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08/11/2007: What’s the deal?

Busy working on a ToyFare article tonight, so this may be a good time for a patented SNT survey.

What’s the best deal you’ve ever gotten? Garage sales, store clearance sales, eBay hiccups — they all apply. I have some great stories, but I’ll save them for the comments thread. See you in a bit.


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 201 comments

OMG! I Get first comments! My best deal ever would have to be a trip to the goodwill store in my area that got me a brown suit with blue pin-stripes just like the one worny By David Tennant on Doctor Who. It was just my size and only 5.00! Made my day

Ghosted by Ryan @ 08/11/2007 9:21 PM EDT

I used to have crazy luck with coupons at grocery stores somehow they forgot to put do not combine with any other offer on them. I can remember quite a few times where they wouldn’t accept them because they would have ended up owing me money. That was long ago when I had some allowance and a sweet tooth.

Ghosted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 9:29 PM EDT

When Body Count’s self-titled debut was raking in about $50.00 a pop in specialty record stores, I found it at a local record store used for $5.00. I plopped it into the CD player in the store to make sure Cop Killer was on it, and whaddayouknow? Score! That’s all I got… pathetic.

Ghosted by Bludge @ 08/11/2007 9:30 PM EDT

Everything I bought while in India. Going out to a movie and a snack? Grand total of like four dollars.

Ghosted by Jeff Mack @ 08/11/2007 9:31 PM EDT

When I lived in Seattle I worked very near to a thrift store that was unlike most. It was in a nice(er) neighborhood and had more upscale items. There was pleanty of crap as well. Nothing in the store is ever marked over 5 bucks, and all the procedes go to some charity or whatnot. Anyhow, I on three different occasions found a brand new pair of docs, loafer style, mary janes, sandels, for 2.50 a pair. That and I still consider VHS amazing and I think getting movies for 50 cents is wonderful and then I can drop them and not ruin them either. Oh, AND my hail damaged golf ball looking car just passed 200,000 and has no signs of being an oldish car and I paid very little for it.

Ghosted by kb @ 08/11/2007 9:36 PM EDT

The best deal I’ve ever gotten? Well, I guess it would have to be the best deal my father ever got, from back when he was still responsible for spending money on me.

My Dad and I, in what must have been 1987, discovered a Ben Franklin General Store that was going out of business and had boxes of clearance items set up outside in a “sidewalk sale” sort of fashion.

Most of the boxes were filled with junk so forgettable that I have now, not so surprisingly, forgotten it. As a nine-year old there weren’t many things sold at a Ben Franklin thrift store that I cared about.

Thankfully one of the last boxes was filled with Halloween goodies. I purchased three or four cheap latex masks and around a dozen glow-sticks. I don’t know why I love glow-sticks as much as I do, but I cannot deny the fact… I LOVE GLOW-STICKS. There, I said it.

The entire price for this haul was no more than two bucks. The masks were around a quarter each and the glow-sticks were 10 cents.

My friends and I ended up using the cheap masks in a horrible skit we put on when I was in the 4th grade. For whatever reason the school decided to let groups of kids who wanted to write/act in their own productions act them out in front of the entire school. Sure we were only given ten minutes or so, but how much time did we really need? My best friends and I constructed a space ship made of an old refrigerator box, a couple boxes of aluminum foil, construction paper, and a few wires and keyboards from a computer.

In my mind this was going to be the movie Aliens acted out on-stage, in front of an audience of children, whether they were ready for it or not. This of course meant special effects.

Gore.

The best we could come up with was the aliens (wearing my cheap masks) flailing backwards violently after being shot by our toy guns. This meant they would fling green slime in to the air (into the crowd hopefully) and also use little plastic containers of green food coloring to squirt the “blood” all over their white t-shirts… therefore maximizing how many people would be able to see the “blood” spreading out over their previously clean shirts.

Yeah. We didn’t realize how badly non-diluted food coloring would stain clothing and especially human skin.

