Goodwill/SA/Thrift Store Discussions & Finds

I was on the fence about getting a VHS player, especially given the one that I had quit working. Couldn't pass this one up, as it will give me a chance to see if I really want to mess with it. And, worst case scenario, it's worth more to someone else than it was to me.

Pretty unique vcr there. Nice find!
 
I don't get it. What is special about that VCR? The fact that it will tune abandoned analog frequencies from around the whole world?
Not only that, but I gather it will play any region tapes (both NTSC and PAL) and output in either format as well.

Anime imported from Japan comes to mind as a practical use case.

*Edit* Oh! And it has audio VU meters. Anything that has VU meters MUST be purchased! VU ALL TEH TINGS!
 
Hit some tag sales with my daughter on the way to the park. Scored big. The lady having the sale saw my daughter laughing while taking the picture and just gave it to us. :)

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Hey Halloween is only 4 months away and a funny wig is always good to have around, lol.
 
Items I've picked from junk shacks and country flea markets within the last couple of years or so.

KEF 104AB speakers $30 - junk store
Dynaco SCA-35 $20 - junk store
Dynaco FM-3 $10 stock with mostly Dynaco branded tubes - junk store
Technics SL-P1300 CD player $20 - junk store.
Technics SA-TX50 $220 with shipping - Shop Goodwill
Pioneer HPM-100 speakers $20 and worth every penny - flea market
Pioneer SX-790 $20 - flea market
Pioneer RT-701 and SX-950 $150 - Barn find
Pioneer Spec 1 and Spec 3 $560 - Craigs List
Wico 21 amp with brass chassis, case and tubes. $10 - junk store
The Fisher 500c with case and original tubes $175 - flea market
The Fisher 500b with case and original tubes $175 - flea market
Kenwood KR-9000GX $220 with shipping - Shop Goodwill
Aiwa AD 6900 $5 - barn find
Akai GX-F90 5$ - barn find
Akai GX-747 $300 - Craigs list
AR M3 speakers $8 - Goodwill
Paradigm Titan 1 speakers $8 - Goodwill
Hundreds of rock, jazz and classical records and CD's in VG to VG+ condition from Starvation Army and Goodwill at 50 cents to a 1 dollar each.
Test bench full of audio test equipment bought from the ITT Tech Institute asset liquidation ebay sale after the Federal government shut them down for student loan fraud. I got 50% or more off of used test equipment prices. The stuff was high quality and like new. Tektronics, B&K, Fluke and more.

I love the thrill of the hunt.
 
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Stopped at Savers ony way home from work with a bag of clothes to donate. I went into the store right after and instant karma struck. I got this nice Radio Shack MTA10 table radio for $5. It's pretty decent with a real tuning cap, phono input, nice alnico driver in a sealed and damped speaker enclosure. Bass is nice and tight and it tunes in pretty well.

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Stopped at Savers ony way home from work with a bag of clothes to donate. I went into the store right after and instant karma struck. I got this nice Radio Shack MTA10 table radio for $5. It's pretty decent with a real tuning cap, phono input, nice alnico driver in a sealed and damped speaker enclosure. Bass is nice and tight and it tunes in pretty well.

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Wow, that's pretty good engineering for "just a Realistic" radio. Back when designers took the time and effort to put some thought and consideration into everyday consumer-grade appliances as simple as this. If you were to find something comparably designed today they would probably charge you $300+ for it and it would still be made in China. How times have changed.
 
Wow, that's pretty good engineering for "just a Realistic" radio. Back when designers took the time and effort to put some thought and consideration into everyday consumer-grade appliances as simple as this. If you were to find something comparably designed today they would probably charge you $300+ for it and it would still be made in China. How times have changed.

I did a little research on it and it turns out to be the same as the Toshiba 11H-540 radio, made around 1970. It's definitely decent quality and yeah it would be decent money to get something like this new today. I dig these radios, I have a Sony and a KLH model 21 also. The KLH is a bit nicer than this one.
 
Another Yamaha RX-777 receiver, $24. This is my second example. The first is serving as a computer amp. This one will serve a second computer which I am configuring as a BD / Youtube player for the plasma.
 
Picked up a random batch of about 40 picked through cassettes for a mere $1.30. I figured they would make great test subjects for questionable players.

Admittedly, it was a somber occaision, a hollow victory, because this was the stop before it:
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The whole store was destroyed by fire last night.

I didn't grab a pic of it, but I managed to find one of the bells that hung on the door, smashed and charred, laying on the ground. I plan to give it back if they ever reopen (which it sounds hopeful), as a souvenir.

Keep hunting my friends.
 
Something very strange happened to me the other day. I ran into a thrift and spotted a pair of Castle Severn loudspeakers (pic from the interweb). The cabinets had some damage although nothing too severe, the tweeters looked good but the woofers had some glue stains (I think, or better: I hope it was glue...). Anyway, it dawned upon me that I didn't need them and that funds were tight. So nothing unusual. But the strange thing is: I actually didn't buy them! Yes, I'm still shocked by that to. And I regret it now...

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a month or so ago i went to look at a couple nak CD1 cassette decks listed on CL for 10 bucks and when i got to the guys house he was having a yard sale and had several bookshelf type speakers sitting in the drive on a tarp.
amongst the group were a pair of B&W Matrix 1's 40 bucks.

these are the best sounding speakers their size i've ever heard.
well a guy came yesterday to look at another pair of speakers and ended up taking the Matrix home after hearing them.
I had mixed feeling about letting them go but he paid me close to half of new retail. i'll miss those.they were special.
 
A new Goodwill opened here on Friday. Seems like they stuff 'em full when they first open. Plenty of audio gear, but mostly in the BPC and SPC eras. There was a Technics SU-Z900 amp, but the buttons were sticky and horrid, so I left it behind.

The only silver face item was a Samsung TU-3300 tuner, which I dropped $6 for. The output cable was spliced at some point in the past, and the splice was broken off. Mght just wire some RCA jacks on the panel. The meters seem sticky-- I tried it with AM and got a little movement on signal strength, but with no FM antenna handy, I was unable to get the tuning centre meter to do anything. Feeding voltage onto the meters would send them around, but they didn't return to netural positions. Maybe they melted into place when I left the unit in my trunk for a few hours; it was 40+ centigrade all week.

It's pretty anemic looking-- pressboard back and bottom, basic looking tuning capacitor, looks to have the same HA11xx integrated circuits as a lot of late '70s tuners/recievers. I doubt it will dethrone the T-40PR for me, but you just don't see much Samsung gear, so it's interesting for that reason alone.
 
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