X-Entertainment | What’s the deal?

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 on 08/11/2007. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 201 comments

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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

Chestnuts roasted by Ryan @ 08/11/2007 9:21 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 9:29 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Bludge @ 08/11/2007 9:30 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Jeff Mack @ 08/11/2007 9:31 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by kb @ 08/11/2007 9:36 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 9:45 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by GloriousKyle @ 08/11/2007 9:45 PM

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!

Chestnuts roasted by Jess @ 08/11/2007 9:47 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Jasmine @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by mrjayberry @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Ryle @ 08/11/2007 9:49 PM

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!

Chestnuts roasted by Frakkyfire @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM

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…)

Chestnuts roasted by Old Jim @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM

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”.

Chestnuts roasted by Ryle @ 08/11/2007 9:51 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Chris @ 08/11/2007 9:54 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Hey I'm Jeff @ 08/11/2007 9:56 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by GLerman @ 08/11/2007 9:56 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 9:57 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Thomas @ 08/11/2007 9:58 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 08/11/2007 10:01 PM

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)

Chestnuts roasted by cuddles @ 08/11/2007 10:01 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 10:04 PM

Ninja Turtles 2 on the NES. For a buck.

=D HAPPY DAY

Chestnuts roasted by FreezingInferno @ 08/11/2007 10:06 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Magic Toy @ 08/11/2007 10:09 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Danny J @ 08/11/2007 10:11 PM

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