We tried and tried but couldn’t wash it off of the hands, necks, and chests of our “aliens” – my classmates. We were given a warning about that sort of thing not happening again in the future. Oh well. At least I am the kid responsible for staining the school stage that also hosts the Christmas pageant with green alien blood.

Ghosted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 9:45 PM EDT

I bought a copy of MST3K: The Movie on DVD when it was first released, brand new for $8. It’s been out of print for 7 years now, and used copies usually go for over $100 on eBay or Amazon.

Ghosted by GloriousKyle @ 08/11/2007 9:45 PM EDT

No actual objects come to mind but recently I purchased a $1 scratch off lottery ticket.

It stated I had won $5. When I cashed it in the code said $50 instead. SO an extra 45 for a mistake. Woot!

Ghosted by Jess @ 08/11/2007 9:47 PM EDT

I used to love buying vinyl records from my local op shops and markets (prices ranged from 50 cents to $2.50) that I’d seen second hand at music shops in worse condition sometimes costing up to $50. Not that I ever sold them on, I just loved knowing I got a better deal.

Ghosted by Jasmine @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM EDT

In high school I got a hairy wookie head statue for like ten bucks instead of over fifty beacuse I knew the girl at Spencers Gifts and she gave me three or four discounts.

Another young lady made me a free “Legalize Marijuana” shirt beacuse she thought it would be funny for me to wear to school.

Ghosted by mrjayberry @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM EDT

My best deal was an almost brand new (worn perhaps once or twice) pair of snowboarding boots that I found in a thrift store in the city (away from the mountains). New these things would have run a few hundred bucks each. I brought them up to the counter and asked the clerk how much they were as there was no price tag. She looked at them for a moment and then causally said:

“Four dollars”

I was in a daze. It was perfect timing too as my previous pair of boots had just become unusable after a season of snowboard instructing.

Ghosted by Ryle @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM EDT

Ryan – that suit is awesome. Good on you for recognising that suits such as those should be worn more often (and I rather like the sneakers with it too) :) .

My best deals were probably getting a brand-new hardcover book for $1, and getting about 10 horror movies – VHS and DVD – for somewhere in the vicinity of $20. This included the original ‘The Omen’, ‘Freddy vs. Jason’, ‘Halloween’, and the first two ‘Hellraiser’s. God, I can’t wait ’till October. Oooh, and I just recently got the first ‘Evil Dead’. Nothing like tree rape to make it feel like Halloween!

Ghosted by Frakkyfire @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM EDT

Bludge
I was going to say I did not have any great deals, but I actually one-upped you – when Body Count came out, I was working at a college radio station, I got the promotional copy of the Body Count promo CD that was sent to the station – somehow the record company “didn’t get the memo” that an alternative-rock, college station probably wouldn’t play this type of music – anyway, they practically paid me to take the CD (No, not really – they probably would have just thrown it out if I hadn’t taken it…)

Ghosted by Old Jim @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM EDT

I think I need to read my posts before submitting. Boots that cost “a few hundred bucks each” would be really expensive! I think I meant “each pair”.

Ghosted by Ryle @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM EDT

Its not really a deal per sem, but sort of like one.

There was this old barn by my house that was getting demolished, and the family that owned it had moved out and left apsolutlly everything in there. Im talking a whole giant room filled with old stuff.
We talked to the construction company that was going to demolish it, and since they said that everything in there would be thrown out anyway, we could take what we want.
Wwe got a pretty impressive haul or furniture, records, and other assorted stuff.

Ghosted by Chris @ 08/11/2007 9:54 PM EDT

What a coinkydink… A nearby video store had a clearance sale on all of their VHS (99 cents each), so I swooped a bunch of those up today. Among others, I got Gremlins, an Animaniacs Halloween video, the first episode of the Street Sharks cartoon.

That would be my most recent good deal.

Ghosted by Hey I'm Jeff @ 08/11/2007 9:56 PM EDT

My best deal? Well, I’m a burgeoning collector of gas masks (stop sniggering). I picked up a particular one online two or three years ago, but it was too small for me – face-distortingly cramped. But I hung onto it for a while, waiting for someone who could use it, or the guy who sells ‘em online stopped.

