UK Charity (Thrift) Shop CD Hunting

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by MC Rag, Jan 17, 2016.

  1. Fullbug

    Fullbug Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    We need to livestream our thrift store experiences.
     
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  2. Leepal

    Leepal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Swindon, UK
    I have no problem with the charity shops charging more if the records are in decent condition. For example, another charity shop near me had Rumours for £5, not a first pressing judging by the matrix numbers, but it looked like a pristine copy so, imho, that's a pretty fair price.
     
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  3. APH

    APH Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cambridge, England
    No problem with that either. It varies a lot though. A shop here had the latest pressing of Hendrix Are You Experienced. You can get it for 14 pounds new. Their copy had a big scratch on one side, and was priced at ten pounds....err no thanks...
     
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  4. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    Some time ago I was in one of our opportunity (charity) shops buying three LPs. An outlet I would visit about 4 times a year, so I wouldn't have been known as a regular. The records were more obscure items, early classical was two, I can't recall the other. Nothing valuable. The sales person asked if I was buying them for myself. It took me a while to realise I was being accused of being a flipper. I then gave her an explanation of why I was interested in each one from a music lover's perspective, e.g. "This album has three tracks with a krumhorn in the instrumentation, which is an instrument I love but hard to find recordings of" and "This was composed by ... who is a contemporary of ..., another of my favourite composers". She was quite shocked that I was actually buying them for myself.
     
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  5. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    [​IMG]
    I picked up the above Allies target from my local record store, as well as a blue face Philips disc. But their CDs are too expensive to make it my main destination for used CDs. Many targets can be had real cheap. Even original Japan for Japan issues can be had cheap.
     
  6. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    I do. A charity shop is not a second hand record shop. It's a charity shop. The prices I have seen here are basically the same as discogs. I'm sure they just look them up. I doubt they do that for any other stuff in their shop. The whole point of a charity shop is that you can pick stuff up dirt cheap.
     
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  7. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    I thought the point of a charity shop was to raise funds for their worthwhile cause.
     
  8. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    It is, but charity shops basically stock relatively low value, secondhand items that it would be hard to sell by any other method (the really valuable stuff goes elsewhere). And their customers have the expectation that the prices will be lower than a normal retail shop. I think the worse aspect might be that charity shops are reluctant to lower prices until they are overloaded with unsold stock. Then they blow the stock out for pennies.
     
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  9. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    That is their primary purpose, but surely they have a secondary role of destroying bookshops, record shops, used clothes shops, junk shops etc., due to their unfair advantages of free stock, free shop floor staff, rate subsidies, rent subsidies, the fact many people get a feel good factor using them, obviously it's part of the plan to have high streets consist entirely of charity shops, estate agents, coffee shops and small super markets rather than the diverse shopping experience of previous decades.
     
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  10. The shops near me are worth checking out every so often - I have had some good CD finds. Nothing rare but all things I wanted for next to nothing.
    The vinyl is another matter - copies always seem to be in poor condition (at least the sleeves - I never look much further). Selection is generally things my Grandma would buy if she had enough pension left once she has picked up her weekly drink.

    Every shop - and I do mean every shop - has Madonna and Beyoncé CDs. There are also great places to get all of your boy band CDs and crappy dance compilations (these can make great secret Santa presents - just add a new jewel case). Maybe we should compile an alternative chart - not a sales chart but a returns chart!
     
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  11. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    Charity shops filled the void left in the high street when the other shops disappeared. First the supermarkets, and then the internet drove independent shops out of business. Charity shops selling stuff cheaper than postage costs are the only type of retail shop that can thrive on the high street. And for every 10 bags of donations, 9 are unsold. It's basically the dumping ground for stuff that didn't sell on ebay.
     
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  12. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    So Oxfam's rise to be the biggest book seller in the UK coinciding with the demise of independent book shops, new and used is nothing other than a coincidence? As for charity shops being cheap, I rarely venture in, but have to agree with Jim B that locally prices are quite high on many things, toys and clothes for example, there was a time when charity shops not only raised money for their causes, but also helped those in relative poverty by offering low prices, those days are long gone. We still have plenty of used record shops, one reason may be that many local charity shops are actually more expensive for records, I do find that somewhat hard to swallow considering the trading advantages they have over small businesses.

