State Of The Thrift

I actually escaped the house for a couple hours on Saturday morning to hit the garage sales. And I'm tellin' ya, it was barely worth my while. Maybe it's too late into the summer; maybe it was because it was a long weekend; maybe I just had bad luck -- but has the thrift bubble seriously broken?

I'm pretty picky about my garage sailing -- I try to stay out of neighbourhoods where too many young families live since I don't want to buy the kind of stuff that people like me are trying to get rid of (dirty kids toys, plastic dishes; broken clock radios). It's not about the bargain, it's about finding stuff I can't buy anywhere else. So, I'm looking for estate sales, older people moving into condos, that kind of stuff. But it seems that people are either running out of cool old stuff to sell; they've already sold their good stuff to the antique stores; or they're wising up and trying to sell things for crazy prices. I'm sorry, I'm not paying $20 for a scratched up Pyrex casserole.

I did manage to pick up a few things: a cute apron, some beads, a bag of wooden clothespins, a set of retro drink tumblers. And keeping with the bar theme, the above tumbler/ice bucket set has a Westward Inn logo on it. This is cool only among Calgarians of a certain age -- the Westward was a hotel downtown, which was a famed drinking hole for decades. In the '80s and early '90s it even housed a legendary rock club, where I believe a pre-fame Nirvana once played. So yes, at $2 these were a find.

So, have you noticed a change in thrift shopping in your area? Obviously, with ebay and all it's getting harder and harder to get vintage stuff on the cheap, but I'm curious to see if things are drying up as rapidly in other parts of the world as they seem to be here.