I later found myself in downtown Toronto at the AAA Army Surplus Store in Kensington Market. I asked the guy if they accept trade-ins – he said yes, and offered a few to try on. I found one I didn’t have – an uncommon one, too – and in my size. He accepted my previous mask as a one-for-one deal, and I left.

The price of the first mask on eBay? $8 Canadian + shipping.
The list price of the second mask from the store owner? $39.

That made me glad.

But the best deal I’ve heard of recently was when someone messed up the Lenovo.com website, and people were getting ThinkPad R61s for $500, when they normally retail for double that. Fun.

Ghosted by GLerman @ 08/11/2007 9:56 PM EDT

Speaking of that Body Count album, didn’t they sample the Psycho soundtrack for a track on that disc? If so, then my friend I used that as background music for our, still incomplete, horror movie we began filming in 1993.

I swear we’ll finish it when he gets out of prison.

Or maybe not. I guess we each went our separate ways after high school.

Ghosted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 9:57 PM EDT

I can’t think of the best deal I’ve ever gotten on anything, but the WORST springs right to mind; I spent $100 on homemade (read: bootleg) Power Rangers DVDs on eBay. That works out to $25 per disk. Bear in mind, Disney (who owns Power Rangers now) is really unlikely to release whole season sets of Power Rangers DVDs. These disks contain the entire 1996 season, which was the last time I watched with any regularity, so I thought it would be really cool to get them. Maybe I’m just trying to justify spending that much money for four DVDs.

That said, if Matt doesn’t mind, I wonder if people would mind also including the worst deals they’ve ever gotten. I’ve already told you mine.

Ghosted by Thomas @ 08/11/2007 9:58 PM EDT

That would be recently when I got the first season of “Saturday Night Live” at FYE for $30. Granted, it was used, but considering that it normally retails for about $60-$70 new and that my DVD collection is mostly used DVDs from places like FYE, Gamestop, etc that was a bargain. Those places rule for stuff like that.

I also like rummaging through the comic book quarter bins. You can find ALOT of gems in those things.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 08/11/2007 10:01 PM EDT

amd 64 3800 processor/motherboard, 2 gig of ram, 200 gig hard drive, surround sound speakers, dvd burner, tower case: $835. after instant rebates, $19.

went back the next day and bought a similar setup for the wife, $28. (she wanted a different case)

Ghosted by cuddles @ 08/11/2007 10:01 PM EDT

cuddles how the hell? thats some yoda stuff right there how did you do that?

Ghosted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 10:04 PM EDT

Ninja Turtles 2 on the NES. For a buck.

=D HAPPY DAY

Ghosted by FreezingInferno @ 08/11/2007 10:06 PM EDT

On second thought, the song that sampled the Psycho soundtrack might have been on the follow-up album, Born Dead.

Ghosted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 10:09 PM EDT

Totally off topic but some virtual console news. Metroid and Super Metroid are coming to the VC the 13th and 20th respectively. Pretty sure someone mentioned that they wanted these titles and well here they are. Dates courtesy of gameinformer.com

Ghosted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 10:11 PM EDT

Since the first X-Box is pretty much a dead system, stores have been pushing their last-gen games out for as little money as possible. I scored Chronicles of Riddick for $5. And a shitload of other games like Demon Stone and Beyond Good & Evil.

Ghosted by blackrob @ 08/11/2007 10:13 PM EDT

For $20, I got a big box full of Beast Wars figures, like first series. Bat Primal and Alligator Megatron, Cheetor, Waspinator, Terrorsaur, and Razorbeast complete. Plus a complete G2 Laserrod Prime.

Ghosted by Black Zarak @ 08/11/2007 10:13 PM EDT

Old Jim- Free Ice-T metal = Good

Magic Toy- I don’t know if they sampled Psycho or not. I haven’t heard it in about a year.

Thomas- Worst deal ever? I don’t think anyone on this blog can beat poor, poor Nathan Bitner for worst deal ever. (Sorry to reference yesterday’s posts).

