Thrift Items Most Expensive When New

[Zed Simon]

I was really hoping to be zingier with the subject, but to be concise, I had to settle for that. The question actually is, "What have you seen in a thrift that was the most expensive item when it was new?"

Number one has to be the 1995 Lincoln Town Car I spotted at one thrift. Kinda beaten up in one corner and I'm not sure what it was like mechanically, but someone donated it! had to be a good $25K or so originally.

Runner-up is the amazingly contemporary dining room set I saw at a St. Vincent DePaul today. I'm told it was $14,000 when it was new...now just $2800!

Any contenders for the crown?

[MrsGoodwill]

Wow! A car?! Who can top that?!

 My husband has bought a couple of those Nordic Trac ski machines at thrifts. He paid $20 a piece for them. He uses one and keeps the other for spares. Those things would have been several hundred new.

The only thing I can think of is a gym-quality excercise station(?) that I once saw at a Habitat for Humanity shop. The man in the shop said that it would have cost thousands new and they were selling it for $1200. I don't think anyone ever bought it.

[thriftyjane]

I was really hoping to be zingier with the subject, but to be concise, I had to settle for that. The question actually is, "What have you seen in a thrift that was the most expensive item when it was new?"

Number one has to be the 1995 Lincoln Town Car I spotted at one thrift. Kinda beaten up in one corner and I'm not sure what it was like mechanically, but someone donated it! had to be a good $25K or so originally.

Runner-up is the amazingly contemporary dining room set I saw at a St. Vincent DePaul today. I'm told it was $14,000 when it was new...now just $2800!

Any contenders for the crown?

Defeats the whole purpose of a thrift store!

Well, my boyfriend and I donated a kitchen table to a thrift that we had bought through the classifieds for $25. It looked to be from the 80's. Anyway, we were getting my parent's old dining set, so we had no need for the other one. He took it to the thrift and watched them slap a $35 sticker on it. It wasn't new by any means, but the price still went up. Same thing with old sofas, we paid less money for them than what the thrift store decided to charge. Nevertheless, those items moved fast.

[Thrift Shop Romantic]

I guess the only item I can think of that is worth far, far more than I paid for it right now is the Roberta DiCamerino purse I bought for just a few bucks at Goodwill, but our own SeSo found one almost exactly like it selling on Ebay which CLOSED at $700.

That's INSANE.