Thrift stores - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Chad Hauris · #1 09-23-2006, 10:32 PM

I donated a working RCA 1980's TV to a thrift store yesterday which had good picture and color, the only problem was sometimes you had to press certain channel buttons harder to get the number in. Today I went back to see what they had new and I found my donation outside in the junk pile with X's spray painted on it! I'm not donating any more again.
If I have something that is unusable to me anymore I will salvage all usable parts and recycle or put in the trash if need be the cabinet or unusable parts.
I have noticed though that NOBODY seems to buy used TV's or other electronicsfor that matter from thriftstores. When I was a kid I would've been so happy to find a working color TV for $10.00 but no one will buy them now. Guess everyone has to have brand new!

willyrover · #2 09-23-2006, 10:59 PM

Well...up here it seems that the thrift store are putting 29$ and 39$ price tags on sets that don't even work.

And I'm thinking they should stop selling %$$%. Thrift store or not. At very least they could put "not working" on the tag and ask something more reasonable.

jpdylon · #3 09-24-2006, 12:34 AM

with the environmental laws out here in so-cal, you're lucky to see any TVs in the Thrift stores anymore. You can't just toss em in the garbage here, its illegal! You have to pay 25 bucks in san diego to have someone recycle it for you. The thrift stores don't want to risk paying it if the set doesn't wotk, so they just don't take them unless its pickup from a house ans they can see it work first!

Used to be I got all my tube sets from thrift stores, and most of the time they were happy to give them away after they sat for week on the shelf. Most everything I actually bought I paid less than 15 bucks each for. I've found two TVs in the last year, one being my philco golden grid, the other an admiral combo from 1950. I had to pay 40 and 70 respectively -- non working, but I hate seeing them get tossed. The rest I have were either given to me at some point, were trades, or from AK members.

...still waitin for my roundie...

dr.ido · #4 09-24-2006, 08:24 AM

They stopped carrying electronics at the thrift stores around here a while back now, a combination of them not wanted to deal with disposing of all the dead stuff and some new OH&S crap that came in. Some stores in the "Savers" chain still have the occasional TV at $49, but nothing interesting enough to be worth that price.

I used to make a regular trips to all the stores in the area looking for audio, video and computer gear. While I was there I'd check out ther records, books and toys. I stopped going when they stopped carrying electronics.

holmesuser01 · #5 09-24-2006, 10:18 AM

I found a wave of mid '90's high-end Sony VCR's at Goodwill, with a decent price on them. None of them worked when I got them home. However, I did repair all of them. BUT, it irked me that they were pushing this stuff like it was in working condition. Found out that they dont even plug electronics in to see if they even power up.

I used to donate working TV's to Goodwill, and Salvation Army all the time. After finding several in their dumpsters, I stopped too. So whats wrong with a turn-knob tuner on a good working color TV? The tuner was cleaned by hand before I donated it. Aaraugh.

JCFitz · #6 09-24-2006, 08:54 PM

They haven't had a tv period in the Goodwill or Salvation Army around here for ages. All I ever see are phones and cheap stereos ,boomboxes and speakers.The Goodwill RCA I alerted Bryan to was a shock to see since I hadn't even seen a modern tv in there for a while. I did see a 13" Funai made tv/vcr combo at the front of the Goodwill store marked sold last time I was in there. Got there right after they put some fresh records out and they were having a record sale for 10 cents each though.

I still worry to this day that my uncle's 68' Zenith combo got thrown away like that. Never saw it on the floor and I visited once a week. He donated it to the Salvation Army in 2000. It was in immaculate condition too. I didn't have my own place then so I couldn't save it. Wish I knew Bryan then. Not too many tv collectors around. Never saw the (5)12" b/w tvs I donated a few months ago either. I tried to Freecycle them. I always try Freecycle before donating them because I know it goes to somebody that could use it. There are people that will take 80's tvs even knob ones for free.
Can't sell them at auction though.I saw an 80s RCA that was pushbutton but non remote at auction. It had a better picture than the modern ones. They couldn't get a lousy $2 bid on it. The auctioneer jokingly said "Throw it in the trash." Sadly that's probably where it ended up.

bgadow · #7 09-25-2006, 12:14 PM

There might be some success in contacting the store manager of various thrifts and making them an offer, say, I'll haul away any TV you have for no charge no matter the condition. But then you end up with a bunch of junk. I thought about contacting some stores like that. Seems like mostly they are getting particle board consoles-that's what I see next to most of the dumpsters anyhow.

Somewhat related: this weekend I helped clean out a house which had caught fire. Pretty much everything downstairs was behind saving. The TV in the living room was about 20' from where the fire started and was totally in shambles, picture tube in pieces, etc. Upstairs was in better shape, with smoke/heat damage. In one room there was some furniture and a 13" TV/VCR combo which didn't look too bad. They were tossed in the dumpster. As this was happening this fellow was walking by and he really looked down on his luck. He just stood there and watched as they tossed this stuff in. It bothered me. Gets me to thinking. Gee, a 13" color TV. When I was a teenager (80s) I would have done anything for the cheapest one Woolworth's had. I was dancing on the ceiling when I saved up enough to buy a 10 year old BROKEN portacolor. Now they cost less than 12" bw sets used to. If you bought one today and tried to give it away tommorow you would have to make an effort. I wonder how that poor old fellow would feel about it. I wonder if he got the TV. When I went back later to look they had covered that pile up with a stack of 100 year old solid wood doors (untouched by the fire). Somebody had been saving them but too much trouble to find them a new home. Meanwhile, back at my house, a shed full of old tv sets that I brought home, figuring somebody would want them. But no, nobody has come around to give them a loving home. Yet I keep searching for more.

