Charity shops

[SkipdiverJohn]

interesting view on Oxfam there skipdiver.
The one in Skipton, terribly nice of course, doesn't seem to be too full of bargains.

My main objection to Oxfam, is the rather irregular conduct of some of their staff overseas, and the fact that this appeared to be well known internally and a blind eye was turned to it. As regards pricing, I've never set foot in an Oxfam that I would consider a venue for bargain purchases. The donated gear tends to be of decent quality, but they priced everything to the max. For me, if you go into a shop and you know there are going to be no bargains to discover, it rather takes the fun out of it.
I like to walk into a place and spot a £1 or £2 item that Oxfam would try to charge you a fiver for. The cheap charity shops seem to turn over more stock than the pricey ones, so with books and music media especially, that gives you an ever-changing selection.

 

[MontyVeda]

we have two Oxfam shops, one for clothing and ethnic tat, the other for books and music... lets just say they have a very optimistic approach to pricing the vinyl, possibly using Discogs 'highest' price as the guide, regardless of condition or serial number. But the young collectors will pay anything these days, so fair play I suppose.

I prefer the local St John's Hospice charity shop, but even they have upped their game and chances of getting a genuine Ming vase for a few quid these days is unlikely

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

we have two Oxfam shops, one for clothing and ethnic tat, the other for books and music... lets just say they have a very optimistic approach to pricing the vinyl, possibly using Discogs 'highest' price as the guide, regardless of condition or serial number. But the young collectors will pay anything these days, so fair play I suppose.

I prefer the local St John's Hospice charity shop, but even they have upped their game and chances of getting a genuine Ming vase for a few quid these days is unlikely

Most charity shop vinyl is not in pristine condition, and a quick visual over the surface of the record will soon confirm this. So long as a record plays without really intrusive noise or needle jumping, that's good enough for me so long as the price was right. I'm not going to pay hardcore record collector prices for items that are only in average condition though. I like vinyl, but 99% of everything that has ever been pressed had been reissued on one CD compilation or other over the last 35 years, so the amount of material that is only available as original vinyl is tiny in the scheme of things.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Most charity shop vinyl is not in pristine condition, and a quick visual over the surface of the record will soon confirm this. So long as a record plays without really intrusive noise or needle jumping, that's good enough for me so long as the price was right. I'm not going to pay hardcore record collector prices for items that are only in average condition though. I like vinyl, but 99% of everything that has ever been pressed had been reissued on one CD compilation or other over the last 35 years, so the amount of material that is only available as original vinyl is tiny in the scheme of things.

I'm fairly sure that 1% not pressed onto CD is mostly German/Swiss drinking music, and quite right too.

 

[wafter]

Did a trawl of the charity shops in a local town earlier; came away with nothing but came close to scoring a full grey herringbone Harris Tweed suit for £15 - only put off by the fact it was a bit small and a little dirty in places.

As for Oxfam; there are IIRC four in Oxford and all reflect their location fairly well. My favourite is in Summertown - being the posh bit they get all the best stuff; it's not dirt cheap but fair for what you're buying - best score there so far was a navy Sand-branded merino wool rollneck jumper for £15 - with equivalents apparently going for around £130 new (which of course I'd never spend on a jumper).

 

[MontyVeda]

... 99% of everything that has ever been pressed had been reissued on one CD compilation or other over the last 35 years, so the amount of material that is only available as original vinyl is tiny in the scheme of things.

I never really got into CDs (the cover art isn't big enough) so tend to try to get vinyl where possible, but I'll only pay what I think it's worth rather than a 'going rate'... and as Discogs has often demonstrated, I'll pay way more for some sh!t than anyone else would

 

[ColinJ]

I prefer the local St John's Hospice charity shop, but even they have upped their game and chances of getting a genuine Ming vase for a few quid these days is unlikely

My sister knows someone who knows what to look for and he DOES still manage to find bargains. He is hopeless with tech though so my sister sells things for him on ebay for a commission.

Ah, she just walked in so I asked her for some examples...

• A violin and 3 bows for £10. He got £100 for the violin, £250 for the best bow, and £100 for the remaining bows.
• He DID find an old Chinese vase! Not Ming, but he paid £2.50 for it and it went for £250.
• He bought what was supposedly cheap costume jewelery for a pittance and sold it for £100 for its gold content.

Two nice examples where he chose not to profit...

• A charity shop had drastically underpriced a couple of old books. He told the staff, who then repriced them and got £50 & £40 for them.
• He found something interesting that he researched and discovered that it was an ancient relic from Mesopotamia. He got in touch with the Iraqi embassy and said that he thought they should have it back, since it was an important artefact. They were extremely grateful and invited him down to the embassy for lunch. (I was sceptical about that story but my sister says that she has seen the documentation, emails, photos etc.)

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I never really got into CDs (the cover art isn't big enough) so tend to try to get vinyl where possible, but I'll only pay what I think it's worth rather than a 'going rate'... and as Discogs has often demonstrated, I'll pay way more for some sh!t than anyone else would

I'm pragmatic about format, vinyl is my preference but I'm not sniffy about CD or even cassette transferred from vinyl. I agree the artwork on a lot of 12" vinyl is really good, and it's nice to look at. Most vinyl sales back in the day were 7" though, and generally these have little or no artwork.
Luckily a good mate of mine who is a bit older than me, has about 8,000 vinyl records, 90% being 45 singles and EP's and over the years he's knocked up quite a few compilation cassettes for me (and himself) of mainly lesser known '60's stuff. Doing that preserves the condition of the originals by not playing them to death.
There is some loss of audio quality of course, but it would take me a lifetime to search out that quantity of original vinyl.