And...this is why you are no longer going to find video games at thrift stores..
Meh. Goodwill and Salvation Army have been listing on Ebay for years. There are still video games showing up at thrift stores, swap meets, garage sales and lots of other places every day. You just need to avoid places that list stuff on Ebay which shouldn't be too hard given how many non Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores are out there.
Just look thru the finds thread every month and you will find tons of members(including myself) who regularly find video game systems and games at Goodwill, Savers and other thrift stores. That won't be changing anytime soon.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
Originally Posted by THE 1 2 P
If you live in a city you can go to non-goodwills and those stores have no choice but to put their games out at least in a glass case.
Only game thing I've ever found game related at a thrift store was some old junky looking PC joystick. Not USB either, it was an old gameport stick.
I just went to Salvation Army last weekend and picked up 10 NES cartridges for $1.98 a piece. Looks like it hasn't had too much effect around my area yet.
*shrugs*
I've purchased some items from Goodwill's auction site. Most stuff ends up over priced, especially with their high shipping rates but if you keep a close eye you'll find some good deals.
The main reason you don't find anything around here has more to do with the glut of full time resellers. Apparently all the thrift stores know these guys by name and hold stuff for them and they make the thrift circuit on a daily basis. It really is a full time job for them. Regular collectors with, you know, jobs and a life, have no chance.
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I rarely find anything worth purchasing at the Goodwill around here. I only check when I'm around there because the closest one is 30 minutes away. Not going to waste $5-10 in gas in hopes to find a bunch of games because in the chance that I do find a lot of games, the condition will be less than favorable so I won't want to keep them. When I sell them, I'll still end up losing money overall because of the gas money I had to put in my car to go back and forth checking constantly.
That's why I make it a point only to check when I'm around there and when that happens, it's usually nothing but junk.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
Yeah, it's kind of interesting that some places allow that. There is a thrift near me I hit semi-regularly and I know the staff pretty well, but there was one guy in the game section I would talk to who was also a collector. One time I came back and he wasn't there, they let me know that he'd been fired. After a bit more back and forth I discovered that eventually they caught him pricing his own stuff that he would buy super cheap, and then resell.
Kind of a shame since their prices were stupid low already, and he already had first pick over almost everything that came in. I guess he just got greedy. Anyway, since then it's bit a bit better for finds, but every thrift is a crapshoot. The best pickup from them recently was a bunch of Odyssey 2 stuffs in great shape and some PS2 games.
Since we are talking thrifts....this sign was posted in the games section. I think they either meant to say Baseball Cards or Memorobilia. Things like this is why its getting harder to find games for reasonable prices.
The way I see it with local charity thrifts is simple. they are "supposed to be" doing the local community a service. Be that through job creation for the disadvantaged, funding of drug and alcohol rehab programs, clothing and shoes for the poor, etc. If all they do is sap all of the video games and consoles from a certain market and put them on greed-bay, then they are getting no more donations from me or my family. I feel they owe a debt of gratitude it to the local population to sell those donated goods back to local citizens. If more collectors would voice their opinions to charity thrifts, maybe it would change. If donations to the online-selling ones drop, maybe they will wise up.
This is nothing new. Salvation Army & Goodwill caught on to retro games a long time ago and have been auctioning things off instead to make more money on them.
Additionally, many "professional" resellers have taken up building relations with or paying off store employees/managers to save them anything that comes in so they get first crack. This is especially apparent in major cities where the only things you will find are complete trash since the vultures scooped up everything worth buying.
It's part of the game. /shrughs
Couldn't disagree with this more. It's up to them to take what is donated to them and maximize their earnings from said donations to fund their programs. They are not obligated to cater to collectors who want to "come up" on things or build their collections on the cheap. They're not lining their own pockets with the money made from this, it's being used to fund social programs and give disadvantaged people jobs. They are offering these things on a free market to get what they are really worth instead of guessing and selling Stadium Events for $7.99 so a "collector"/reseller can turn around and resell it to pay off his college loans.
