Entertainment For Lively Minds
In Praise of Charity Shops
I’m often to be found scouring them for CDs. They usually have just a shelf or two of them - not so many that ‘decision fatigue’ sets in, and the prices mean you can take a punt on things you’re not sure about. Recently I had a few terrific finds. The first was a Daily Mail promo, Hits by Crosby Stills Nash for 50p which had great live versions of some of their best songs. The second was an Acoustic- something-or-other compilation and, in between the inevitable James Blunt and Dido, was Sky Blue and Black by Jackson Browne. I’d never really heard much of his stuff but this fantastic track prompted me to then discover all his wonderful back catalogue. Also I found the new lovely Sophie Barker Seagull album for just 99p.
Compilations are a good bet as there’s often enough tracks to justify buying it when you consider the price of downloading them. Walking Back to Happiness Sixties Girlpower (obviously trying to sound current in 1998 by referencing the Spice Girls) had, among the unwanted Lulu and Connie Francis, tracks by Fontella Bass, The Chiffons, Nina Simone and Mama Cass.There’s also a lot of free CDs from other music magazines including old ones from Word and Word of Mouth that crop up.
Not all my choices have worked out. I picked Celine Dion Live in Paris because I thought I might like her a whole lot better if she sang in French. Wrong. Also Riverdance – when I listened to it I realized it was an audiovisual experience and the audio, without the dizzying dazzling footwork, wasn’t much of an experience. But you know the money hasn’t been wasted because it’s all for a good cause, and at the end you can return it to the charity shop, making a virtuous circle.
What have you discovered in your local charity shop?
- More from Carolina.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Last one I bought was this for a quid on double vinyl
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=230672792457
Little Richard! 1983 compilation.
It's marvellous.
My entire wardrobe.
*shuffles on park bench, wipes nose*
Round these parts
(Nottingham) the prices seem sky high in charity shops (of which there are plenty). Perhaps I go to the wrong ones, but most cds seem to be at least a fiver. I know it's all in a good cause (usually) but they're cheaper in Fopp. It's a while since I actually bought one, I have to admit.
If I can have a non music suggestion
My Dad bought me an SS Jumbo cricket bat from Lillywhites in Piccadilly in 1978/9. I had to have one because Viv Richards used one. "It will be too heavy" said my Dad, "You're wrong" I said because I was a little know-it-all. So, day trip to London, expensive bat purchased, it was too bloody heavy and I hardly scored a run with it. Dad just smiled and got me a smaller bat, I said nothing and the bat got lost or given away. Anyway driving past our local Oxfam about a year ago I stopped so suddenly that my wife nearly got whiplash because in the window was an SS Jumbo, I parked illegally, ran in handed over my 5 pounds and emerged with a perfect replica even down to the "Lillywhites of Piccadilly" stamp. I have cleaned it up and it stands by my bed as a perfect reminder of everything that was great about my old man and everything that was wrong about the teenage me.
Cricket bats
In the late 60s, my father was friends with ex-Worcestershire player Duncan Fearnley. When he set up his eponymous bat manufactory, Fearnley made both my father and I bespoke bats. Dad used his for years but, in due course, I got rid of mine.
My late father's bat is still propped up in the corner of my study bearing the scars of 20 years village & pub cricket.
There is something
about old cricket bats that is evocative of supposed better times, add in a family connection and a slight smell of linseed oil and I'm mush. I nearly went Fearnley because of Botham but there was something about the Jumbo that meant I HAD to have one.
I know the time
All the posers went with the Gray Nicholls ones because of Gower - one lad spent a fortune when he bought a Scoop got the piss ripped out of him because he was paying more for even less bat.
The rest of us liked the heavier weapon. There were a few Jumbos knocking round but I always liked a nice heavy Fearnley, with edges the size of doorsteps. Luckily I had the build to actually heft it around a bit. But oh, the knocking in...
Christ,
that brings me back to the early teenage me. All I wanted for Christmas was a cricket bat and ball so I could finish smashing up the garden now that I was done with football. When I got what I asked for, I never forgot the look on my father's face that said "just where I did go wrong". He was Irish, a huge Rugby man and just didn't get cricket at all. He teased me incessantly and we sat through Five nations games together but it would never have occurred to him not to get me the bat and ball. Even now, a cricket bat is a thing of beauty for me even if I still can't hit the bloody ball off the square.
