The great thrift store famine

[mehguy]

Is anyone noticing that thrift stores are drying up of retro gaming stuff? I've been noticing less and less stuff at thrift stores every time I go. I haven't found any retro gaming stuff in literally months now... I go every week and it's normally a disappointment factory. When there is some good stuff, it's normally behind the counter and sold for above eBay prices normally, which is quite sad.

[atari181]

Been years since I found anything of interest.

[ubersaurus]

Last time I found anything of note at a thrift store was in like 2012, when i stopped at one near Chicago and found Metal Gear Solid for Gamecube for like 2 bucks.

[+save2600]

BadWill Hunting has gotten so ridiculous, that I rarely ever bother to trudge through their shitty stores anymore. Ignoring the worthiness of their selection for just a second, has anyone else noticed the abysmal service you get these days? One clerk if you're lucky… long lines of destitute looking (they're not really though and therein lies the irony) schleps purchasing things that will end up going directly into their garbage bin and a store full of zombies pretending to be sorting things or hanging clothes. Their stores are a complete and utter joke these days. Why does everything have to go to shit sooner than later anymore?

 

Other thrift stores though, including BadWill… still the same dismal selection of crap we're all accustomed to for the last 2 decades at least. Cheesy ready-to-assemble "furniture", Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream and Other Delights all scratched to hell, portable plastic CD players that don't work, those digital photo frames nobody over the age of 12 knows how to operate (and even they don't know the difference between the multitudes of file formats the thing can't read), the cheapest of the cheap all-in-one "entertainment" centers that include the cardboard (may as well be) Symphonic stereo system, horrible "art" stuffed into out of date and all beat to hell frames, etc. Blech. Goodbye America. Hello Third World!

 

When thrifting, here's my holy grail…

 

 

 

 

(Good album, just saying)

[madhatter667]

"Been years since I found anything of interest. "

- This is also the case on my end. Back in 2004-approx 2010 I was having a lot of luck finding good stuff at decent prices. I can't even find junk now.

[RodLightning]

I'm pretty sure most of the famine is caused by "pickers" picking the stores clean. Sometimes I hate that term. If you have a few busy flea markets or used game stores in your area, there is likely an increased market for old games, consoles and accessories. I have asked about it in a couple of independent thrift stores and heard that there are a few different guys who come in almost every day and buy everything they can find. Sometimes deals are cut so the stuff never even makes it to the sales floor. These guys have a strong motivation to vacuum everything up because it is an important part of their income.

 

Those of us who enjoy these items for collecting and god forbid, actually playing are left with whatever crumbs slip through the cracks and make it onto the shelf for sale. The failing economy here in the US (in my humble opinion) is helping drive demand for lower cost items in general. In the last few years I have been genuinely sad to witness thrift stores, packed 7 days a week with entire families buying school clothes, personal items and general necessities of life, second hand.

 

I have reduced my weekly trips this last year to once or twice a month, to avoid crowds and save a few pennies myself.

The stores are mostly picked clean anyway and it has been too hard to find anything worthwhile. This could be a local phenomena, your experience may vary based on where you live/shop.

 

Alright, this concludes my rant. I feel so much better.

 

On the bright side, there are still the rare occasions when one finds a gem that can be had for a song and those kind of finds are all the sweeter when they occur. My last "epic find" was two years ago, a Atari 800XL and 1050 floppy drive priced at $4.99 usd each. No power supplies with either, but the computer worked 100% and the disk drive came back to life with a little WD-40 and a good cleaning.

 

Finds like that are why I will never completely stop checking thrift stores from time to time.

[BassGuitari]

I occasionally hit up thrifts out of old habit. I don't really expect--let alone hope--to find anything good. If I'm lucky I might find an generic joystick for an old IBM compatible or something. Even Genesis sports games are fewer and further between. But if you like wrestling, music/rhythm, and NASCAR games for PlayStation 2, you're in luck.

I've done pretty well at thrifts in the past, but those days are long gone. Outside of eBay or other etailers, the best you can hope for is for a game shop that A) carries old stuff, and B) for reasonable prices. Or the vendor area of a game convention. The "thrill of the hunt" as we used to know it is pretty much gone.

