Thrift Shop Roadtrip: DEARBORN, MI

I was only in Michigan for a brief period of time, but was able to carve out an afternoon to visit a few thrift shops in this exotic port of call while my son attended the Michigan State vs. Notre Dame football game. Dearborn is an interesting place. Clearly a company town, you get no sense of the automotive industry's problems when cruising around. There are numerous gleaming Ford corporate buildings, as well as Ford named museums, civic centers etc. etc. Additionally, unbeknowst to me, Dearborn has the largest Arab-American population in the United States. This made for some interesting window shopping and eating. Should you ever need to purchase a hookah, this is the place. Could not wait to hit the thrift shops. This is what I found.

1. SALVATION ARMY GARDEN CITY FAMILY AND THRIFT STORE
28982 Ford Road
Garden City, MI
734-261-7175
Monday-Saturday 9AM - 8PM
Closed Sunday

There are many Salvation Army retail shops in the Dearborn area. I just picked one closest to my hotel, and I seemed to pick a winner. A large, filled to the brim shop with everything you would ever hope to find in a thrift shop. A beautiful art deco furniture set would have come home with me if I had a truck. Wonderful dishes and brick-a-brack. I had to forgo most fragile items, but did purchase a small ceramic springer spaniel figurine dated 1947.


However, I think the way to go here was clothing, specifically cold weather gear. Michigan folks will have to have lots of sweaters and coats to get through the brutal winters. I struck gold in the well organized seemingly mile long sweater racks. I plucked two pure cashmere sweaters from Pringle for $3.99 each, and a spring green cashmere v-neck from Macy's brand Charter Club.

My favorite find were the vintage Pendleton zippered front sweater jacket, and a Pendleton Western Wear wool camp blanket plaid blazer with suede edging. If unfamiliar with Pendleton Woolen Mills, check their website. These are garments of the highest quality in timeless classic styles. They have a true rugged western vibe. The company dates back to the late 1800's. Some of their vintage sweaters are quite collectible. Added to my pile were a stack of ties. Some designer such as Polo by Ralph Lauren, and some bizarre such as a classic looking tie with lion crest pattern and some writing in the background. The back translates the writing as "Don't let the bastards grind you down". Finally, I purchased a like new super large black rolling suitcase to bring home all my new purchases!

My grand total for all my booty was $23. Loved this shop

2. AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND THRIFT STORE
19322 W Warren Ave
Detroit, MI
313-336-5455

This shop was medium sized, but felt much bigger due to very high ceilings and bright lighting.

This store was not packed to the gills with merchandise, which was nice as no muscle was required when browsing racks.

A very clean store which had an overall higher caliber of merchandise. My big find here was a large leather faux crocodile tote bag. Lined in striped fabric, made in Italy it has a very high end vintage feel. I have not put it down. A perfect wardrobe basic! I also scored a mountain of high end ties. Menswear was 50% off, so each tie was .50.

Again, I would highly recommend a pass through this comfortable store with friendly and helpful volunteers whenever in the area.

Thrift Shop Roadtrip: CHICAGO, IL

Impossible for me to attend eBay Live without visiting a few thrift shops in the exotic port of call of Chicago. I ventured out with a colleague who lives in Chicago and works for folks literally on the Forbes wealthiest people in America list (names you know). This friend knew where THESE folks donate-amazing inside information. My idea of a good time!
Here goes:

1. WHITE ELEPHANT RESALE SHOP
2380 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL
773.883.6184
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday: Noon to 5 p.m.

The White Elephant is a somewhat large and cavernous shop in hip Lincoln Park. While the clothing selection is solid, there seemed to be more in the way of housewares, collectibles, prints, furniture and books. I got the immediate sense that there was possibility for true treasure here, and I was correct. Prices vary widely, but there were still fabulous bargains. I left with a stunning European lace blouse, and a pristine silk Tommy Bahama camp shirt, each five dollars. Actually, everything in this store was in perfect condition. I do not know if it is just the caliber of donations, or if the staff vets what comes in, but there is a palpable difference in quality from most thrift shops. I also found a vintage Roper cowgirl western shirt, and a medium sized Herve Chapelier tote for three dollars each. My friend left with a pair of KILLER black suede ornate embroidered books reminiscent of Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan-twenty bucks, and a classic Hermes silk tie for $10.

