "The label says three pounds!"
Him: "... fuck... my colleague must have priced this one... i'd have put this one on ebay... we'd have got a lot more for it there. I mean... it says three pounds, i have to accept three pounds. Fuck."

He had the last laugh without knowing it, as there wasn't much actual great stuff on there.