Honestly, trading/selling with other collectors is the best way to go whenever possible, anyway.

[AtariLeaf]

I don't go to thrifts anymore. What they do have is in glass cases with ebay prices and anything that slips through the cracks ends up in the hands of one of the unemployed resellers that practically live at these places.

[+frankodragon]

Things I've been noticing at the Goodwills are Bill Cosby books/records and Hanna Montana merchandise. And for some reason, each one has a playing card shuffler machine like it's the law.

[gorfcadet]

I gave up on thrifts. I'm pretty sure all decent finds end up on Goodwills auction site or pickers who get there right at open or "know somebody."

I just frequent the regular shops for things I can trade for what I'm looking for.

 

I've been collecting for over twenty years and finally had to resort to Amazon for NES MULE and Vice: Project Doom. All I ever see in "the wild" are filthy copies of Mario or some Sega EA sports title.

[mehguy]

Well, I'd like to target value village specifically for their price gouging and "cuz its old its rare" crap.

 

Honestly, Value Villages merchandise is considerably higher than other thrift store and all retro stuff gets shoved behind the counter. Like seriously, they're getting this stuff for free, untested, and they have no knowledge on this stuff and they have they still price these things for ebay prices.

 

Anyways, all the goodwills closed down in my area (All of the Toronto area), and there prices were much lower than value villages, but when it came to video games, they did the same crap as value village. These places need to understand that they don't specialize in selling these items so they shouldn't be pricing so high.

[HoshiChiri]

I'm pretty sure most of the famine is caused by "pickers" picking the stores clean. Sometimes I hate that term. If you have a few busy flea markets or used game stores in your area, there is likely an increased market for old games, consoles and accessories. I have asked about it in a couple of independent thrift stores and heard that there are a few different guys who come in almost every day and buy everything they can find. Sometimes deals are cut so the stuff never even makes it to the sales floor. These guys have a strong motivation to vacuum everything up because it is an important part of their income.

 

I can basically confirm this is the case. I have a sister-in-law working in a local thrift store. Their place doesn't have a set "put-out" time for new stuff. Once they have a full load of freshly tagged items, it goes to the floor. They quite literally have people camping in the store, open to close, jumping every new cart that comes out. As I've been told, items for the lockup case tend to be watched by security, who will throw out anyone who jumps the cart prior to the items going into the case. As for the rest of the store? Wheel out cart to correct area, run to protect yourself, come back when the piranha are done feeding and put away what's left. (Also, never leave your cart unsupervised. If you have anything good, it'll get taken.)

 

As for the quality of service... most thrift stores run job-training programs. Which means anyone who isn't a register jockey is probably someone who literally can't hold a job anywhere else. These are the people sister-in-law manages in the back. Imagine someone who, in the middle of their shift, pulls out their phone, calls their kid/friend, and tells their boss (their boss!) that it's an emergency call- we don't know where we're going for dinner tonight! I am not making this up, these are things that happen. She really wants out, but she's helping mom deal with her dad's medical care, and the thrift store does offer ridiculously flexible scheduling.

 

I've long since given up on finding thrift deals. On the one hand, I live just south of Mr. MetalJesus, so there's enough gaming around that it does roll into the thrift shops. On the other, there's enough people after it that anything really good is gone instantly. I've opted for the 'stalk ebay and hope you get lucky' method of deal hunting... it's not great.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I got a sweet deal on an SNES, adapter, two controllers, SMW+AS, and about four forgettable crap games, for $25, at my local Goodwill. This was back in 2004. My mom practically dragged me to Goodwill. I'm glad she did!

 

In recent years, all the pawn shops and thrift stores have shit selection concerning games. The days of sweet deals are over...

[fiddlepaddle]

It's not just video game stuff; all thrift stores seem to have fewer useful items, and of generally lower quality last couple of years. I rarely see good stereo equipment any more (although I do see CDs, movies, and to a lesser extent, good books). I've noticed the asking price of CRT TVs has gone up recently. Nobody hardly wants old computers, and the people at the stores don't know how to tell the good from the bad, so many of them won't take them in.

 

Those stores in the nicer neighborhoods seems to still get some better donations, but I think fewer people are donating, and are donating less stuff in general... Maybe there isn't as much "conspicuous consumption" as there used to be.

