What a day. I finally went on a massive thriftpedition. I hit up a total of 5 Value Villages, including two I have never been to before.
I started by driving up to the hidden value village. They had packed shelves but were sorely lacking super soakers. They had a broken flash flood for 5 bucks, but from my own personal experience with fixing flash floods I wasn't about to start purchasing more broken ones. Bust.
Then I ventured further north into unexplored territory. Into the beyond, so to speak. There I found a value village tucked away at the side of the highway. Went around, found the entrance and went in. All the shelves were lined up with housewares and all the clothing racks were packed with clothes. At first, I couldn't find anything. But then in the corner... the motherload.
This was the first thing I spotted, the pile O' guns. There was a Sonic Stampede (missing the battery tray), a pair of XP 310's (one black and one silver) and a whole smack of Flash Floods. The more I looked around, the more guns I saw. Mostly nerf guns, the kind of stuff I used to buy, and some cheaper/newer buzz bee air/water guns.
I still couldn't believe it, there must have been four or five dozen medium-large guns on the racks, on the floors all around that area. Even little toy bags crammed with nitefinders and reflex shooters and dollar store guns. I have never seen so many guns in one thrift store before.
And that's when I started noticing something. The prices were insane! They wanted 10$ for pretty much every gun. 6$ would get you a plastic bag with a nitefinder and a couple of darts. The xp's, the Argons, the Gargoyles and Avengers and Tarantula (no batteries ]: ) and Steady Streams and Flash Floods were all 10$. You have got to be freaking kidding me!
I mean, normally I would have picked up four or five things for 3-5$ each. So, like 15-20$. Instead I would have had to pay 50$ plus tax! No freaking way. I mean, maybe if they were CPS or some older XP's it would have been worth it, but man. The prices just blew me away. The store may have been packed, no crammed full of items, but the prices were so high it was unbelievable. They had an NES for sale with one controller and Duck Hunt/Mario Bros for 64.99. Holy cow batman! I could buy a PS2, PS1, gamecube and an NES combined for less than that at a different Village.
Did I mention they had a silver gamecube+ controller for 80$? Bunch of nutjobs.
So, I will return to the "Ungodly" village one day, since clearly they have a high volume of goods. Maybe I'll get lucky one day, but I'll be damned if I buy something for triple the price that I've bought before for less.
So after that trip, there was another Value Village not too far away on the other side of the highway. So I figured, let's do it. I arrived in an industrial area, and there it was. It was a huge warehouse-looking room inside, more so than usual, and that place was packed with clothes. In the back there were at least 6 people sorting clothes onto racks. As far as the stuff I was looking for, I only found another iffy Flash Flood. Bummer. At least it was only 3$.
Utterly disappointed, but still determined, I headed to the fancy VV. There, I found two Pheonix LTX for 6$ apiece. Score! I love these lazer tag guns, and they had the shotguns to boot. You may notice, the gold one is missing the sight attachment. I went back to look for it and .... bam, found a Speedloader 2000 under a stuffed monkey. My first water gun purchase!
The local VV had nothing of interest, sadly. But all in all, I drove 80 km and spent 3 hours to search some of the best VV's in the area. I think it was worth doing, at least once! I really want to go back to the ungodly VV after a few weeks. The warehouse VV, meh not really.
The most common thing I saw on this trip were Flash Floods, at least 5 of them.
Well now, I have been to 9 different local VV's (if you include my ghetto VV which closed :[ ) and I plan on seeing the tenth this summer (it just opened in the town by the lake!). Who knows, maybe I will visit every single Value Village in BC. Pillage the Villages!
On another note... In memoriam: the ghetto VV.
Finds: Monster X, CPS 2500 x2, CPS 1000, ...
Tiger Sharks, Orcas, Scorpion, countless other small finds
a whole whack of broken flash floods
and at least seven gamecube & N64 controllers for under 4$. I will miss thee...
Oh and in other news:
What is this? 189L roughneck storage totes, which happen to be just long enough (40 inches) to fit a CPS 2500 lengthwise... several CPS guns, actually. And I bought four of them... in preparation for all of the guns I just picked up today and brought home.
Which means, I finally have my ENTIRE collection under one roof. Woohoo! Now I have to count and make sure I actually have all these guns.
That means, one day I can probably do a complete collection picture. But it also means I should probably do A LOT of performance testing, numbering, organizing, maintenance...
Ah, one day. Today, life is good.