How to find something valuable in the thrift store in under an hour
The first installment of my step-by-step system for finding The Good Stuff.
Hi Geezers,
I love thrifting, but I COMPLETELY, totally understand why you might walk into a thrift store, look around for three minutes and pivot turn right back out the door.
Let’s say you’re in your basic Goodwill. The sizing and organization is chaotic. The lighting is hostile. You have to look through 400 polyester blouses to find one perfect cotton button-down, and somebody has usually abandoned a toaster in the shoe department. And it’s sticky. And there are crumbs in it. Everything smells weird.
YET...there are tons of valuable things hiding at the thrift store. Actually, many of them aren’t hiding at all. Most people just don’t know what to look for. For this series, valuable usually means something well-made, useful, or exciting that costs much less than it should.
I have a method, and in this issue I am giving you an exact exercise you can try today.
I can’t promise you’ll uncover authentic Picasso plates for $6 or find a $350,000 basketball jersey for $4 (this was just last week). BUT ALSO, YOU MIGHT!
Give me a little time, and I can promise that if something like that is eventually sitting in your thrift store, you’ll know how to find it because you’ll know what to look for.
Because while I haven’t found anything destined for auction at Christie’s, I have scored plenty of expensive, interesting, and valuable-to-me, things: a Clare V. Moyen bag for $19.99, a vintage brass fireplace stand for $12, authentic Hermès shoes for $4.99 in 2020 at the Savers in Santa Fe (that will be its own chapter of this series; best find ever), and more $10 leather jackets and $3 mid-century modern glassware than I care to admit to buying.
I can promise you that I was not blessed with a special gene that allows me to identify cashmere from 40 feet away. I just have a system, built from ten years of practice, trial and error, and a few stooooopid mistakes behind me.
This series is going to teach you my system one step at a time: how to identify quality, inspect clothing and accessories, use labels and sold listings, avoid expensive mistakes, and eventually find the good stuff before someone else does.
Let’s start with the biggest mistake new thrifters make.
Most people walk into a thrift store and try to shop the entire thing. They wander through every department, become overwhelmed, and leave convinced that they are simply bad at thrifting.
My first rule is…don’t do that. Do the exact opposite.
If you want to find something good in under an hour, you need to ignore 90 percent of the store.