 

There also have been new second hand stores opening up in my town (which has a fairly stable economy), so there must be more demand. I do know for a fact that there are lots more people on government assistance (food stamps, rent and utility subsidies, and other services like local travel) these days than 3 or 4 years ago, so I would expect those people to appreciate the value available at thrifts.

 

I also regularly see someone buy up like 50 pairs of shoes to box up and ship out of the country to people they know.

 

Also, it's a little depressing to think about, but some of those shiny new games I bought when they first came out are now moving into antique territory, being 40+ years old...

[Austin]

I've noticed the asking price of CRT TVs has gone up recently.

 

Really? That's interesting. It must vary from location to location. One of the Goodwill stores near me has CRTs of all sizes between five and ten bucks, with maybe the odd one being $15 for some reason. Totally worth it for a good set if you ask me (they were more years back).

[TheClassyGamer]

The thrift stores here are just as bad. Mostly all the flea markets and such are all the same.

 

I went to like 17 different places in 3 cities in one day. Every one of the sellers markets I went to had at least 65% of the same booths selling the same things. I was with my daughter and we were pretty much had a check list of the things we would see at each place. Very few places actually selling anything that wasn't the cheap junk you buy in bulk to resell.

 

The local game shops are worse than the thrift stores and pawn shops.

 

One place doesn't keep all it's stuff priced, so when you go to the register they go on line and look up a price for it. Basically anything you find there you're going to pay high end ebay prices for. The other place won't sell any of the stuff locally, all they do is leach out of the community. They are basically a store front for an ebay business.

 

Our local Craigslist is almost nothing but advertisements for the local thrift and flea market sellers, and pawn shops.

 

I used to go out every weekend to lots of places to hunt for treasure. I maybe go once every few months at best now and almost never buy anything.

 

About the only thing I get a good deal on are used music CD's. The last cool thing I found was a reel to reel player and some tapes.

 

I live in a wasteland though. There was never that much good stuff around here to begin with so finding anything second hand is next to impossible.

[Reaperman]

Just wait until we start dying off in significant numbers.

That should pretty well fix both the supply and demand issues.

 

Thrift stores will again fill with garbage bags full of 2600 carts, as our heirs realize that they're not quite worth the 'zomg money' they initially thought they were. Then they'll probably go back to stripping the copper out of our houses to fund their next fix.

 

As ever, I'm an optimist. The longer I drag my life out for, the better deal I'm going to get on all your stuff.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Reaperman

[Christophero Sly]

Haven't had a good gaming find in a thrift for nearly a decade. I don't even bother going into them anymore.

 

Like someone already said, it's not just games; there's really isn't anything good to be found at the thrifts anymore.

[Lendorien]

I still hit the goodwills, but it's slim picking these days. In the past year or so, I've found a few decent finds here and there, Like Chibi-robo for GC for under 20 bucks, and Adventures of Lomax for ps1 for 2 dollars (Brand new practically. You can imagine my happy dance on that one!). But the finds are few and far between these days. The resellers hitting up Goodwills make it hard to find things unless you happen to be there when they're putting stuff out. I have had some luck with PC games though. For whatever reason, PC games, including valuable ones are less desirable. I hit them up a couple times a week. It's the only way to succeed, but most of the time I leave empty handed. I haven't ever tried to make relationships with Goodwill staff. Just seems shady to me.

 

That and Goodwill, at least in my area, has jacked up the price of games now. They've gotten wise. Just the other day I saw Adventures of Link in a beat up old box in their showcase for 49 dollars. And don't get me started on the sports games that are priced at 6 bucks. Stuff like that just drives me bonkers. But now that everyone has internet on their phones, it's easy to look up prices. Of course, some Goodwills still are not bad. I find the slower ones that are a bit more rural tend to be a little less picked over.

 

Back when I started collecting about 8 years ago and even as recently as 4 years ago, you still got some great finds. I have a bunch of games I got at goodwills for reasonable or steal prices and a few systems too, like my 5200, my 3DO, my Intellivision, my Master system, and several Sega Genisi. I have lots of fairly valuable games across numerous systems that I got at Goodwill, not to mention a bunch of aftermarket controllers.