I could really get lost in their large and very special book department. I wish I had room to travel home with the many coffee table sized Elvis books, or what seemed like a lifetime collection of Sotheby's auction catalogs. I could not pass up a beautiful book of gnome art, signed by the author. There was a room of very interesting small furniture pieces as well. This shop is a TEN, and worth a special trip when in Chicagoland. Proceeds benefit the Children's Memorial Hospital, as if you need a reason to feel any better about your treasures! PS We left with our booty in big Louis Vuitton shopping bags.

2. THE ARK THRIFT SHOP
3345 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL
773-248-1117
Monday-Thurs 10-6, Friday 10-5 (summer) 10-2 (winter), Sunday 11-5

Another thrift shop known by my eBay Live friend to be a favorite of her employer is the Ark. It is too far down N. Lincoln Ave from the White Elephant to walk, so we grabbed a cab. This is a HUGE supersize store, with furniture and housewares on the ground floor, clothing, shoes and accessories upstairs. Lo and behold, we were greeted upon arrival with the news that the upper level was conducting a five dollar bag sale. Best news ever in the land of upscale junk! However, the downside was that we had about thirty minutes to explore what could easily been a full day affair. No matter. I attacked the shoes with gusto and promptly filled a bag with 10 pairs of Ferragamo and other fabulous designer shoes, including a pair of Zegna men's formal tuxedo shoes. I did a quick lap around the massive clothing floor, but decided I had more then I could possibly fit into my suitcase and decided my work was done for the day.

Upon paying, with the lights closing behind us, it occurred to me that I did not have my camera (notice there is no photo of The Ark). I begged to be let back upstairs to check if I put it down while arranging my shoes in the bag (packing a serious "bag day" bag is one of my superpowers). No luck. Please know that my camera is the core of my eBay empire. It is also somewhat sentimental, as I purchased it with the gift card given to me by my colleagues when I left my job at Hofstra Law School. It was also quite expensive. As I was leaving my contact information with the store manager with a heavy heart, the CAB DRIVER who had taken us from White Elephant came running in with my camera. What a wonderful guy. What an amazing random act of kindness which I will pay forward as soon as the opportunity presents itself. So, Instead of a photo of the Ark, here is Afiye Abdulle, the nicest, most honorable cab driver in Chicago!!




3. GOODWILL CHICAGO
Washington Street Store
1201 W. Washington Blvd
Chicago, IL
312-563-1187
Monday - Friday 9-9, Saturday 9-8, Sunday 10 -7

While this medium sized Goodwill was not on my friends "treasure map", we decided to check it out as it is open later then most other thrift shops. This store was neat as a pin. While it looks like a garden variety Goodwill, upon commencing digging, it was clear that it held an abundance of treasure. Mixed in with the usual goods were J. Crew brand new with all tags jeans, fabulous Escada jeans, and a number of pieces I recognized from anthropologie, including lux lux and Elevenses pants and blazers. My friend picked up a vintage Custo Barcelona top, and a killer Anne Fontaine blouse. While the suits were marked a pricey $50 and up, there were a plethora of crisp chinos from Brooks Brothers and Polo for three or four dollars. Ditto for beautiful button down mens shirts, fresh from the cleaners from Ralph Lauren, Faconnable, Armani and more. The closer I looked, the more treasures surfaced.

I absolutely loved everything about Chicago, including the small, but potent sample of fabulous thrift shops!

GREETINGS FROM ACROSS TIME & SPACE

Sorry about that.


Had some intervening, superseding happenings on this end. Hope to get back in the groove. I enjoyed writing about my passion of junking more then I expected.


Just back from my THIRD eBay Live in Chicago. While this was certainly the most subdued of the conferences (and could very well be the last of the lineage), it is one of the few gatherings where I feel that I am truly amongst my own kind!