They are obligated to do nothing for collectors. Asserting such a thing is kind of ridiculous, to be perfectly honest. As a collector, it sucks that this happens but it is what it is. If you don't want to shell out the cash on ebay, look for better deals or buy from other collectors.
Last edited by kazuo; 07-12-2013 at 08:33 PM.
Not necessarily. I pretty much check out the thrifts near me every day during the week, sometimes on Saturday too. Stuff just doesn't come in as often anymore. Most of the staff knows me, nothing gets set aside for me but I ask if I missed out on anything and am usually told that nothing like that was put out. A couple of times I was told that stuff came in and was bought before I got there, but it's not that often. Most stuff that does come in is recent generation stuff, and most of it is overpriced anyway so I usually don't bother with it. A few years ago you could find stuff all the time, now it's rare to find anything older than PS1. Today I found a complete copy of Legend of Dragoon for $5.99(had 30% off from that) and that was the first video game I bought there in weeks, maybe months(I can't remember anything else, maybe a PC game). I still find other stuff regularly worth buying but it's not video games. I mostly go every day because I know the other regular customers, if I find anything to buy it's a bonus.
I feel that these stores should be pricing stuff cheap to be thrifty, so the less fortunate can afford nice things too. Most thrift stores are located in the worst parts of town, or close to them. They're not set up in wealthy upscale areas for collectors.
As for these auctions, do they clean or test or guarantee these games at all? If not why should anyone pay them full value? You might as well buy them cleaned, tested, and guaranteed from somewhere else. Thrift stores have started to become more expensive than pawn shops, which says something as pawn shops actually pay for their merchandise. I see no reason to spend near full price on something when there's a high chance it's not working properly, I might as well spend a few extra dollars and get one that's guaranteed to be working properly. It's why I pass on consoles priced $20-$25 when they're worth $30.
This is what I find at thrift stores now
Theyre always going to be there until the stores finally just start chucking them into the trash bins and not even bothering with trying to make 10 cents off each. Sports games or better releases of sports games need to be regulated.This is what I find at thrift stores now
Also, this is reflective of what most people in America buy, and of course youre not going to find awesome games, because most people dont buy them, especially the types who will take them to the thrift store 5 years later when theyre clearing out space.
These thrift stores take in donations, whereas theres retro stores that will give them some money, so people on their way to the thrift store will see a video game store and try their luck there especially if they have old popular games. When you walk into a retro store and all they have are sports games THATS when its time to panic.
Last edited by JakeM; 07-13-2013 at 02:50 AM.
I have 7 Goodwills within 40 minutes of my house. Amazingly, the store that has the most expensive prices on CRT TV's is smack in the middle of the ghetto. I am talking stupid prices like $200 on a 27" Sharp set. How many local customers are going to be able to afford that? To me, it is predatory and goes against everything charity thrifts should be about. Of those 7 stores, one up in the wealthy district actually has 32" CRT's for $ 20-$30 on most days.
Couldn't agree more. It is simply insane to pay ebay prices or higher when the stuff has not been cleaned or tested. They need to get a major clue. if I buy something off ebay and it doesn't work, Paypal will stand behind me. If I pay similar price at GW and it doesn't work, I am simply out the money.
They don't give refunds?
Thankfully the one time I went there, they did give a refund after I bought a PC game without realizing it was only one disc of a multi-disc game.
It may be different in your part of Ontario, I know some of the guys on CGCC.ca get a lot of great finds in the Toronto, Kitchener, Ottawa areas but here in the Windsor area its dry as a bone and the resellers do indeed have items held for them. In fact one reseller IS an employee of a local thrift who is allowed to put things aside for himself as long as he pays for them. This was told to me by another local collector who talked to the store manager directly. These mom and pop thrifts don't have the big corporate rules forbidding such behavior.
Again, depends on many factors and your mileage may vary.
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