 

Then there are the other options. Sadly, the age of the rummage sale is waning as people just donate to Goodwill these days and take the tax write off, so those are hard to find wins for too. So you end up stuck with e-bay or amazon and often overpaying unless you get lucky on an auction.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Lendorien

[hookem]

Things I've been noticing at the Goodwills are Bill Cosby books/records and Hanna Montana merchandise. And for some reason, each one has a playing card shuffler machine like it's the law.

 

Other things every thrift store seems to have, like it's the law -

 

Bread machines

George Foreman grills

Fondue sets

Exercise equipment

Juice machines

Rotisseries

 

Usually very slightly used. Don't know why anyone would buy those things new, so many people get them and use them once or twice and then decide the space is more valuable.

 

I still do hit up the thrift shops regularly, since I'm into vinyl and vintage stereo equipment. That stuff you can still find, and with the price of vinyl these days, it's a steal (if you can find a decent rock record among the herb alpert, lawrence welk, and religious albums that make up 95% of a typical thrift shop stack). Here in Austin, it's definitely Goodwill territory; it's the only place where the inventory turns over frequently, and pricing is still reasonable. You don't have the stores packed with families picking up cheap clothes, either. It's probably at least 50% hipsters and pickers/resellers looking for cool vintage stuff.

 

Goodwill used to have a computer museum here, and last year they closed it and sold everything. There was some amazing stuff, Apple, A8, Adam, Commodore, TI-99/4a, etc -- all in perfect condition and many with original boxes... but the asking prices were way too high. Still cool to see all that vintage stuff on the shelves for awhile.

 

I still occasionally find a classic gaming gem, but it's exceedingly rare now. There was a good window a couple of years ago where you could pick up N64 stuff cheap all over the place, but that's dried up.

Edited March 29, 2016 by hookem

[Bixler]

I'm done with thrift stores and Goodwill. Everything is always picked clean by resellers, though occasionally I find something useful for my college dorm room.

 

I have way more luck at a used boom store that also carries DVDs, video games, and music. Great Wii and Xbox titles for $5-$10 sometimes. And their graphic novel section and prices are solid.

[S1500]

Wasn't Goodwill opening up a pilot store that was like a FuncoLand?

[teh_lurv]

 

Other things every thrift store seems to have, like it's the law -

 

Bread machines

George Foreman grills

Fondue sets

Exercise equipment

Juice machines

Rotisseries

 

Usually very slightly used. Don't know why anyone would buy those things new, so many people get them and use them once or twice and then decide the space is more valuable.

 

 

I can confirm this. The amazing part is these items eventually sell. I don't know who wants a dirty bread machine from 1978, but at least they're keeping stuff out of landfills.

 

I have a Savers (Value Village) that opened up in 2013 along my evening commute home, so I make it a point to stop in almost every day to check out the store. This is my personal experience of that one store:

 

2013: Finding retro game lots for cheap about once a week. Stuff sits on the shelves for a day or two before moving. Picked up a lot of great stuff during the six months in 2013 this store was open.

 

2014: Retro games & consoles start vanishing after about a day and finds less frequent in number. Things like handhelds, controllers, still plentiful though. I think the competition is more hobbyist hunters than resellers at this point.

 

2015: Retro games & hardware fly off the shelves within the day. Start hearing about/seeing people camping at the store everyday to get first dibs on new stock. Stuff that lingers on shelves are games/hardware too cheap or obscure for people to make a quick buck off of.

 

2016: Local store gets wise, raises retro game prices to $10 for loose carts/$15-20 if the game is a Mario/Zelda/Sonic. Shelves start looking like 2014 again now that people can't automatically make a quick buck.

Edited March 29, 2016 by teh_lurv

[Lentzquest]

The thrift stores near me have become a lost cause for games. They're great for music though. These days more and more people are just ripping all their CDs to hard-drives and dumping the physical copies at the thrifts. There's pretty good turnover too.

[+frankodragon]

 

Cover-Whipped-Cream-and-Other-Delights.jpg

 

(Good album, just saying)

I went to a Goodwill this morning and found this album right in the bin. There was also an Intellivision game, Black Jack, cart only, I think in a glass case. I didn't check the price although they probably wanted $5.99 or higher for it.