Ghosted by Bludge @ 08/11/2007 10:14 PM EDT

My best friend sold me a Nintendo DS for $35 back in May. Then I bought Pokémon Diamond for about two bucks more than that the next day.

Not bad at all, if I do say so myself.

Ghosted by Tommy @ 08/11/2007 10:15 PM EDT

The best thing I can think of is a couple of years ago when I found a working Speak & Read at the thrift store for $1.96, and they were having a sale that day of 50% off toys. I’ve actually played with it a couple of times for nostalgia’s sake. Considering what you’ll pay on eBay, I think $.83 is an awesome deal!

The worst deal was probably a couple of years before I found eBay. I was at an antique mall and found a 1976 JCPenney catalog. I collect catalogs and pretty much never found old catalogs anywhere, so I was ecstatic. I think I paid $30 for it. Even with shipping, I could easily get one for half that now.

Oh, this might also count for the worse. There was the time that the grocery store was selling turkey breasts for $8 and I didn’t realize until I had already eaten it that they had charged me $8 a pound and I paid over $30 for it. The bar code hadn’t rung up, so she sent the bagger to find out the price. When he told her $8, she just rung up misc. meat for $8/lb. (So there wasn’t even a UPC on the receipt so I could plead my case once I noticed it.) I had bought a month’s worth of groceries that day, so the final total didn’t raise any red flags. I just happened to glance at the receipt a few days later and noticed that. I could almost feel the blood leave my body.

Ghosted by Lori @ 08/11/2007 10:20 PM EDT

Bludge, that is so true. Bitner got a raw deal from Mattel certainly.

Ghosted by Thomas @ 08/11/2007 10:21 PM EDT

at the local flea market i found an original NES system that came with a box full of games (all crappy)which the lady sold to me for $6. the system works perfectly, too

Ghosted by gdrop79 @ 08/11/2007 10:30 PM EDT

todya i get some “spagehtii” for two dollar
after eat i maybe just go asleep

Ghosted by chuckyhacks @ 08/11/2007 10:34 PM EDT

I got the Boba Fett UNLEASHED brand new at TARGET for 1.75 last year. Then I got a good deal on those GREMLINS and PREDATOR figures awhile back (there was also a V for VENDETTA, ROBOCOP, and PRINCE OF DARKNESS from LEGEND but I sold them for the same amount I paid for the whole lot!!). I think I have posted these before but they are still the best deals ever.

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 08/11/2007 10:38 PM EDT

I volunteer in a thrift shop just to get great deals on cheap stuff made even cheaper by my volunteer’s discount.

“42nd Street” on DVD costs $12 or more at FYE. I got it for a dollar at the thrift shop.

I bought five collectible dolls in Victorian gowns for $1.50. They’re part of seasonal displays on my bookcase in my bedroom. One doll for each season and one for Christmas.

Like Jasmine, I love collecting records. Got a huge stack from a secondhand music shop for less than $20. The 20 or so records I’ve bought from the thrift shop have probably cost me less than $10.

Can get hardback books at the thrift shop for as little as fifty cents…or even less during “all the books you can fit into a bag” sales. A mint-condition 70s-era copy of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was a dime.

I found an awesome collection of mint-condition 80s kids’ picture books for less than $5 at a church bazaar last November, including a He-Man book with a 33 1/3-inch record in perfect shape and a Pac-Man maze-themed book that was never drawn in.

Yard sales have yielded everything from a 50s-era teapot for two dollars to seven James Bond videos for five dollars and an adorable original Nala (from “The Lion King”) stuffed toy for a dollar (she “purrs” when you squeeze her rear). Picked up some elaborate 80s/early 90s-era Barbie gowns for my Sailor Moon dolls to wear in my Christmas displays for quarters.

JLAJRC isn’t the only one who’s had great luck with FYE’s used sales. I picked up the Disney “Beauty and the Beast” for $20 and “Sleeping Beauty” for $15 there. Both have been out-of print for years and can cost up to $40 or more at Amazon.com and elsewhere online. Got the recent releases of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Superman: The Movie” used for about $12 each, and “Galaxy Quest” used was $6 (and technically free, thanks to a buy three, get one free sale).

