jt august
2013-11-17 13:37:46 UTC
For the one or two long timers who peek in here who remember the many
brag posts of the mid to late 90's, in this group's heyday ....
I used to have one thrift store that I hit 3-5 times a week, and rarely
did I not find something. I referred to this store as my Ongoing Brag.
Though it dropped some in terms of worth in the late 90's - due in part
to my having so much that I only would jump on the most worthy of
duplicates - it still remained pretty good through about 2k3 or so.
Even with a few SumGuys to compete with, I still did OK there. Since
the skyrocket of ePay, the worth here dropped to occassional, then
infrequent. In the last year, it really bottomed out.
This store rated number one in the Riverfront Times Best of St. Louis
Poll in 2012. Just after that issue of the paper, Saver bought this
store. Since then, the whole store went to crap. Savers send all its
good stuff to its west county and Crestwood stores, both in ritzier
areas, where their higher prices than the old Unique don't offend long
time customers (shirts used to be 2-3 dollars, under savers they went to
3-9 dollars).
Last Sunday, Unique sent out an e-mail announcing that the store is
closing, and yesterday (6 days later), they closed. I went there on
Wednesday, and the store was about 90% drained, even of shelf racks and
ceiling tiles. And I found out that before open last Sunday, teams from
the other two stores came through and pulled much off the shelves to
send to the higher dollar stores, leaving just crap to sell at half
price.
So the store that was at one time my single best source and been
shuttered. Along with seven other store I frequented, leaving me with
only 2 (not so) Goodwills and one Value Village, neither of which has
generated anything in my game collection in two or more years.
With two of my three fleas completely gone, and one indoor flea a shell
of its once greatness, garage sales are my only remaining wild source.
It seems my hobby is being forced to the net.
jt
brag posts of the mid to late 90's, in this group's heyday ....
I used to have one thrift store that I hit 3-5 times a week, and rarely
did I not find something. I referred to this store as my Ongoing Brag.
Though it dropped some in terms of worth in the late 90's - due in part
to my having so much that I only would jump on the most worthy of
duplicates - it still remained pretty good through about 2k3 or so.
Even with a few SumGuys to compete with, I still did OK there. Since
the skyrocket of ePay, the worth here dropped to occassional, then
infrequent. In the last year, it really bottomed out.
This store rated number one in the Riverfront Times Best of St. Louis
Poll in 2012. Just after that issue of the paper, Saver bought this
store. Since then, the whole store went to crap. Savers send all its
good stuff to its west county and Crestwood stores, both in ritzier
areas, where their higher prices than the old Unique don't offend long
time customers (shirts used to be 2-3 dollars, under savers they went to
3-9 dollars).
Last Sunday, Unique sent out an e-mail announcing that the store is
closing, and yesterday (6 days later), they closed. I went there on
Wednesday, and the store was about 90% drained, even of shelf racks and
ceiling tiles. And I found out that before open last Sunday, teams from
the other two stores came through and pulled much off the shelves to
send to the higher dollar stores, leaving just crap to sell at half
price.
So the store that was at one time my single best source and been
shuttered. Along with seven other store I frequented, leaving me with
only 2 (not so) Goodwills and one Value Village, neither of which has
generated anything in my game collection in two or more years.
With two of my three fleas completely gone, and one indoor flea a shell
of its once greatness, garage sales are my only remaining wild source.
It seems my hobby is being forced to the net.
jt