I hit the thrift stores used furniture to refurbish and sell or donate. Sometimes buy clothes for work.
The Goodwill store here is a joke. Basically everything in the place is sold for just under what brand new cost. Couple faith based thrift stores have good items and at relatively reasonable prices.
Here is how it works for the Big GoodWill, Salvation Army and quite a few Consignment Stores stores to stay in business.
They operate on the same system as car Old and New dealerships do. They date most denotations and if what ever is not sold they trade with another same type store 50 miles away. Keeps the merchandise fresh and moving to hope some item, from cars to toys will sell in another area. If something just won't sell they donate the items to local churches to sell in their thrift basements. [ Their donation of impossible to move merchandise to Churches is then tax deductable for the last seller on the list to get stuck with JUNK.] Then it is up the churches to hold $3.00 a shopping bag sales or even free for all nights. This is good for the churches as it gives them the chance to draw in potential members, find friends and coworkers that attend and check the place out.
Never have I heard of any store or church dumping anything in land fill, unless it something totally unusable.
Last week one Goodwill had a treasure hunt, they were over loaded with art work and frames and advertised a sale as Hidden Treasures. Along with the sale they had articles about people finding paintings under or in the back of the frame worth big bucks.. Then there is the fact that for years people hid money behind picture frames and someone removed the frame and found the long lost money.
Never know I myself found a bird painting by D Lear rolled up in a bunch of stuff back 30 years ago. I paid back then $.50 and a few years later my Mom found the same bird on the cover of an old Smithsonian with a big article about D Lear the father of the Limeric. So I framed both the Magizine and the bird and they hang together on prominent display, Few visitors pay any attention to either of them, I have no idea of the value but some day in the future my Grand Kids could be in for a surprise.
The huge amount of donated goods usually has at least one person to check out he value of stuff, Jewelry or watches. Things do slip past them, I look for the old clip on earrings of the 1920-60 type. These are very hard to find today and the value of this costume jewelery has sky rocked in the past few years. Old Zippo lighters especially the novelty ones after WW 2 are in demand.
These Thrift stores and church bargen basements have so much history that is prime money for a collector. Now if you can find one of those wrist movement wind up watches from the 1970's you have found gold even if a repair on it costs $100.00.
Happy hunting, you can spend $900.00 for a metal detector and find perhaps find a few things after 3 years of hunting. OR you can in one month of searching out the thrift stores an hour or so a day on the weekends, find in 30 minutes something you can sell or trade worth mega bucks.
This is the Thrill of the HUNT, buy low, sell High.
