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You see...THIS is why I love thrift stores!!

Hal9000

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2010
Messages
124
Location
Tucson, AZ
There is a thrift store not too far from me where me that have yielded some good furniture and goodies for the house. But as I discovered like many other thrift stores..computers are NOT allowed to be sold. I don't particularly agree with that policy but what can I do? There ARE some other thrift stores that just pull the Hard Drive and sell the system as is. But anyway, they DO sell the accessories.
And in this case, you NEVER know what might float to the surface as you are perusing the shelves of old keyboards and mice. And I was poking about, I see a video card in an anti-static bag. I figure it's some recent PCI cheapo. I remove the bag and its a:

SpeedstarVGA640.jpg

Diamond Speedstar VGA!! Kind of a rare find!!! It's just so funny what people will drop off here! I have been wanting a speedstar for a while. The Tseng ET4000 chip is quite good for retro gaming. I also found and old beat up cdrom drive but it had the old type drive rails attached with some flush-head screws that I have been looking for. I walk up to the register as casually as I could. I say "Well, there are no prices on these" He says: "Well, how about a dollar for each?" I say.."Ok. sounds good to me!"

I get the card home and plug it in to my Tandy 2500. It works Perfect!! Like I said..you just NEVER KNOW what you'll get!! :)
 
I thought you were going to say you found a full length chinchilla coat with gold trim and tassels for $5. I supposed a SpeedSTAR is an ok consolation find. Congrats!
 
LOL! Thanks!
Oh, and you would think my "Lucky Spike" would have ended there and I would have to wait a few weeks to strike gold again. Just Yesterday..I thought..I'll just take a quick looksee on the way home.."what the heck" right? Sitting on a shelf I find this:

PBkeyboard.jpg

A New Condition..(Still in the plastic Bag) Packard Bell keyboard! Not bad for a Dollar!!
 
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There used to be a thrift store near me that had some nice vintage stuff from time to time (this was probably 10 years ago). As I recall, that's where I got a IIgs, Commodore 64 (with a boatload of disks), and I'm sure a few other things that I can't remember now...all at very reasonable prices. Then management or something changed, location eventually changed, but the computers dried up. None of the places around here take computers any more it seems. :-( Not only that, but the local computer recycling place closed up shop too, so I can't even drop by there occasionally to see what they might have...even though it usually wasn't anything. Heavy sigh...

Wesley
 
Places like that often don't resell whole computers because they would risk getting whacked by Microsoft or the BSA or whoever for potential "piracy".
 
There is one place near me--Value Village. They will yank the HDDs out and sell the computer. Not too bad of a compromise as long as it's not damaged in the process. I might try St Vincent De Paul as well.
 
I have not seen Value Village sell PC's in years. I miss the days when quarter racks of IBM Token Ring MAU's would come in for sale.
 
About 2 years ago, I wandered into my local thrift store and they had a box of ISA cards for sale. I had never seen so many in my life, of every possible type you could imagine. The problem was that they wanted 5 bucks for each of them, making the total box price probably somewhere on the order of 125-200 dollars. I didn't have a use nor the wallet for that at the time, so I had to let them go... :(

Then about a year and a half ago, I went with a friend or two into the goodwill near my college after he told me that he saw something "Commodore related" there. And in the front case they had a VIC-20 complete with an 8k memory expander, the cassette drive, 3 tapes, a few manuals (in great condition), the original purchase receipts, an Atari joystick, and even a listing of what games were on what position on the tape. He owed me like $25, it was priced for that much, so I told him that if he bought it for me, we would be square.

Got it home, looked at the label (it was the older gold & black label instead of the rainbow one), and realized I hit the jackpot. We played that thing for a few hours on one of my roommates big screen TV's, and the pixels were as big as hams!
 
Very cool. I have found some odds and ends @ Goodwill before. Keyboards, big CRTs, LEDs/LCDs/TFTs, joysticks, CD-ROM drives, power strips / boxes and so on. I also occasionally see expansion cards but never an ISA so far. Usually they are PCI or newer and even then very few and far between. :D

To be honest I do not visit Goodwill and other stores that often. It is quite a drive because they are few and far between here on the island. They also typically heavily focus on clothing and furniture really.
 
My local goodwill is good for some old games and apps once in a while.

The village discount outlet we used to have (closed years ago) was great for old joysticks, boxes vintage software, and once in a while a 486 system. I snagged some CGA monitors and Sony Trinitrons there.
 
Checked in with my local Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul stores this past weekend: nothing except a LCD monitor for $5. :D
 
I seriously think that in stores here in south florida, someone has some kind of deal with the management to get vintage computer stuff. I have visited many of this stores several times and never find anything. Goodwill are the worst :(
 
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