The Great Adventure of Thrift Stores and Yard Sales in Suburbia America

Thrift stores were a great adventure before everyone started watching Antiques Roadshow etc. I still like them, but most everything nowadays seems already picked over before it even makes it onto the store shelves.

Some of the best things I’ve owned came from thrift stores. Everything from cool clothes to stereos, audio, or the like new thule ski racks I once found for only $5. This was indeed poor folk’s Macy’s. That is until the well to do started sifting through the shelves. This kinda started with vintage stores where you could buy a great dress from the 20’s. But as wearing vintage clothing became more popular the prices followed upwards as well. I remember once hitting a yard sale at around 9am and running back home to grab some cash because of a great find. But only to return to find an empty yard. As they said to me: While I was gone a man in a truck offered to buy the whole yard sale for X amount of $$. Later I would find out it was what I then called a professional thrift stores who bought everything. This was in the late 80’s, on into the mid 90’s these overpriced thrift stores started popping up on every corner and doing their best to look like charity stores. It was the affluent who realized the low rents of old buildings and those of us looking for a deal were something to profit off of. So they went around buying up yard sales everywhere and pricing the item they found up 100% or more in these so called thrift stores. Now days most accept these prices as norm and how it’s always been. They just weren’t there when things were a lot better …sigh