    As someone who was once in retail I'd suggest that rents and rates are what killed the high street, yes supermarkets had some impact, I well remember them retailing CDs below my cost price, but a good retailer could still succeed, it's the rents and rates that killed many and I can name several local record shops where that was the case as I was friends with the owners.
     
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  13. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    As Dubmart says above, they also have a function in helping the less well off in getting some good things. I live in a funny place (well I guess a lot of the UK is like this now, where the very poor live next door to the pretty wealthy, see the tragic news last week) and the charity shops were a great way for the poor to get stuff. Now a lot of it is too pricey for even the poor which is nuts.

    I mean if PDSA or Scope want to open a record shop in London and actually play grade and price the stuff properly then fine.
     
  14. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    Try looking at the end of the net book arrangement. Once the big bookstores such as Dillons and Waterstones offered books below the recommended retail price, that was the end for many independent bookstores. Of course, Amazon then took business away from Dillons and Waterstones, leading to a merger between the two. A similar story happened with records and then CDs. Big retailers like Our Price and HMV led to the demise of many independent record stores. And then Amazon took business away from HMV. Finally, CD sales collapse. The supermarkets did in many newsagents.

    Of course, a reduction in rents and rates could help many businesses on the high street, but it would be foolish to expect a new wave of book and records stores across the UK. That ship has largely sailed. Instead, expect to see more hairdressing and tanning salons, tattoo studios, fast food outlets, gaming centres, and betting shops.
     
  15. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I'm well aware of the effect the end of the net price agreement had, I know exactly which shops we lost because of it, likewise I'm aware of the impact Amazon have had, but I also know the second hand book shops that we have lost with Oxfam being a major part of their demise and I know that if you talk to book dealers Oxfam is a very dirty word, obviously all these things are far more complex and nuanced than a a line or two on a forum can cover, but I've been told by many book people that Amazon wasn't great, but at least they could join in and sell there whereas Oxfam was their real nemesis.

    I can only comment on my local scene, but I know of four or five record shops that have opened in the last two or three years and guess what, I believe that all are taking advantage of the new rules regarding rates and therefore don't pay any, though all are still off the beaten track to a greater or lesser extent, no getting around prime location rents. Independent record shops successfully competed with HMV for decades, likewise Our Price and Virgin, Virgin took over and dismantled Our Price and then along with HMV pretty much abandoned vinyl in favour of CDs, games, DVDs, t-shirts, etc., long before the big die off of independent shops, I'm not saying that they didn't help weaken the independents, but they weren't responsible for the coup de grâce, we could argue who was.

    Of three local independent newsagents that have closed I know that rent was the major issue for two and rates a factor with the third, though selling cigarettes, papers and magazines is hardly a recipe for success in the twenty first century so they may have seen the writing on the wall. Although I haven't been a shopkeeper for a longtime I guess it's still part of me which is why I tend to talk to people with shops, I guess they like moaning about the problems facing them with someone who can relate, been there done that, don't fancy going back.:shake:

    Oh yeah, we had the hairdresser, nail bar and tanning expansion, most of the tanning places and half the hairdressers have gone, it didn't last too long around here, the male barbers seem to be staying though. We now have a local shop that sells nothing but saxophones, will it last, I don't know, but it's very existence gives me hope and I hope it's there for a very long time.
     
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  16. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    The same thing happened yesterday in an op shop. Bought 10 78's, of early jazz and a Hawaiian. The first thing they did when I took them to the counter was ask if I was intending to sell the records, and quoted an inflated price. When I clarified they were for me and talked a bit about my interest in the artists, they asked me what I wanted to pay, and I paid the going rate of $1 per disk.

    We continued to discuss music, and the salesman talked about his bands when he was in the UK. He said the singer in his first band was Joe Cocker, gave me a few stories about Joe, and spoke about how they would catch up every time Joe played Melbourne. He was impressed that my first big concert was Cocker in 1974, in the tour when he was deported for smoking weed. He also spoke about filling in for a Hollies singer when the singer required a throat operation, and the other salesman spoke about 78's he had in the UK. When I left they wanted to shake my hand and said they enjoyed talking to me and were pleased the records went to me. Quite a turnaround from being accused as for being a flipper.
     
