If you collect and deal in classical it generally still makes visiting many charity shops worthwhile. If you don't come across that elusive Vertigo Swirl between The Thompson Twins and The Sound of Music LPs you might still walk out with 3 or 4 classical records or CDs which could help towards buying that Vertigo Swirl you had hoped to find in the first place.
I've stopped paying attention to CDs but up until a year or so ago it was definitely a fertile time for collecting those in Charity Shops - I had some early Floyd CDs for a couple of quid and hundreds of albums for £1 or £2 that I was just happy to bring home, check out and bring back if I didn't like them. Discovered some really great music that way. For the last year I've been looking at vinyl pretty much exclusively, and- wow, it's mostly depressing. Novelty LPs, classical and easy listening, like everyone else is finding. If I do find anything genuinely worth having, it'll be priced accordingly (got a nice collection of near mint Jazz/Prog Rock albums in original pressings in the Oxfam in Sevenoaks recently but I paid proper record store prices for them all.) Occasionally I get really lucky and find something very cool - got both of the two early Van Der Graaf Generator albums on Pink Scroll Charisma for £15 each recently, not an earth shattering bargain but certainly below what they go for online. Otherwise, the pickings are usually so slim that I will pick up anything that's even vaguely interesting, if I find it in a charity shop. Chicago, Joe Jackson, Abba, Sister Sledge. It was amusing when I ummmed and ahhed over a VG copy of an album in my local Oxfam on Saturday because it was the only thing of even remote interest; then, having decided against it, flipped right past 5 NM copies of the same thing in the nearest proper record store because there were hundreds of other albums I was more interested in. It's like my interest threshold is much much lower when the pickings are so slim!
A few years ago in a charity shop in Buxton (England) I found a box of absolute treasures that must have only just been put out on display. It was mainly Rolling Stones LPs from the 60s and 70s, originals and in good nick, plus a few other good late 60s/early 70s LPs. Unfortunately, I already owned every single one - but I still leafed through the box's contents eager for something I hadn't got. There were a couple of people hovering behind me dying to get to the box, and when I moved away they were in it quick as a flash. The box even contained a 12" single of the Stones' notorious "C********r Blues". I didn't buy any of the records, but if had I would have been embarrassed to have to take that one up to the nice old lady at the counter! The most ubiquitous items I see in charity shops are "Friends" DVDs; and before them "Friends" videotapes.
Almost my entire vinyl collection of The Fall has been bought online (bought over the last 10 to 15 years). I hardly ever see their albums at record shops and never at charity shops. I know that feeling! I expect many other do too. When there is very little choice suddenly that 80s synth pop album becomes almost interesting.
I had given up looking for vinyl in charity shops when I found myself standing next to a guy who was crate digging in one of my local shops. He came away with about a dozen rare 90s R&B albums. I felt he must have earned them!
I think the hours and money spent in charity shops if you find something rare, then that's your entitlement treat.
My best score was I went in one day and there were a couple of new boxes of 7" singles. I started to go through them and realised they all dated from 1979/1980 - like it belonged to some kid who had bought a load of singles during this period. It was all good stuff as well, not rare or anything, but quality stuff worth owning, lots of new wave etc.
This comes up a lot in this kind of thread (I also frequent videogame and boardgame forums with bargain threads), and I disagree with the sentiment. My mum has worked in charity shops for years, and while they try and spot treasures and mark them up a bit, they accept that some of what they sell is bound to be undervalued, and know that the promise of hidden bargains is key to getting people through the door. The guy who got a £150 record for 50p will be a regular return visitor, and probably buy some more records, some books, some chocolate and cards come Christmas, etc - it all adds up over the years. A charity shop where everything was priced at the eBay rates would be rubbish, and no-one would go there.
I picked up an armful of country and rock n roll recently for about £1 each, the stuff was obviously all from one collection and in beautiful condition. Also recently Rusty Wier - Black Hat Saloon/ Stacked Deck on CD, already had it but couldn't pass it up for £1.99, it's outrageously difficult to find normally.
I don't often sell on, but this was an album that I had bought a few years earlier before realising how rare it was - normally in these circumstances I would keep it for myself but I thought there was no harm in seeing what it would go for - and it was quite a surprise, when it sold for what it did. The only other time I 'flipped' was when I bought two box sets of Maria Callas - the boxes were £2.50 each and I think in the end I sold both for a total of about £75, so that was a nice find also, not something I particularly needed to hold on to. I don't feel particularly guilty as I have bought and donated a huge amount of vinyl and CDs from charity shops over the years - it all balances out.
