Charity shop bargains

paultap

Well-Known Member
Hi guys, I wondered if anyone on the site has walked into one of the numerous high street charity shops and lucked into a shooting related bargain?.. I have a quick wander in now and then on the off chance, but much to my dismay, I have yet to come across a Zeiss/Swarovski scope/pair of binoculars or such like languishing on the shelves!

Perhaps the old ladies working there nab any real bargains for themselves!!
 
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Well, loads of shooting books, a pair of gaiters for 30/-, binoculars, not swaros right enough, for a tenner, a fantastic tweed jacket for a tenner and so on. Always, in any town, check them out. Possibly the best buy was a £300 quid overcoat for seven!!! Love it.
 
As a diver I was delighted to find in the local charity shop a copy of the Silent World by Jacques Cousteau (1953 print)

.50p......

I must have picked up a 100 binos at boot sales with the hope each one might be a Zeiss....!!

Tim.243
 
I got a nice condition pair of Zeiss 8x30 bins for a fiver once. - They were marked up at £2.50 but I took pity on them & gave them £5.00 -- Everybody happy!

Ian
 
Sorry guys but by using the internet it's so easy to check what things are worth that bargains don't crop up too often. Dare I say it but I have a friend who's sister 'volunteers' at a charity shop near where she lives and she gets LOTS of bargains! It's best to not get him started on the subject as he's disgusted about it and hardly speaks to her anymore because of it! I'm sure that she's in the minority though! It's a sad world that we live in unfortunately!
Baguio
 
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I do know someone who trawls through the charity shops in affluent villages and the like to buy quality items and then he re sells them on eBay and makes a fair bit of profit out of it. Not quite sure where the moral view point on it is as he pays what they want for it but knows it's worth more, suppose we all like a bargain though.

ive not had any shooting bargains but I did get a nice Abu Garcia beach caster reel new and boxed for about 20% of its rrp
 
Sadly most charity shops are part of multimillion pound industries now !
and have dedicated sorting depots that sort out any high value items that don't reach the shops.
 
Didn't they pass a law some years ago saying charities had to state just what percentage actually reached the cause ? Seem to remember it almost sent the Salvation army bust ??

You don't see it now on any adverts begging for money, has it been consigned to oblivion?.
 
I once picked up a shimano perfection spinning rod and matching reel in excellent condition at a cash generator shop for £20, at the time they had a combined price of about £90 new. It did dawn on me that they were quite possibly sold to the shop by thieves.

That's probably where my stolen tackle ended up... Along with my Road angel, car stereo, mobile phone, electric drill, hedge trimmer... Oh and a pair of trousers off the clothes line to name just some of the stuff I've had stolen over the last 25 years!
 
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About thirty odd years ago there was the animal rights going mental over fur jackets, so my late mum decided to take her fur jackets to the charity shop instead of just flinging them away and i was to meet her and dad with the other couple of jackets that i was taking down for them, as i walked into the charity shop i heard several members of staff saying thats them sorted for the winter and noticed a few of them giving the jackets and coats a wee twirl, needless to say the two coats where taken with me to meet my parents and i explained what had happened and the coats where taken to the wee old woman at a couple of houses close to ours.
Years later, i found out that the managers in these shops where earning a feckin fortune and the rest of the staff where all volunteers, now when you consider that in london a couple of these large and busy charity shop managers where earning in excess of 50k per annum then needless to say i detest giving to these particular shops and whilst having two brothers die of cancer i would much rather give to marie curie to help these lovely nurses whom help people in their final moments. I understand that the shops have to be run properly but cmon to feck there loads of people very well qualified and educated to do so without paying an arm and leg to do so.
 
I once bought a Mitchell 300 fishing reel for £3.50 out of a charity shop,half bale and a knob instead of a reverse lever,.. and did a bit research on it, turned out to be the first model produced after WW2, and sold on Ebay for £180....:)

Then another time, I bought a pottery chicken off a charity stall at a boot sale, for £2...sold on Ebay for £112...:)

both the charities got a percentage of the sale back to them...:)
 
Charity shops, as you call them, are one of my favorite haunts. I have purchased at least a half dozen pair of binoculars, assorted quality jackets and reloading/shooting books. Non shooting related items: A kamada smoker for $45, first edition Jack London and Rudyard Kipling for fifty cents each, and my last purchase, a absolutely new 5 gallon Shop-Vac in the box that had a wad of cloth stuffed into the tubing so it wouldn't draw. Fished it out with a coat hanger and it's good as new. Five dollars. Now in my reloading room. ~Muir
 
I once had occasion to visit a "tip ratcher's" house. He had two televisions, one on top of the other in the living room. I asked him about them. He said he'd got them at the local tip. One of them had been thrown away because there was no picture and the other had no sound. :confused:
 
I once had occasion to visit a "tip ratcher's" house. He had two televisions, one on top of the other in the living room. I asked him about them. He said he'd got them at the local tip. One of them had been thrown away because there was no picture and the other had no sound. :confused:

:doh: :rofl:
 
Charity shops, as you call them, are one of my favorite haunts. I have purchased at least a half dozen pair of binoculars, assorted quality jackets and reloading/shooting books. Non shooting related items: A kamada smoker for $45, first edition Jack London and Rudyard Kipling for fifty cents each, and my last purchase, a absolutely new 5 gallon Shop-Vac in the box that had a wad of cloth stuffed into the tubing so it wouldn't draw. Fished it out with a coat hanger and it's good as new. Five dollars. Now in my reloading room. ~Muir


LOL, LOVE the US thrift shops, specially the Ex Vets ones...some great bargains to be had, camo, boots etc etc...:)

Bought a scope or two, and some binos in them as well...:)
 
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