Oh well, sorry for the sidetrack, been thinking too much lately!

NowhereMan 1966 · #8 09-25-2006, 09:40 PM

Yeah, it's a shame, I guess the best way to find a good home for TV's is to either give or sell them to AK'ers and/or other collectors or if you judge a family or person as being poor and in need of a TV, then give it them if they are interested. I know myself, I turned 40 this year and when I was 9 years old, we got a 12 inch B&W RCA portable TV in 1975 and when it went in my room, I was in "hog heaven!" It was great because later on I could play Atari and run my TI-99/4A computer on it without pestering mom to run it on the color. Yeah, it was black and white but black and white is better than no TV at all.

I know myself, I'm trying to get rid of some debts that were run up by 3 cats who became ill this year so money is a little tight now. Two of them passed on, Greystone (5, kidney failure) and Pansy (my avatar for now, 19, suspected lymphoma) but we pulled Boo (16, liver infection) through OK.

I do have a 19 inch Zenith color BPC, got it in 1998, maybe it is a Goldstar model, was in my room but it sits top our 1982 Zenith 25 inch System 3 console as a backup when she starts acting her age a little altough it is rare but when it happens, it takes over double duty for a few days. So I'm left with my (circa) 1966 Sony VT-110 9 inch B&W TV in my room, I use the Playstation on it, it is weird playing Playstation in black and white.

I know in the 1970's and 1980's, I would have given almost anything for the cheapest color set myself. I do have an old RCA XL-100 from 1979/80 with remote control, in addition of scouring for System 3 parts, I'm looking for XL-100 parts, if I get that set, my grandmother's running, I'm back in the color business!

It's a shame people just toss things out, I'm the furthest thing from a real "Greenie" as you can get but I do have to say when it comes to us being a throwaway society, they do have a point there.

dr.ido · #9 09-26-2006, 07:23 AM

Around here many people dump their "donations" in the car parks near the clothing bins. I often pickup gear off these piles. The stores will just throw it straight in the dumpster when they open so I don't see any reason not to take them. I've found some interesting audio and computer stuff that way, but only run of the mill TVs. Still I pick them up and get most of them going again. The worst part is when an otherwise decent set has a scratched up CRT from being dumped face down on the asphalt. Usually this isn't how the set was left, but how it ends up after the other scroungers tear everything else apart.

I've tried making arrangements with some of the smaller stores without success, but it probably doesn't help that I get visibly shitty with their stupid excuses. Other's who are more "diplomatic" have had some degree of success in the past, but it usually dries up when whoever they made the arrangment with leaves.

Around here the best stuff is usually found put out for curbside collection. In most areas picking that stuff up is against some bullshit council bylaw, but that doesn't stop me or the countless others seem driving around days before stuff is due to be collected. I used to spend days driving around picking up stuff, but now that petrol is often over $1.30/litre I've had to cut back.

Chad Hauris · #10 10-04-2006, 07:52 PM

I went back to the thrift store today and got a 1950's Hotpoint double oven range for $40.00 plus there was a 40's RCA phono/radio console for $5 and also saw an early 1970's GE 18" portable color set, plus working large refrigerated air window units for $20.00. I think the fact that my donation got discarded earlier was probably an anomaly...the thrift store really came through for me today.

Adam · #11 10-06-2006, 08:07 PM

I found some good stuff at a thrift store today: a 1986 system 3 10$ working, the remote doesn't work, but the set works with another one, I'm not sure if that is the original remote though, and it uses a strange looking battery, so I can't change it right now to see if that's all it is. A 1950s Sylvania metal portable 17" b/w 25$. And one of those 1970s solid state table top stereo, 8-track, record player combination units for 15$. This is one of those independantly run stores where they take practically everything, they keep alot of the stuff in heaps outside. Usually I do better at these junkier thrifts like this one.

polaraman · #12 10-06-2006, 08:44 PM

A local Church charity thrift store here has an RCA T100 with the matching stand. It is missing the back and nothing else. I asked about it and they are going to list it on Ebay. I really can't blame them for wanting to make a dollar.

polaraman

ozmoid · #13 10-06-2006, 08:58 PM

The biggest local Church Charity Thrift has consoles, non-working, from the 40's on up. Prices start at $100. Older mono non-working stuff is priced at $200. Most of it has been there quite a while, and will probably stay there. I sure won't be bringing it home.

colortrakker · #14 10-07-2006, 07:23 AM

Adam - love the Zenith. I'd hazard a guess that it is the original remote. Certainly looks appropriate for the vintage. Is the remote's battery by any chance flat and square with one corner cut off? If so, it's a 6-volt "J" battery which your local Target or W*Mart should have for $3 or $4. Zenith used them for most TV remotes from about the early '80s to maybe the early '90s.

Adam · #15 10-08-2006, 06:55 PM

The Zenith was sitting outside in a pile of real junker sets, it was covered in this sticky goop, but it cleaned up good. The remote looks like it's from the right year, but it has controls for both a TV and VCR, and no keypad for entering the channel numbers. And the keypad on my other remote works with this TV so I would think that the original remote would have had one. I changed the battery and that remote still doesn't work. I really don't know if it goes with this set because that thrift store throws all the remotes in a bin rather than keeping them with the TVs. This was the only one off a Zenith from around this year in the bin.