I am quite savvy, so not much gets past me, I usually run my fingers along the edges of mugs, plates and bowls to "feel" any chip. I do it twice: once before it goes into my cart, and once before it goes on the counter to be purchased. HOWEVER, thrift shops are sneaky. I am on to them, but I still have to take the gamble. What they do is the wrap packing tape all around a "set" of dishes, or a pot with a lid. So you cannot individually inspect. I know that they also do this to keep the set together, but still....
Most of the time, I know I will be stuck with a few bummers. It is what it is. I try my darnest to try to view each item from the side. If its a great set, I'll just buy it anyhow and go into knowing I will end up with some shitty pieces, but if the majority of them are okay, I still come out ahead.
By the way, don't get me started on packing tape! That will be a whole other blog. For real!
First example:
This beautiful set, all taped together. I bought it because I love it.
However, two bowls were pulled from the set prior to this picture.
Can you see on the bottom there? Chips on both of them! Waaahh!
Another example, this set of bowls were all taped together...so there was no way to detect anything. All the edges looked good, but this is what the inside of one item looked like:
I don't even know how to describe what happened to the inside. Massive utensil marks and some sort of weird cracks...
I don't have the heart to throw them out. But I don't want to be a hoarder that just keeps trash. I try to re purpose them as much as possible. If I was crafty or something, it would be much easier. I would make a mobile or mosaic or jewelry or something. I am not crafty. So, I have a lot of soap dishes, and pen holders
I have more soap holders than I have soap. Whatever, I'm not throwing it away!
I would like to blame the thrift shops for everything, really I would. But sometimes its my fault. Sometimes the thrift shop does an excellent way of packing things and they make it home, and they make it into my house. And then I go to clean them (fucking packing tape!) and they get slippery from the soap....Lets just say, I HAD three of these:
They were heavy and one just kind of slipped. But I will put some of the blame on the thrift shop, because if they didn't put packing tape all over them, I would not have had to scrub so hard, losing my grip. So it is kinda their fault.
Please follow my blog and all my other social medias I waste too much time on. All of them. Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr...I'm there. All of them. I need to get a hobby...oh, wait, this is my hobby.
Comment below and say something interesting.
Something interesting. 😜
ReplyDeleteI do think some thrift stores are less than honest. I hate when they put the price tag over a chip or stained spot. I'm probably their worst nightmare now though- I rip through that tape if it is one something like a box or lidded item.
I thought about bringing a little swiss army knife with me....
Deleteoh boy always hard to see inside it's the reason that I like the single pieces at least I can see what I am getting and know before hand if I need to break it to use it or if I can build a piece around it. Still doesn't take the fun of the hunt out of it though :D
ReplyDeleteyes, i like it better when things are sold singley, even if I buy the whole set.
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