I hear about the great deals at Goodwills quite often
Doesn't work that way here (northern Kalifornia)
Horrible store(s), 99.9% of the inventory is pure shit and they price it out like a rent to own
I have to stick with the smaller thrifts like the ones that raise money for hospice care/cancer vics
Most of the management are English as a second language folks (at "my" Goodwill) and they price the shit like a rent to own store
They burn the illegals and the Mexicans badly; I've seen them do it dozens of time
So badly I have intervened on a few occasions; had a woman with her kids follow me home so I could give her an old extra bed set/frame I had after I heard how bad they were gong to "f" her over
Goodwill here sucks
You are VERY fortunate
(I'm a thrift store junkie myself, although I've slowed down quite a bit since my health started failing me)
Please understand that there is a HUGE difference between GW retail & Outlet (salvage) stores. A friend lives 6 months here and 6 in Santa Rosa and says the Cal. store is better than what we have here. And even then there are 4 outlet stores locally and 3 of them suck. The dealers all congregate on one. Happily, that one is along a long bike MUP that runs through a wildlife refuge.
it's all "hit & miss" . Was there last Monday and was about to leave empty handed and the last moment found a bunch of AudioQuest cables (rca and toslink). another bud specializes in books and researches them on the web before buying.
he picked up a 1906 book about dye colors on yarn, full of samples, not very exciting ? The only other copy he could find on the web was in the Smithsonian .
Out of the retail thrifts , GW & SA are terrible. The Adventists and Mormon stores are the best.
Luckily there are at least 11 thrifts within my bike radius. I have lots of bags & bungee cords
(and good legs for a 66 y.o.)
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
If you don't mind some driving, you could try the Salvation Army compound at Litton Springs rd in Healdsburg. I've purchased a lot of good audio equipment there. Friday is the best day. Naturally, there is no guarantee that there will be anything nice there on any particular day. Most recently I found mint (-foam) L96s there for 25.00
Now THAT was a great find ... Don is right. Maybe nothing nice on the first (or second or third) trips. And networking with other customers that are looking for similar things helps. Trading with them is a good option too. Just don't expect to find that treasure on a coffee break.
Maybe the Great Pyramids of Giza were the original thrifts ? designed to hold old/ out of date stuff ?
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
.
with non-working CASSETTE decks ?
Have sold 3 in the last 24 hours , all at good prices
One of the buyers mentioned that HOT items right now , are ....... (are you ready ???)
film cameras
manual typewriters
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Traditional mechanical typewriters have been popular for a while now with the trendy, BUT they have never stopped being used more than you would think (by "real" people), primarily by law firms
That's the business that keeps the great old shop over in Berkeley going, law practices
My Son stationed in Georgia just bought a reconditioned Underwood portable from a local dealer, who tells my Son that business is brisk (from all sorts now), he can barely keep up (it wasn't cheap)
I own two pristine Olympia (German) machines, one a portable in a hard shell case, the other a state of the art office machine (I like Olympia(s)) As well as a classic Underwood full size I bought in 1988 at an upscale yuppie rummage type sale in Walnut Creek, California for $7 dollars
When I bought them (the Olympia(s)), around 2000 or so I don't think they cost mt $10 a piece; my business machine is easily realizing $500 and up today
I have a couple of Olympias out in the garage, full size desk models with the long platen. Beautiful machines. They were a donation in kind to a charity a friend of mine was managing in San Francisco in the 1980's. Nobody in his office would use them. I gave a cash donation and offered the use of my truck to dispose of any trash or unwanted items there might be lying about. I've hung onto them more because I didn't want them to go for scrap. Maybe it's time to gain some space on that shelf. I also have a Smith Corona portable given me by a coworker at the bank where I worked evenings in the reconcilement dept while at university. When she learned I was a student and didn't have a typewriter she generously gifted it to me. I've always remembered that kindness when moving it from spot to spot, and have never been able to get rid of it. That was 1964. I wrote a lot of papers with it. Compared to word processing and then printing, though, the overall process was agonizingly slow. About a decade later a friend gave me another classic portable, an Olivetti Lettera 22. The perfect travel, sports writer's portable, but I never really needed it, and it's gone. Some professional writers do not use computers. Joyce Carol Oates, for example, is said to use (and wear out) Olympias. There's a goodly amount of talk about the relationship of instrument to creativity. Some write with fountain pens. I'm not aware of any contemporary writers using a stylus to make marks in soft clay tablets and then firing them. Even that old crank Andy Rooney used a computer in the end, although he kept his Underwood on the credenza. There is a graven quality to a letter keyed in with a manual typewriter, and while you're thinking, it is dead quiet. That was not true of electrics, and for a long time was difficult to achieve with a computer, but is easily obtained now, though some people are sensitive to the faint hum of electronics and the electromagnetic fields around them.
