What was your best garage sale/thrift store/pawn shop find?

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farside
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What was your best garage sale/thrift store/pawn shop find?

Post by farside » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:15 pm

I look all the time but I've never found anything great. Inspire me to keep looking and tell me your best garage sale/thrift store/pawn shop finds.

Also was it pre or post ebay? ...Is there anything left out there to be had?

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effector
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Post by effector » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:17 am

i think you can still find deals on ebay - the secret is to look for auctions with 'buy it now' prices. set up a 'favorite search' and get in the habit of checking it every day. it took me about three months, but i finally ended up getting a kurzweil k2000 for $350+shipping, which is a GREAT deal, if you didn't know!

also, i found a hammond m (late 40s tonewheel organ) at a local thrift store for $20. it was marked $40, but i inadvertantly showed up on 50% off day. it was missing a few tubes...and i'm going to have to get it recapped (it is almost sixty years old)...but still. $20!!

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Post by Rigsby » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:47 am

I bought a four-track a few months ago at a garage sale, ?5. Got a snare a couple of months later for ?2. I've seen loads of decent cameras for 50p and had to tell the seller they'd get more like ?50-60 on eBay for them.
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.

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JGriffin
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Post by JGriffin » Mon Jul 31, 2006 2:13 am

Do you curse yourself for your honesty, Rigs? :wink:


--Moog Rogue in perfect working order for $50 at a pawnshop in Canon City, CO.

--mid-80s Les Paul for $575 at a pawnshop in Chicago.

--Chandler Tube Driver rackmount for $20 at a going-out-of-business sale in Jackson, MI. It's an integral part of my guitar setup and I have used it on over two hundred gigs, so I'd imagine it's paid for itself!
"Jeweller, you've failed. Jeweller."

"Lots of people are nostalgic for analog. I suspect they're people who never had to work with it." ? Brian Eno

All the DWLB music is at http://dwlb.bandcamp.com/

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ubertar
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Post by ubertar » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:31 am

1957 Fender Champ-- $10, yard sale
Roberts preamps-- free on street

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;ivlunsdystf
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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:14 am

Hammond M3 (totally functional) at Goodwill - $25. This was in 1996.

Yesterday, I found an old-school oscilloscope by the side of the road for free. I don't need it, and I don't know whether it works, but it looks totally bitchen with its round green display.

Sho-Bud steel (not a cheap student model) at a pawnshop in Duluth for about $500. I got about sixty strings, an extra pickup, several cables, etc. etc. as part of the deal. It took the better part of the day to haggle down from $900.

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Post by Dave-H » Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:26 am

ART Pro Channel at a pawm shop $100.00
L & S 1935 all Aluninum purple snare drum $12.00 at a flea market.
19" Dark K crash at a pawn shop $80.00 at a pawn shop.
Early to mid 50's Gibson guitar amp $1.00 at a garage sale
:D :D :D
Will Drum For Money

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Randy
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Post by Randy » Mon Jul 31, 2006 6:50 am

1941 Harmony archtop at a garage sale, $5.

2 SM58's and 2 SM57's for $38 total. Less than $10 each.
not to worry, just keep tracking....

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hyde maintenance
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Post by hyde maintenance » Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:46 am

I got an Optigan with 6 disks from a thrift store in Medicine Hat about a year and a half ago. I almost walked right past it because it's the model made from "real wood" and at first glance dosen't look crappy enough to be an optigan...it sort of passes as standard thrift store organ fare.
The price was free for the taking.
Good times.

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Post by chovie d » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:13 am

Image
I am jealous of the $500 sho-bud, and the $575 les paul and all the other stuff as well actually. heres my best. $25 for a Roy Smeck semi hollowbody.
I tuned it to open G, then replaced the bottom string with a low octave G .070 guage string (take that Keith Richards!). So its kind of droning baritone in open G. An experiment that came out REALLY well. I play it all the time.
me make purty musick!

???????
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Post by ??????? » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:32 am

Some of my better ones:

20" turkish K istanbul ride and a pair of 14" turkish K istanbul hihats from the 50s, pawn shop, $140 total. All sound amazing.

1966 Slingerland Radio King snare, all original (even heads!), rare blue ripple pearl finish, pawn shop... $65.

last night(!) 1920's Epiphone Recording style A tenor banjo plus two washburn guitars, $60 total (banjo is worth about $1200) from craigslist ad.

a few months ago, 1929 Vega Vegaphone Professional tenor banjo, $25 garage sale

1967 vox crybaby (yes it says both vox and crybaby) wah pedal. With the film can inductor and icar pot and all, all original. $25 junk shop.

original EP-2 tube echoplex, $300 the other day. Not as screaming a deal as the others but still not bad. There are more too but those are some of the better ones!

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Trem2
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Post by Trem2 » Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:09 am

Some of my best scores:

Beyer m500 - $ 10 at a pawn shop.

1940's Vega archtop electric tenor guitar - $ 139 at a pawn shop.

Not one but TWO Yamaha cp-70 electric pianos - Free ! from a music store that didn't want them taking up space in their tiny store. "If you haul 'em away today they are yours "

Casiotone 1000p from the early 80's - $ 25 at a thrift store.

Tascam 238 cassette 8 track - $10 at a thrift store.

Tascam A1200 reel to reel - $ 10 at a thrift store.

All good deals to be sure but you have to factor in the countless hours scouring junk stores day after day only to find NOTHING.

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PeterSawatzky
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Post by PeterSawatzky » Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:40 am

I think my greatest score to date has been a $2 pair of Grado headphones. Besides that, I've a $5 turntable, $5 cassette deck, $20 amp, $80 pair of Polk speakers, new(waited about 3 hours outside FutureShop on Boxing Day morning in 14?F weather for those), lots of $1 LPs and 10? singles, a $100 vintage no-name amp that renders amazing distortion, a $5 Casio SK-1 (which I unfortunately fried)...

CharlesM
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Post by CharlesM » Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:45 am

My only 2 real finds so far:

1. 1950s Gretsch Progressive Jazz 4" x 14" blue sparkle snare drum: $25.00 at garage sale c. 1985. (Worth about $600 now. One of the worst snares I ever had. Some Gretsch wood snare drums back then had slightly oversized shells, so standard heads didn't sit right. Traded for a beautiful '70s Slingerland brass Gene Krupa snare.)

2. 1930s Leedy Reliance tube-lug brass snare. $25 at local music shop in Scranton, PA, this past winter. Sold it a few months ago for $300. Probably worth a bit more.

Chuck

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Russian Recording
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Post by Russian Recording » Mon Jul 31, 2006 10:24 am

I got this old Altec horn at a flea market for $10, and it is the defining sound of our band's bass sound:

[img[http://russianrecording.com/IMAGES/Ampl ... 20Horn.jpg[/img]

I also scored an Ampeg AG-440b at the Indiana University Surpluss Store for 90 bucks, granted it only worked at 7.5 ips and was in poor shape, I just racked up the line amps and sold the parts for about $150.

Another engineer in town paid $1600 for a pair of LA-3As, and a Pultec... all in perfet shape, some old boradcast guy had them in his basement.
mike

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