I always find this conference to be extremely worthwhile. I was able to get much face time with eBay execs to ask questions and receive guidance specific to my two eBay accounts and stores (Electric-Estate-Sale for consignment goods, and Urban-Anthropology for my estate and thrift shop finds). However, eBay live is all about networking. I am always fascinated by the niches people have carved out-and how much there is to know about everything. This always excites the informationist in me.

I am anxious to slowly try to digest all that I learned to enhance this blog, and my entire eBay experience.

Exhibit A- I learned how to do THIS (I am not much of a techie so creation of a widget is a huge leap):

More on offsite eBay Feedback Tools

The eBay community at large is gearing up for the upcoming changes to the feedback system. Most notably, beginning in May sellers will no longer to be able to leave neutral or negative feedback for buyers.

Another site which has been developed to level the playing field is AfterTheGavel. This rather innovative website has been created as an off-eBay destination to post, and access feedback about buyers.

As set forth on their site:

"AfterTheGavel is for sellers to be able to manage risk for their online auction businesses. As the world of online auctions changes sellers need to know who they are dealing with as buyers as much if not more than buyers need to know sellers. AfterTheGavel.com will serve as a balancing weight to keep this information available to sellers".

The addresses AfterTheGavel.com and LeaveAuctionFeedback.com both point to the same site.

Registration and use of this site is free. Another great tool in your arsenal for the brave new eBay world!

Fine-Tuned Feedback Finder

When you take a look at a prospective eBay trading partner's feedback, and want to view any or all negatives received, it can be a long and tedious process to scroll through many (perhaps hundreds or thousands) of feedbacks to see what the problems &/or comments were when someone left negative or neutral feedback. An easy way to solve this problem is though the website Toolhaus.

Here you can just pop in a user name, and receive a result list of ONLY negative and neutral feedback received.

Toolhaus offers and entire suite of tools related to eBay feedback. Most interesting are the soon to be launched tools to deal with the seismic changes coming to eBay's feedback system next month. While sellers will no longer be allowed to leave negative feedback for buyers, it is posited that sellers will leave text such as "neg" or "negative" in the comment field for the mandatory positive only feedback. Toolhaus has designed a tool to detect such "false positives" as well.

This site is very useful, and plans to continue to evolve to meet the needs of the eBay community. A keeper!

Treasure Hunting on eBay

The informationist in me understands the importance of keyword searching. Computers are a bit stupid in this one respect. Most search mechanisms can only produce results for the exact word you type into a search box. Therefore, if there is a typo in an eBay title or description, the result list will not include that auction. Listings with errors are viewed by FAR less people, and generally will sell for much less then a properly listed item. You may be surprised how many listings on eBay contain such mistakes. How does one find these buried treasures of eBay? You could run multiple searches for every possible misspelling or typo, which is quite tedious and time consuming, OR you can check out the following very cool websites:

The first tool for "sniffing" out such listings is TypoHound.

Type the item or keyword you are looking for into the TypoHound search box and it will generates a search with the following typos:

• Character typed twice
• Character omitted
• Characters swapped
• Key next to correct character hit
• Key next to correct character and correct character hit

Another such tool for your arsenal is Missing-Auctions.com

This tool offers some advanced search options such as limiting a search to a specified category, "buy it now" items, searching both title and description, and more.

Both sites are excellent ways to find extraordinary eBay bargains! Yo ho!

Sidebar

A corollary to "you never know what you might find" at a thrift shop or tag sale, is that you also never know what you might touch. For that reason, lots of regulars have taken to wearing surgical gloves while shopping. This is not a bad idea, but I am not willing to give up one of my senses (one of my superpowers is the ability to identify cashmere, or tell the cashmere content of an item from a quick touch). I solve this problem by traveling heavily armed with hand sanitizer.

If you chose to do so too, remember to look at the label of whatever sanitizer you choose. Some on the shelves, as well has some homemade and organic formulations which can be found on the web have less then the 60% alcohol deemed necessary to kill most harmful bacteria and viruses.

These sanitizers can not replace soap and water, but great for using while in the trenches. When I get home, I still roll up my sleeves and scrub to the elbows as if I am about to perform surgery!