It's true
it's cheaper in FOPP...
Wishbone Four
Original pressing, complete with poster, mint condition, £3.99 - same product is currently going for up to £75 on ebay.
£75?
People may be trying to sell it for £75 but I'd be amazed if anyone is buying Wishbone Four at that price.
True
Most of them are between £25 - £50, still a bargain at less than 4 quid.
Charity shops...
...I've more or less given up on them, unless I have a sudden urge for M & S shirts, VHS box sets of Inspector Morse or the complete works of Danielle Steel. But a couple of months ago I wandered into one down a back street in Westbury in Wiltshire, and happily emerged clutching a beautiful art deco George VI coronation vase, an equally fantastic art deco bakelite ashtray in the shape of a tennis ball, and one of those massive brass handles you used to find on the front doors of banks, all for a tenner. Restored my faith, it did.
I LOVE charity shops...
...for old vinyl. I got DM's Violator for 50p a few weeks ago. Car boot sales too, they feed my hobby:
www.carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.com
Stuff that turns out to be OK but not amazing goes back to the charity shop, like the OP's virtuous circle.
CDs I bought at a boot sale at the weekend
KATE BUSH - Hounds Of Love
KRAFTWERK - Computerwelt (yes, the German version!)
PETER GABRIEL - 4/Security
THOMAS DOLBY - The Flat Earth
YAZOO - You And Me Both
One - that's ONE - of your English pounds for the lot. Well happy.
Cripes!
Well done you, nice work!
Some High Streets are better than others....
.....but there is definitely a career out there for people who Charity Shop trawl and then eBay the stuff, and don't believe that there aren't still bargains out there (especially vinyl and hardback books).
Invest in a Zone 1-6 travelcard and you'd be away!
All those antique programmes on daytime TV have 'not' increased people's knowledge of whether a Take That CD is less/more valuable than an old style Parlophone label Stereo copy of 'Please Please Me'.
Got Family's second album on CD for £1.49 yesterday.
Oxfam's "specialist" Book and Music stores....
...just take the piss.
£9.99 for a third or fourth hand copy of the PSB's Disco? No thank you very much. Wasn't even the remastered two disc edition. Loads of other vastly overpriced books, cd's and vinyl in there. I'm sure I heard somewhere they had a central pricing policy for these things? Can any member of the Massive confirm? Not everything is "collectable" or "rare".
Love the work Oxfam do but the goodwill of the nation (well, my wallet) only extends so far.
Yep.....
.....the worst invention was the 'Record Collector's Rare Record Price Guide'!
It's the bible for some shops and so if an original pressing in mono of 'Strange Days' by The Doors is valued at, say, £40/£50, why then a 1980s pressing of the same album made of rice paper will often have a £15/£20 price tag!
I once took this up with one guy but he said 'It's is the Price Guide, mate'.....and the copy of 'Strange Days' is still in the shop.
Yup, too many LP's at unrealistic prices......
.....but you can find some bargains. Harder to find now.
I picked up a rough LP copy of the first Metallica album for a £1. I noticed that the inner lyric sheet had been signed by Lars Ulrich and their late bassist Cliff Burton. Might have to ebay that one.
Also a mint copy of the 75-85 live 5 or 6 lp Bruce boxset for £5. Booklet an all. Really nice. In fact most of my 70's Bruce vinyl is from Charity shops including The River for £3.
Always worth a shuffle through their vinyl boxes. Every so often you'll come acrossed a gem.
Theory about Chariry Shop's Vinyl boxes
I have a theory that by law all charity shops must have in their vinyl boxes a copy of The Sound of Music soundtrack (well it seems to be that round here)
Please could other members of the massive confirm if my theory is ccrrect.
Thank you
Yup. It's usually behind Paul Young's 'No Parlez'
And also in the box is...
Leo Sayer's Endless Flight
And usually
Forgeries
Be careful mate.. lots of people think it's fun to autograph books and records before they hand em in to charity shops..
I'm with you on this, though
not principally for this reason. I have had several huge clearouts of books and records and my local Oxfam bookshop was so flaming well offhand about accepting it, I have never gone back to them and now donate to smaller charities for whom every penny counts. It was their holier than thou attitude and rudeness that got to me plus from the value point of view, they are not good value at all.
Spot on.....
.....and right next to 'South Pacific' and 'West Side Story'.
And In the CD section
there has to be a copy of Dido's No Angel.