It has been that way for a long time now - even in the early days of the internet you could go to charity shops and car boot sales and find all sorts of excellent records from The Kinks to Miles Davis to random house singles for next to nothing. People died and their relatives just got rid of everything to the latest charity shops or had a stall at car boot to flog recorcs for 50p each. These days? Go to a car boot and the dealers are there before it even opens, hovering and buying anything useful up to sell online at a profit. Charity shops are also combed daily by dealers, and even the shops themselves have caught on to the hipster vinyl revival and are selling all the decent records on their website for £10 a pop. All to fund the salaries of the likes of David Miliband who gets paid 300k a year to work for a 'charity' which flies its staff business class everywhere and pays salaries to a load of virtue signalling talentless idiots out of the donations of ordinary people. People who gave money on the pretence that it would be helping the needy not lining the pockets of a silver spoon 'environmental media studies' graduate... So yeah, charity shops are full of cheaply pressed nonesense that sold by the bucket load in the 70s and was soon discarded...it is where Ed Sheeran and Adele would be ending up in twenty years, if most of their sales were digital and could thus be disposed of without landfill. Probably the only way to get rare vinyl these days is to be in business dealing with the artefacts of the dead when their families can't be bothered.
These days, better records are on their way to the dump than to the thrift store. A local junk removal service runs a "garage sale" every Saturday and the records I have found there over the last year have beat the pants off of anything I've found at thrift stores in the last 5. Experimental folk psych, blues electronica, stuff you just never see. Imagine if he didn't bother and just sent everything to the dump. Maybe thrift stores do still get these kind of records donated, but I'm not likely to ever get a chance to buy them.
These days, better records are on their way to the dump than to the thrift store. A local junk removal service runs a "garage sale" every Saturday and the records I have found there over the last year have beat the pants off of anything I've found at thrift stores in the last 5. Experimental folk psych, blues electronica, stuff you just never see. Imagine if he didn't bother and just sent everything to the dump. Maybe thrift stores do still get these kind of records donated, but I'm not likely to ever get a chance to buy them.
I think the last golden age of vinyl in charity shops here was about 2009/2010. After that e-bay had really caught on to most people and the shops began to realise old vinyl was maybe worth more than a few quid in some cases. Since then prices even for pretty beat up average pressings for bands like Queen are going for £20 in Oxfam. Someone must be buying them. I had a great few years from about 2006 to 2010 picking up dirt cheap vinyl. Best finds were UK 1st pressing of Astral Weeks on Warner 7 Orange label almost mint for £15 (sounds amazing). I had a lime one the same condition for £10 before that. At Barnados someone dumped a load of Promo pressings on Island Records around that time too (2009). I got minty copies of the seriously expensive and rare Tom Waits Bone Machine and Night On Earth soundtrack for vinyl £3 each (seriously) as well as PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me and Tricky's Mazinquaye vinyl for the same price. Should have been wearing a mask. No chance of that now!
Had I been in the market, a visit to a couple of charity shops this eeek would have probably given me a complete Jim Reeves collection of albums. I did find a Bowie Hunky Dory CD, which I was over the moon to find, but when I opened the case, there was no CD. A real bummer.
I used to enjoy charity shops but since the internet took off, most people would rather sell their stuff online. So what you are left with is the dross people clear out from dead relatives' homes. With boot fairs, you tend to get more lucky, since the people actually want a quick sale so they'll bring things.
I hate when that happens. Once I saw a Skynyrd deluxe 2 cd set displayed in a charity shop window for £5. I thought "I'll have that" So I went in and no disc in the case. Since it was on display in the window I would've thought they'd at least checked that a disc was in there. But no. They did not.
Yes that has happened to me many times. Great find, disc missing. Happens a lot with 2cd sets where one of the discs is missing.
I really enjoyed my time going around the charity shops near where I lived and at work. That was about 6/7 years back. Picked up plenty of bargains but then the shops got a bit too clever and tried to overprice stock. Not even raising to a fair price, just plain daft pricing. So I tend not to bother so much now. Nice finds in my record collection from those years: Woodstock triple vinyl - plum label - £7.50 Metallica - Kill Em All (inner lyric sheet signed by Lars and Cliff.) £3 Springsteen/E Street band - Live 75-85 5lp box - £5 (lovely condition) Iron Maiden - Live After Death - 2lp £5 Black Crowes - Shake Your Moneymaker - mint for £2 I did turn down a numbered White Album that was £15, the sleeve was a bit tatty but the vinyl was terrible. Still wish I'd bought it for the numbered cover but overall happy with my charity shop crate digging years. Now saving my cash for the secondhand record shops.
