Why Buy Used? A Guide to Thrift Store Shopping

I used to avoid thrift stores before I became a vintage dealer. I understand for some folks there's a certain distaste factor involved in used stuff - I definitely felt uncomfortable at first. You eventually get used to the atmosphere so that’s less of an issue for me now. It can also be intimidating to see piles of stuff and try to figure out whether there’s a quality item somewhere in the clutter.

I visit thrift stores several times a month now. I realize some of them have a controversial reputation as a charity (Goodwill specifically). But if even some of my money is going to help people, I consider that a win over buying at Walmart and Amazon. Plus you are giving something new life instead of sending it to a landfill. It doesn’t matter which thrift store you buy from, all of them are saving usable products from the dump.

That said, here are some tips to help deal with the thrift shopping experience:

1. Take a buddy - it’s more pleasant to go with someone else. You get two sets of eyes scoping the shelves and you have a comfort buddy.


2. Understand that anything you buy needs to be cleaned. Run it through the dishwasher or saturate it with cleaner and rinse. I consider 5-10 minutes of elbow grease to be part of the trade-off for getting a deal on price.


3. Carefully inspect everything and make sure there’s no damage you can’t live with. It’s amazing how often I spot an issue after I get home.


4. Keep hand sanitizer or wet wipes in the car for use after you leave the store. You’ll feel better once you’re clean again!


5. Try to be patient. For whatever reason a lot of (slow) older folks tend to thrift shop. I usually skip past to dodge them and circle back when the row is clear.


6. When in doubt on something, don’t buy. Stick with what you know. Or if you decide to get it, realize you’re taking a chance and only spend what you’re willing to risk/gamble. 

I feel like thrifting is a worthwhile option for anyone, regardless of income level. Sometimes you find older decor items that just aren’t made anymore which bring funky personality to a man cave, etc. If you have kids it can be a godsend for keeping up with growth spurts without spending a ton on new clothes every year. I also think young adults who are getting their own apartment should definitely check out thrift stores for cheap dishes and furniture. If you haven't gone to a thrift store, try it from time to time. You might get converted to the idea just like me!

Review: Jim Beam Bourbon Whiskey - Full, Unopened Vintage Bottle of 59 Year Old Liquor!

This week I went to an estate sale and found myself in the basement. At the far end was a small room lined with shelves that had its own door, I suspect it was intended as a root cellar. The owner had mostly stored opened paint cans and miscellaneous tools in there. Barely visible was a dusty cardboard box with some writing on it. I pulled it out and it was a Jim Beam decanter in a plain white box. As I turned it around to read what was stamped on it, I could feel it sloshing around. It still had liquor inside!

At this point I was pretty excited. In 4+ years of vintage picking I hadn't come across any old decanters with actual booze in them. Once we were home I did some research on old bottles of Jim Beam. There were plenty of people theorizing that it would be bad in some way. I read one article that proclaimed it would not keep aging in the decanter because bottling halts the aging process. I didn't feel very confident about any of these opinions because very few of them were from people who had actually opened an old bottle and tasted it.

After all that reading I was committed to opening the bottle. I had confirmed that there probably wasn't a huge windfall coming my way if I sold it, plus I'm pretty sure eBay won't let you sell without a liquor license. The main pitfall seemed to be checking the cork to make sure it still had a good seal. On inspection I could see that the old tax strip had not been broken, so it had not been opened and resealed. So far so good!

My husband tried to uncork the bottle but it was sealed in pretty tight. It had a ceramic stopper and we assumed it was cork in the bottle. We were in luck again because it turned out to be a cork with a plastic coating over it, so the cork itself had not been exposed to the liquor or the elements over the years. We both sniffed and didn't pick up anything off about it. My husband wiped down the lip just in case there was dust or gunk on it. Then we poured it out of the decanter and into an empty bottle.

We poured a shot glass and both took tentative sips. It didn't taste weird in any way. Unfortunately we're not bourbon drinkers so we probably aren't a good judge of how well it held up. Personally I felt a head-to-head taste test was in order....