  17. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    I kinda feel the used booksellers are barking up the wrong tree. My local Oxfam isn't a dedicated book store, but a local charity (St. Giles Hospice) runs two nearby. Their stock selection is pretty poor, and I think any book store with that selection would go out of business fairly quickly. I've been to an Oxfam book store in St. Ives, Cornwall. I really was just looking for CDs. Their selection was the type of CD that should not be anywhere near a CD store. Now, my local PDSA charity shop gets some pretty impressive titles in their record bin. I'm wondering if they are actually buying collections of records, which would be an entirely different proposition to a charity shop receiving donations.
     
  18. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I can only repeat what they said, not my field, we do have a few specialist charity book and record shops, although as I haven't been in any of them for years they may have switched to creaming off all the good stuff for online auctions/sales, actually I have been in the Amnesty one more recently, but the sort of books I was looking for aren't collectable or expensive so I don't know how they sell the high end donations, I do know they still get them as they like to publicise particularly nice donations in the local paper. The thing is that retail has been in more or less constant flux this century and still is, just look at the deals Amazon has done in the last week, looks like the US will be losing a lot more retailers and where they lead we often follow.
     
  19. Azura

    Azura Felis silvestris grampia, factum ex trabibus ferro

    Location:
    Scotland East
    Charity shops are not worth looking in for vinyl round my way with the exception of Oxfam, especially Glasgow where I have scored some real goodies, guess they didn't know who Jane Siberry and Hugo Largo were or I would not have got mint copies for £2.99 each. Oxfam Dundee and Glasgow tend to be very good for old music mags.

    Best use nowadays is for CDs and they really do have some quite good ones all over the place, well, some not so good too. I am on the hunt for AAD's but I think the bigger shops maybe don't take them so readily as they are more likely to look old. Saw the Stooges first today though.

    Most common finds? The Magic Numbers is everywhere, they must have remaidered it to charity shops. I swear every shop in Dundee has a copy. And coming up very close behind them are the Kings Of Leon, who I must listen to sometime because I could have got most of their records yesterday in the course of about five minutes. Every shop had one, one had about six.

    The uber rich socialite and suicide of the Jazz Age, Harry Crosby, inherited a library of extremely rare books from a relative and surreptitiously placed them in small secondhand bookstores without the owners knowing so that customers might find a rare first of goodness knows what. Perhaps someday we will have his equivalent... ("Saucerful of Secrets? In Mono? Huh?")

    BTW, My experience re-charity shops and secondhand bookstores is the same as Dubmart's and I saw (and heard) the last secondhand bookshop owner in Dundee give up when Oxfam opened their dedicated store. Groucho's survives though, they have been at it a long, long time.
     
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  20. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    Three original Duane Eddy albums and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly soundtrack today for £1 each.

    Playing Especially For You by Duane now. Sounds great. One of the three Duane's is knackered on the opening track, lots of loud hiss, but the other two are better albums and are sounding excellent. They all needed a very thorough clean though.
     
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  21. minibreakfast

    minibreakfast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Suffolk, UK
  22. Dave Gilmour's Cat

    Dave Gilmour's Cat Forum Resident

  23. gary191265

    gary191265 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I was in Oxfam in Bristol a few weeks ago, where amongst all the usual charity shop fayre, there was a nice copy of 'Wish' by The Cure. My daughter loves that album, so I was going to get it for her until I saw the price...£80!
     
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  24. WOW - great haul! That belly dancing album looks so cool.
    I crapped out a little this weekend only managing to visit one shop and get one thing - Suede 'Dog Man Star'. Could easily have picked up a few more copies of the Titanic soundtrack though or the entire back catalogue of S Club 7.
     
    Dave S likes this.
  25. Giant Hogweed

    Giant Hogweed Senior Member

    Location:
    Exeter, Devon, UK
    I was in an Oxfam in Budleigh Salterton on Saturday and one CD in there was £14! I can't remember who it was by but no one special, I don't think there was any chance it would sell.
     
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