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So, I work at Value Village, and no, I'm not one of the people who stands up front and manages the cashier all day, I actually have a job in the back where we receive the donations. We call it the "Community Donation Centre". At first I was thinking this job would be sort of boring and it'd get old fast, but boy was I wrong. This last week, I came across something that was pretty cool, I mean...we get a lot of cool things in, like antiques, records, etc, but this one really got me excited:


Columbie GP-3 model portable record player

At first, I was looking at it and it looked like a standard portable record player, so my first instinct was to price it between 5$ and 7$. However, upon further investigation, I noticed that the controls were not in English, so I decided to look up the brand and the model number that was located on the bottom of the record, low and behold I find a few links providing pricing details ranging between $95 - $150. At that moment, I decided if I had priced it as low as I wanted to, it would have sold super quick, but for the wrong reason. I decided to price it at $29.99, which to some is still a steal, but we are required to price our items less than half of the worth since we are still a thrift store. Before pricing it and bringing it out to the floor, I figured it'd be nice to see if it even worked. I plugged it in, grabbed a Def Leppard album that was sitting on the book cart, and at my surprise, it was working, and it sounded fantastic. It was shocking and amazing to find such an interesting piece, but it was also surprising to find that it was a vintage piece that was worth far more than what I thought. I bet the person who donated it is kicking himself in the butt, especially if they decide to walk into the store and find that it is located in our showcase. Every day at my job is different, but finding these sorts of treasures is what makes it worth getting up in the morning and going through the day. Needless to say, I love my job, and this is just one example of why.