Ghosted by starwenn @ 08/11/2007 10:50 PM EDT

The best deal I’ve ever gotten? Last year I bought an NES cartridge at a flea market. It was weird looking, so I looked it up online and found out it was really rare. It was called Myriad 6-in-1. When my car needed work, I put it up on eBay, and ended up selling it for $660. Not bad for a $3 investment.

Ghosted by Steve W @ 08/11/2007 10:52 PM EDT

It was Christmas, 2001. I bought some baseball thing for my brother in one of those sports memorabilia stores, and I saw it in the corner of my eye: a metal box with Yoda and the Millenium Falcon on it. I looked it over, it was a l.e. box of metallic cards featuring the Empire Strikes Back, my favorite Star Wars movie. It didn’t have a price sticker on it, but a similar Coca cola box next to it said $20. By that time I was broke, so I begged the money off my mom, and went back to the store. When I took it up to the register, the guy told me it would be $80. I think my face melted onto the floor, I was so disappointed. God bless him, he asked me how much I thought it was (I should mention, I looked and sounded like I was about 12 at the time, so I think he felt sorry for me). So I told him about the other box. He gave this big sigh, like “Man, I’m such a git,” and he let me buy it for $20.

In a related note, I also consider getting the original prequel (not special eds) on DVD for $20 each an awesome deal. But that’s only because I was convinced George Lucas would never release them on DVD in their original gloriousness. I’m serious, I was prepared to break a few hundred federal laws in copyrighting and piracy just to have them. And I wasn’t gonna stop there, either. I wanted to put bootlegs in the hands of anybody who wanted them, imagining myself as some kind of 21st century girl Han Solo, sticking it to the man. So it was kind of a relief when George just caved and released them. I’m not cool enough to be Han Solo.

Ghosted by FyarlGirl @ 08/11/2007 10:54 PM EDT

A 30 gig ipod that I found on campus.

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 08/11/2007 11:20 PM EDT

Any time a dollar store is selling slime or noise putty in a container that has more than 2 oz. in it, I consider that a good deal.
I’d buy that for a dollar.

Ghosted by Somethin' Funny @ 08/11/2007 11:22 PM EDT

I was surfing eBay for Weezer’s Lion and the Witch EP and saw several for 100 bucks a pop. Then I found one for 15 bucks.

SCORE!!!

Ghosted by Knegative @ 08/11/2007 11:26 PM EDT

I’d say the best deal that I’ve ever had was an eBay auction. This woman was getting rid of a ton of here kid’s stuff and she had no clue what most of it was. For around fifty dollars I received two large, and I’m talking three by three boxes, filled with mostly G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero vehicles, big and small, along with some vintage Star Wars figures and MASK toys. If she had listed it right, the G.I. Joe vehicles alone would have cost me around a hundred bucks. : )

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 08/11/2007 11:28 PM EDT

Oh, and FyarlGirl I think that you mean original trilogy, not prequel trilogy. The prequel trilogy are the new films, ep 1,2 and 3.

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 08/11/2007 11:37 PM EDT

I’m normally just a lurker….but about 15 years ago I bought an original Star Wars: A New Hope movie poster for just $2.50!!

Ghosted by Ruddie @ 08/11/2007 11:44 PM EDT

danny j

i just caught the right time during a sale at compusa. :)

Ghosted by cuddles @ 08/11/2007 11:49 PM EDT

I recently came across a garage sale that was selling a box of old action figures.

I noticed a couple of G.I. Joes in there, including Snake-Eyes and Cobra Commander. I naturally assumed that these were the recent re-releases of the toys and bought the whole box for a mere $5.

You can predict what happened. Turns out all the toys were old ones and many were quite valuable. I got over 30 figures, at least 20 of which were from the 1980s. I did an eBay check and guesstimated that I got about $250 worth of toys for my $5.

In retrospect I feel kind of low about it, because the middle-aged lady selling the stuff was probably liquidated her son’s collection while he was off at college or something, and I bet he hit the roof when he found out.

On the plus side, my mantelpiece looks great.