I worked in Oxfam for a
I worked in Oxfam for a while hoping to be first to lay my hands on some "rare as rocking..." blue note vinyl but instead found myself wading thru hundreds of copys of Mrs Doubtfire videos.. Literaly bag loads, that and Andy McNab books.. very dissapointing.
I never buy records in charity shops...
but I am constantly searching for secondhand art and photography books in my local branches of Oxfam. I've found some unbelievable stuff... artist monographs published by Phaidon in the 1940s for a fiver with the best monochrome printing I've ever seen... a copy of Martin Parr's A Fair Day for £2.99 which is worth over £300.
My bookshelves are heaving.
Spanish ones
aren't normally good for Vinyl but there's one in Barcelona that's a gem. Whoever donates the records either doesn't realise what they have or just wants rid and hopes the money goes to a good cause.
5 euros for this,mint.
P.s Forgot to add that that fiver included The Beatles "POR SIEMPRE" LP.
saw this in a oxfam in Norwich and it made me grin ...
one day i might actually play it ...
Records I Often seem to see in charity shops
Two records that I always seem to spot, as I flick through the little vinyl sections in charity shops are: A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night by Harry Nilsson, and Duke by Genesis. I must have seen hundreds of copies of these.
The best find I've had was probably when I got the first four Fall albums on vinyl for 50p each. I think someone must have got rid of quite a good record collection - the bloke next to me had got there before me and had an armful of decent records, also at 50p each. I remember the first Modern Lovers album was one of them. I willed him to decide against getting it, but it didn't work.
A brand new set of golf clubs
including a dozen unplayed balls and an unopened bag of tees for $30.00 Aust. I have been assured that four of the balls I got would cost more than the $30.00 I paid if I bought them in a specialist golf shop.
I can't help but wonder how that particular untouched set of clubs ended up in a charity shop. Who buys something that expensive and then gives them away without ever using them? I'd hate to think it was an unwanted gift. Must have been won in a raffle or something.
I once bought
a pair of Church's shoes from a charity shop in the leafy Mancunian suburb of Didsbury for about £20 (RRP: about 20 x that price).
Overwhelmed by such a bargain I tried to convince myself that yes, they really did fit.
Sadly, they didn't...
Funnily enough
I was in Brentwood this morning and called in at the BHF charity shop on the high street. 5 minutes later I emerged with a pair of brand-new, unworn Church's semi-brogues, perfect fit, in dark brown. To be completely honest I would have preferred black, but at £25 I wasn't going to complain too much. I'm wearing them now to break them in, and keep looking away from the keyboard to admire my feet.
I thought of you as I left the shop, Dougie.
Yesterday's finds included lovely Folio Society editions of the best of James Thurber and Dorothy Parker at £1.75 each. It's been a good weekend for bargain hunting.
nope never found anything in charity shops
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/bltpicons/sets/72157603996758416/
You can of course do this on-line as well if you choose
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/second-hand-music-and-movies
Not nearly as much fun but I've got some good stuff here. It seems to be a combination of things that are actually in their shops and some that are in a central depot
No...
It just doesn't smell the same.
And how much...
...are they asking for the ubiquitous Duke by Genesis? £9.99! Good grief.
Thanks very much for that
I've just bought Running on Empty to add to my Jackson Browne collection. But there were 6 copies of Dido's No Angel!
CSN 50p???
I frequent a charity shop - actually it's a fundraiser for a local church hall. You can have as many of the Daily Mail-type freebies as you want with any purchase. I then flog them on Ebay for the charity I work for. Certain ones sell for a few quid to collectors abroad; Dolly Parton, Noel Gallagher, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, etc. Ebay for Charity then throw in the gift aid on everything that sells.
There used to be a specialist book & music Oxfam
in Farnham, Surrey but their prices seemed ridiculously high, certainly for vinyl. The guy who ran the secondhand record shop at the other end of town seemed unconcerned. He reckoned they priced everything according to highest Ebay bids.
I bought a classical guitar
from Sue Ryder. A lovely mellow-sounding solid topped cedar and rosewood thing with gold-plated tuners. It was the tail-end of their excellent Ryder Guitars selloff after the charity managed to upset music retailers with their high quality but low price guitars. How could I have missed it? I was tempted by a cutaway acoustic which met with disapproval from the FPO but it was easily worth twice the asking price.