Interesting what you say about film cameras. I've been trying to get a sense of what is happening with film photography. The one remaining dedicated photography store in my town still carries some film, but mostly black and white. Verichrome Pan is long gone; Plus X is gone; there's still a Tri-X. Ilford is hanging in there with most of their monochrome films. Rolleiflex vowed to always have some film available, but now the camera company is gone. Fuji dropped and then resumed Velvia production, but I never really liked it; it always looked like poster paint to me. Kodachrome of course is long gone. I'm not sure if there are any Ektachromes left. Color film seems to survive mostly as color negative. I assume that's because most of the transparency film was being used by pros, who have mostly long since gone digital, except that wedding and portrait photographers sometimes get a request for a film "look." Kodak has a new Ektar 100 that is supposed to be very good. Personally I think that for years there has been no reason not to shoot digital. It's different from film, but it is also good, has different strengths. The thing I think is bad is that you could put the best film in any camera, and any camera maker's 50mm lens is good enough for anybody, so the price of admission for serious photo work was very reasonable. I don't think the same can be said for digital, and that may be one reason for the slight resurgence in film. Images shot with color sensors and converted to monochrome are usually just not so wonderful. I'm only aware of two dedicated monochrome film cameras, one I think by Kodak, which is out of production and then there's the Leica, which is ludicrously expensive (like my speakers). So, b&w film photography clings to life. Although much is made in some quarters of the resurgence or persistence of film, I believe I've read that at present film sales are 1% of what they had been.
To me the parallels to vinyl records are obvious-- I don't know what to say about cassettes. The virtues of the old ways are probably mostly preserved in nostalgia, not that it is impossible to point to objective qualities in the old media that have been lost.
"Audio is filled with dangerous amateurs." --- Tim de Paravicini
well, I'm just postulating here .... what do these have in common ? acquiring ....
manual typewriters
film cameras
turntables
cassette players
bicycles
lava lights
and who knows what else ?
are they a link to their parents generation by "The Trendy" people ?
are they a quasi rejection of the electronic digital lifestyle ?
are they part of a yearning to a simpler time ?
are they something real/touchable (as opposed to virtual) ?
are they just the "old will be new" again ?
are they just a discovery of the "roots of where we are now" ?
or
are they just "flavor of the month" and desire will be forgotten next month ?
LATER: At that age I can't remember wanting to link to anything from my parents generation.
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Maybe they ALL bin hippotized
https://youtu.be/ZBImeZn9zWg
Aint that a lovely thing.
Yesterday Portland had the most rain it's ever had on a December day. today was close. Strong high winds too.
Had to get out on the bike on safari. No joy. But anyone who has read this thread knows that clocks are a good second choice for me if audio isn't available.
Grabbed this nice little chimer. Beveled glass front and side panels. Mellow gong. Solid wood, no veneer here. It's running right now , just needs a little cleanup and a spot to hang it.
Safari is ON for tomorrow (already have appointment way across town) but this will involve the pickup. If it all pans out, will have a nice score to post Wednesday
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Made it out on Safari yesterday , drenching rain , and no audio gear. But did grab an interesting Bible
printed in London 1872 . it's a special edition to be used in Church
The 4311's went away Wednesday and last night the Fisher tube integrated did too. And the Dyanaco's just disappeared also.
So the bible has the owners name gold stamped on the cover. I tried it on google and what do you know ? His son was in the Radio Engineers Institute and developed the Salton single circuit Set.
page 110 & 111 https://books.google.com/books?id=QN...salton&f=false
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
chilly & drizzly today, but that doesn't stop the safari's.
slow day, but dragged home a COWAN media player*, AudioControl EQ and
an Astatic vintage mic**. This model is generally associated with Blues harmonica.
Picked up a SONY DAT deck and pushed around in my cart for some time, ultimately decided against it and returned to table.
I also picked up (briefly) a DUAL TT. Missing sled/cart. counter weight, platter mat, broken arm rest, no belt ..etc. etc. About 30 seconds lookover and I put it back. some cool Portland hipster (the porkpie hat is always a giveaway) ran over and cradled it like it was golden. He carried that treasure for quite a while and had a huge grin when paying for it. Now he can tell his buds "I'm spinnin' vinyl too" (after a lot of work/expense)
Stopped at fast food on the homeward bound leg to stock up enough energy to
make it back to the truck. Cashier started to ask my name after taking the order
and then stopped..."Tom, right" ??
I replied ..'uh, yeah". she said "I remember you from last week" ...."you were so so wet
and dripping all over the restaurant" ...replied sheepishly, "uh, sorry...."
but she got the last line ... "Oh no, don't worry ...I needed to mop the floor and you saved
me from having to pull around the bucket of clean water. I just followed you".
*The COWAN: what a great little media player options that a iPud never heard of , 50+ hours of battery life, nice EQ, much more headphone pushing power..etc. fun find.
** the mic has it's own FB page https://www.facebook.com/jt30mic/
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
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