So a day later we went to our local liquor store to get a bottle of Beam bourbon that had been aged 9 years like our vintage bottle. Unfortunately none of the current Beam offerings are aged 9 years, the closest we could find was Jim Beam Black. The bottle of Black simply said "extra aged" although some searches online turned up the tidbit that a few years ago it was aged 8 years (later dropped from the label, no official word if the aging was also changed).

We poured out two shot glasses of bourbon -- one aged 9 years plus 49 in the package and the other aged a theoretical 8 years. We sniffed both and right away could tell a difference between the two. The older Beam had a prominent Rum-like smell and the new Beam had a mild alcohol smell with a hint of buttery or sweetness to it.

Next we tasted each, just a small sip held in our mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. The old Beam had a strong flavor that reminded me quite a bit of Rum. Holding it on your tongue had a distinct fire to it and when swallowed it had a potent alcohol bite. The new Beam had almost no flavor other than a slight medicinal quality in the mouth. New Beam had a milder bite to it going down as well. I'm not a drinker so my take is purely based on the inexperienced impressions of someone who doesn't drink (like at all).

However my husband does drink Vodka and craft beer on a regular basis. His impressions were pretty similar to mine. We both agreed that the old Beam had a very Rum-like quality to it. He said if he continued to drink the new Beam he would use it only as a mixer but he would consider drinking the old Beam on its own over ice.

If you come across an old bottle of liquor, don't be afraid to open it. It may taste better than the new stuff!
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In the Eye of the Beholder

In the picking world we see a lot of people's stuff. A LOT. I've only been doing this for a few years but I'll try to lay down an estimate of how many items I see on a regular basis. One of my haunts is ShopGoodwill. This is where I first started picking and where I did a lot of my brain training.

Every weekday my local Goodwill posts a minimum of 400 new items. And I look at Every. Single. One. Let's do some math here... 400 items a day @ 5 days a week is 2000 items a week or 8000 items a month.

This does not include all the items I see at thrift stores or estate sales. Suffice it to say I see at least 10,000 items a month. You can see how after 6-12 months it would be fairly easy to identify the common from the unusual.

Each time I spot something new, I go to eBay and see what people are asking for it. In the early days I spent hours doing this, looking up items every few minutes. Now I look up mystery items maybe once or twice a day. After a year or two you develop an instinctive radar for the odd man out.

This is an important part of picking. You can't always buy the stuff you know. You have to be looking for new trends and new categories to branch into, otherwise you risk stagnation. So it's helpful to have "oddball" radar. Often I'm attracted to an odd item just because I want to learn more about it. For a lot of pickers this is part of the excitement -- finding a weird object and figuring out what it is.

The great part about this business is that everyone's radar is different and often tickled by different things. I don't have the same mental catalog that the next guy does. Some things slip by my radar and other things slip by theirs. This is what makes an estate auction exciting... in real time you find out how committed the other bidders are to an item you want.

And sometimes you get a great item for cheap. In short, it slipped through everyone else's radar. Or the right bidders just weren't participating that day. Which is how I ended up with this:

Clearly most of the buyers looked at this and saw a kinda ugly pottery item. I had never seen one of these before but I know from my Etsy store that people like figural planters and sometimes they're attracted to ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.

No one else would bid on it -- so I did. I bid $5. No one else even countered. I figured at that price surely I could make a modest profit on it.

Once I got it home I started researching. The only similar objects I could find were very old. Like 1800's old. And I was seeing some really high prices for those things. After running the info past hubby, we agreed that we needed an expert opinion. For $10 you can submit photos to ValueMyStuff.com and a pro will give you an appraisal. We decided to splurge and get one.

Our appraisal came back with the assessment that this is an 1870s era majolica item, likely made by Minton. Minton is probably the most collectible maker of majolica from this time period. Even with an old repaired leg, they gave this piece a $1000 insurance value.

Now obviously we didn't sell it for that! The retail value is closer to $500 and even that depends on how determined buyers are to have it. Given our low cost, we opted to go for the quick sale and post it for $299. After a couple of price tweaks we eventually got $275.

Lest you think that picking is all about big profit, I keep a silver bowl in my house as a humble reminder of bad radar. From the photos I was pretty sure it was an antique silver bowl. Unfortunately when I got it home there was a sticker underneath for Target, dated 2003. I keep it just to make sure I don't get cocky :)