Ghosted by Doctor Who @ 08/11/2007 11:50 PM EDT

I bought a GameBoy Color with batteries and a Donkey Kong Land 3 cartridge still inside for one dollar. The fellow just wanted rid of it after buying a PSP.

Ghosted by Der Super @ 08/11/2007 11:51 PM EDT

All I can think of right now is when I was younger and got all the snailiens/ticks for 25 bucks

Ghosted by SerialPsychosis @ 08/11/2007 11:58 PM EDT

A Sailor Moon purse for $1 it’s a licensed one from Japan. They were at a dollar store. I got 2 different designs. I’ve seen the kind I got go for like $5-10 in the mall and on ebay.

Ghosted by pikachulover @ 08/11/2007 11:58 PM EDT

Since I stated my best deal above, I might as well do my worst, too.

Wal-Mart had a bin that had a bunch of N64 games for $20 a piece. I grabbed the infamous Superman 64, which many consider basically the second worst video game ever made next to the ET Atari game, because I love comics.

Yes, even at that discounted price, I felt ripped off. Sometimes something that looks like a deal isn’t.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 08/12/2007 12:01 AM EDT

I’m a diehard wrestling fan, and as a kid, one of my most prized WWF tapes was the Piledriver music video tape. Sadly, I left it at a babysitters’ house I never went back to, meaning it was gone forever, and it pretty much scarred me for life. I’d lost a prized piece of my childhood. As young as I was, I knew how the WWF VHS market worked, they’d release tapes that would quickly vanish to make room for the next series, so my chances to simply pick up another copy at the store were long gone. My only other option to at least witness the glory again was a video store carrying it as a rental, thus, every video store I went to for nearly 15 years had me search the wrestling section for that holy image of Hulk Hogan in a hardhat on it. Even when all the old tapes began to fade away from most places, I looked out of habit. When I was about 18, I actually found it at a mom and pop place to rent, and I couldn’t believe it. I instantly registered there so I could rent it, along with a treasure trove of other VERY old WWF tapes. This place had the original 1985 Hulkamania tape in PRISTINE condition, one of the first tapes they’d ever released, the tape itself still brand new, the sticker as bold as the day it was made, playing perfect, not a single tracking line.

Anyways, while I got to see the storied tape, I still felt a void. I needed to OWN it again. I’d seen it go for $40+ on Ebay, but I didn’t even have an account then. When I finally got an Ebay account, about a year after being able to rent it again, I had low expectations to find the tape, let alone at a reasonable price. Finally, after months of searching, I found it. The starting price was 9$, which included shipping, and it was too good to be true, surely, someone would jack up the price before it sold. They didn’t, and I swooped in at the end of the auction to claim the precious tape. Until I actually got it in the mail, I was skeptical it was be in any kind of playing condition. Sure enough, it was in near mint condition, the box perfectly preserved. When I popped that in the old VCR, once again owning the tape, it was the glorious end of a mission a decade plus in the making. And all it cost was 9$.

In a related story, my favorite WWF LJN figure as a kid was JYD, he served as my most played with figure. Even though I’m as hardcore a Hulkamaniac as there is, in playtime, JYD got the main event slot, mainly because I refused to let Hogan lose, thus, I saved him for big time special appearances he could always win, so I didn’t paint myself into a corner by having him be a regular. Anyways, like the Piledriver tape, he too was lost, quite early on into my childhood, along with most of my other LJN figures due to moving. Over the years I’d managed to collect all the major players back, except JYD, only to happen into a vintage toy shop a few years back, where prime condition LJN figures are sold, some in the upwards of $60. They kept them in a glass case, but in looking around to a random assortment of toys, I found a mint JYD mixed in. Expecting him to be worth what the ones in the case were, since they had other JYDs in there in far worse shape for $8-$10 I was shocked to see a price tag of $2 on him. I know it was probably a mixup on their part, but I ended up claiming him for cheap anyways, and I probably hummed Grab Them Cakes all the way home whether I realized it or not.

Ghosted by Rob @ 08/12/2007 12:01 AM EDT

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