I spent several months, in the last part of my recovery from my broken leg, working in a thrift store until I was ready to return to real work.
During that time, I got a few great bargains, made even greater by the 30% discount that I got for working there.
Perhaps the best was this pair of boots.
They were in a bin of clothing that I was sorting. A curious design, and I felt compelled to try them on. They fit me perfectly. A bit of research revealed that these are
Haix Airpower XR1 boots, that sell new for the far side of $300. Way beyond normal construction worker boots, they are meant for firefighters and paramedics and other first responders who may have to operate in conditions as hazardous or more so that the construction sites on which I work. I showed them to a manager, and told them what they were, and on expressing interest in them for myself, if they were priced where I could afford them, he instructed the pricer to print out a $10 price tag for them for me. With my 30% discount, that came to seven dollars. These are now the boots I wear daily, being back to construction work.
Another great deal, that I didn't really get to use very much, is a knee scooter. I'm surprised that I don't seem to have taken any pictures of it, and right now, it's buried in my storage room, and I'm not going to dig it out just to photograph it for this post. The previous fix to my broken leg was failing, and I was preparing to go in for a second surgery. On the last day I was working at the thrift store before taking a couple of weeks off for that surgery and recovery, two knee scooters came in—exactly the thing that someone needed who had a lower leg that no longer wanted to support his weight. The better of the two was priced at $24.95, which, with my 30% discount, came to $17.46. I only used it a few times. Once was to go to a medical appointment a few days before my surgery. Both the doctor and my case manager were astonished when I told them what I paid for it; and told me these things are not cheap at all. I later looked it up on the manufacturer's web site, which showed, at the time, that this particular model had an MSRP of somewhere on the order of $400. Looking now at that web site, I think (but am not certain, unless I want to dig it out of my storage room and more directly compare it to the site) that this is the model that I have.
All Terrain KneeRover® Steerable Knee Scooter
Of course, the surgery was to fix the problem that caused me to have a need for this, so I really didn't have use for it for very long.
And then, there's this Sawzall. I really didn't need it. I have a much more modern DeWalt cordless reciprocating saw. But it somehow lingered in the back of the store, for a few weeks, waiting to be priced. Even out of my immediate site, I kept hearing it calling me. Eventually, I could resist no longer, I brought out, got someone to price it, and bought it. Ten dollars, which, with my discount, was seven dollars. I have no idea what it might actually be worth; I suppose that would depend very much on whatever collectors might be aware of its existence, and how much they wanted it. It turns out it's not as old as I thought. I was thinking early 1970s at the latest. Turns out this model was made from the early 1970s up to a year or two into the 2000s; and based on the serial number, this one was made in 1989.
Speaking of vintage tools, at some point, a bunch of very old hand saws came through. Here's a picture of three of them…
These three, and most of the others, were all made by a company called Disston, which, for a very long time, was one of the major brands of hand saws. The two top examples are very old, having been made in the 1840s or 1850s. The one on the bottom is more modern.
At some point, I had been keeping an eye on a batch that had been priced and set out to sell, and it seemed no one was interested in them. Stuff that sits out too long gets reduced in price, and when two of the very old saws were down to 99¢, I bought them. I don't know that they are the two in this picture. They're not actually branded with the Disston name, but as
“Warranted Superior”. In researching the history of these saws, I learned that in their time,
“Warranted Superior” was a sort of a generic brand, used by different companies, if they wanted to produced lower-quality, lower-priced goods, but reserve their own trademarked brand for higher-quality goods. The saws that I have bear this brand, rather than the Disston brand, so presumably, they are lower-quality than the saws that Disston produced at the time bearing its own brand, though pretty high quality compared to anything modern. They do bear the form of Disston's original logo, that it used in the 1840s and 1850s. In the 1860s, they changed the logo to something similar, but distinctly different than the original logo, and in the 1870s, they changed the logo to something completely different, which they continued to use for the remainder of their existence.
These are from two different thrift stores at which I've worked, each bought near the end of my time at the store where I bought it.
The smaller one is from the same thrift store where I got all the other things I've described so far. It's labeled
“Minolta 16”, but it's actually a Minolta 16 II, a slightly-improved version of the original Minolta 16. It's from the early 1960s. It seems to be inspired by the German Minox line of cameras, which are best known as the cameras that spies are often seen using in old spy movies. It takes a proprietary 16mm film format. I haven't really pursued it, but apparently there are a few small groups out there that offer Minolta 16 compatible film, or even empty Minolta 16 cartridges in which you can load your own bulk 16mm film. One of these days, one way or another I'm going to need to obtain some film for this camera and try it out.
The larger camera is a Minolta 110 Zoom SLR, from the 1970s. Like the Minolta 16, this one took a 16mm film format. That's pretty much where the similarities end. 110 was a very common format in that time, mostly used in low-quality cameras. The Minolta 110 Zoom SLR was an unusual example of a high-quality camera that used 110 film.
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