Thrift Store Archeology

 

One thing that I seem to have gotten into the habit as of late is popping into a thrift store whenever I make a trip into the big city - these trips are usually made under the guise of tagging along with the better half whenever she needs something from the craft store or she's taking a card making class, which translates into a guaranteed hour or two of free time on my part.

Usually I treat these trips as a scouting mission for the raw ingrediants I need for the various YouTube channels that I've sparked up in the past couple of years (I mentioned these channels back in my December 2024 post).  

From the standpoint of my thrift store trips, this usually meant spending a lot of time hunched over a bottom shelf leafing through old record albums looking for off beat recordings to feature on my music channel. 

Since I am more or less migrating into old man status, I hope you can permit me an old man rant 😆.  Why on earth do thrift stores put the kids videos on the top shelf - which are more or less out of reach of most kids, and put the records on the bottom shelf, of which the key demographic can be charitably described as "experienced". This seems to be designed to make frustrated kids and have older folks look like they are auditioning for Quasimodo when they leave the store. Alright, I'm done ranting (for now). 

Since the other channels rely heavily on VHS tapes for their source material, I'm also always on the look out for any cast away VCR's that may be lurking in the electronics section. I find that VCR's are starting to become extremely rare these days, which I completely understand and it seems that it's all part of the natural progression for vintage electronics. For example, if I could take a bit of a casual poll of the current inhabitants of the thrift store electronics shelf, I would predict that DVD player are now on the endangered species list.  

Regardless, whenever I see a VCR, I always grab it since I do have a real need to always have a stash of them on hand - if they are working, that's great, but if they don't, they are always a great source of parts for projects.

While the bulk of the electronic items that I find on the shelves are what I could consider to be "junk", you do find some very interesting stuff hidden on the shelves. 

Sometimes I find things that make me stop and think it has been probably more than a few decades since I last saw an item that's on the shelf in front of me. 

It could almost be anything like a box of 35mm film slide trays for a slide projector (but oddly, no slide projector nearby?) or a Radio Shack branded Walkman clone tape player (I don't think I haven't seem a portable tape player like this since the early 1990's). 

Sometimes you do come across some more "modern" cast off, which if you gave it a quick glance, you would immediately dismiss just as another e-waste candidate, but a second look often reveals something a bit unique, such as the Tiger Electronics VuGo shown above. While it had the look of a cheap handheld game, it was actually an early digital video recorder, and portable video player. 

Since I've become more aware of these little nuggets of gold, I am starting to film these items as I come across them. My plan is to add these up to this blogs YouTube channel to as short videos that showcases the item that I found along with a short history of the item. A bit of a short history of forgotten electronics, if you will....   

At the moment I'm just in the compiling stage of this project. Once I've got a critical mass of items to talk about, I'll start making this a regular item for the site. 

Stay Tuned. 

Thrift Shop Weather Station Rehab

A couple of months ago I posted about a recent trip to my local thrift shop. While I did have some fun looking at the weird and wacky things that were on sale there, I also treated the trip as a bit of a scouting mission for potential project ideas. 

During that visit, I came across a small desktop weather station that contained a clock, a thermometer, and a hygrometer.  

The weather station was a rather cheap looking affair with a price to match (less than $2). Needless to say, it wasn't really much to look at. 

However, when I looked past the cheap plastic, I noticed that the thermometer and the hygrometer were in really good condition. 

They were just crying out to be put into a better home.

Thrift Store Recon

True to form, I am always on a never-ending quest for finding things that a lot of folks would otherwise consider "trash" with the intent of giving them new life in a new form.

As opposed to roaming the local junkyard or raiding the e-waste for raw materials for my projects, I sometimes go upmarket and occasionally check out the local thrift store.

The nice thing about thrift stores is that they are typically run by a charity where all the profits from the store usually go to helping others in my community. Because the proceeds are for a good cause, people typically donate items that still have a great deal of life left in them.

The fact that the items for sale in the store are dirt cheap is always a very nice bonus!

So I usually find my local thrift store a source of good cheap parts for my project ideas.

But I also get a great deal of entertainment in perusing the aisles. I often find things just make you wonder why anyone would ever want to buy it

For example, things like bowling trophies from 1986.