I make no secret that I am what was called in my native New England; frugal. Don't bother, I've heard all the synonyms. Anyway, yesterday was half-price day at the thrift store so I went to buy some polo shirts for $3.49-$0.50. As I was shopping they brought out some more junk. I got a few things. 
A Canon D60 body w/1Gb microdrive, a Canon 70-300 IS long lens, a Speedlite 420EZ sunpak and a Tamron 28-300 AF macro lens. $42. 
So, did I get a deal?
36 comments:
murst!!
Murst!!!
Downtown Ventura -- how could there be so many second hand stores?
Cheapass!
Anyone read Nigel's parting shot?
This was downtown Oxnard but the demographics are ripe for thrift stores. Problem is I have a feeling that in a year or two I won't be the only one shopping there. Buffet's "swimming naked" phenomea is going to manifest here like no other. The number of "I don't know how they do it" households is staggering.
It's a hell of a time to be a thrift store shopper Rob. It's like the guy's in wealthy Long Island neighborhoods who cruise around picking up "junk" outside people's houses. Sometimes when an angry wife is involved, juink day cometh on the early side, replete with $1000 suits and big screen TVs.
tk,
Why thank you. And yes, Nigel's parting shot was classic Nigel. He appears to have pulled way back from past behaviors and is trying hard to be a new model netizen. He isn't Casey and probably learned some lessons but he'll never get a chance to do what he tried again.
With the big contraction coming I'm expecting some interesting deals like you mention. Lots of houshold consolidation in particular. There are literally millions of extra houses out there if we merely revert to the average persons per dwelling unit of the 1995 Amercian Housing Survey. Do i want their plasmas when they recombine or do I want their houses at prices that cashflow positive?
It's OK to be parsimonious. That is a $64 dollar word for cheap -- but it cost NOTHING to use, so it's a win-win! Sweet!
Since no one's posted the magic word yet -- F I R S T :)
Unreal camera deals.
Too bad Casey is gone. An interesting project -- like the Stanford Prison Experiment. Gonna miss the little bastard. He needs to get a dog. Maybe, a bird dog.
Good deal if everything works. Nice find!
Nigel Swaby and the big blue ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Casey Serin in way over his head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Serinopoly, sweet deals, beans, and rice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Made those shady deals and didn't think twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Screwed some banks and bragged about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
How would you know unless you've done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey Casey, did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked out again?
Hey Casey, are you goofing on Robert? If hey don't like it, screw 'em?
If you believed he could make a grand every week, grand every week
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
Casey went to Utah, up to no good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Man this looser really chucked some wood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Borrowed some money from the boys at Cash Call. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now I'm in lender ignore mode 'cause I have no balls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey Casey, did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked out again?
Hey Casey, are you goofing on Robert? If hey don't like it, screw 'em?
If you believed he could make a grand every week, grand every week
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
Here's a little hobbit trying in the real world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Finding out he's just a troll and a turd. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a V-dubs that can't sprout wings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Getting distracted by some shiny things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey Casey, did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked out again?
Hey Casey, are you goofing on Robert? If hey don't like it, screw 'em?
If you believed he every deal was win-win, deal was win-win
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
If you believed he could make a grand every week, grand every week
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
If you believed he could make a grand every week, grand every week
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
If you believed he could make a grand every week, grand every week
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then you're really a tool
so what was posted on IAFF yesterday that would have violated the galina contract?
Nice batch of cheap goodies. Around here, nobody buys stuff like that in the first place, so it never ends up in thrift stores. There are two whole traditional camera shops in the area and I think they're closing this year. The small RITZ in a failing mall has a tiny subset of RITZ stock but nobody's ever in there anyway. I still use a 35mm SLR I bought 30 years ago.
I skipped over the last twelve hundred threads. Is Casey dead yet? Found at the bottom of a cistern? Identified by DNA as the mystery paste smeared on a loose shard of linoleum? Sliced into thousands of tissue-thin slivers with a microtome and lovingly scrapbooked by Lady Galina? Run over by a forklift? Laid waste by scurvy? His powers, the result of being bitten by a radioactive retarded child, wore off? He was strangled by his murse, which was caught in the rear axle of his 1924 GS Amilcar, for which he had just traded in the V-Dub? Accidental suffocation from autoerotic strangulation with an apron string? A stroke brought about by a sudden epiphany? Alien abduction, which resulted in Casey being dropped by Greys in disgust from 40,000 feet into the Bonneville Salt Flats? SWEEEEeeeeeeeettt......
>> The number of "I don't know how they do it" households is staggering.
but consider...
Last time the median price of housing decreased nationwide, as it did last month ... 1931.
Last time the national personal savings rate went negative, like it has been for the last 2 years ... 1931.
draw your own conclusions...
Now for the Beautiful Finale:
The Feds escort Casey and Galina out of their home in handcuffs.
Galina is let off the hook for turning state evidence in. Casey for Fraud and he is booked for years.
What a beautiful ending that would be.
I talked with my realtor/investor friend yesturday down in San Diego. I have allot of respect for him as he got out and urged many others to do so in 2004. He's been in the business since 1969.
Apparently Merrill Lynch has been heavily selling RE backed bonds for the past 5 years. Since last December they have been buying homes that are NOD in $100 million batches in an attempt to give the banks some cashflow and prevent them from doing "anything it takes" to sell them. This is also skewing the real foreclosure listings.
There is fear now at ML that if the trend of forclosures continues, the whole support process and their bonds will collapse. The banks will be left with hundreds of thousands of homes unsold with no income comming in on them and the banks will fold as well.
The makings of a perfect storm. Anyone know anything about this?
Sorry, the homes are REO not NOD. My bad.
Where do you think that the TRILLIONS that are going to Iraq magically came from?
The Goverment will simply PRINT more money to offset the shortfall.
The bad thing about printing more money of course is that the dollar will get weaker, but nobody seems to be caring.
Full archive including pictures on bloglines from Jan 4 to loss mit pro post from yesterday.
Anyone want to archive it? I can copy and send it to ??
Good find Rob! (And yeah - you'd think great minds think alike - you bird-dogged my blog!)
We're already seeing in my business, one which relies heavily upon European product what a weak dollar is doing. It's creating steep across the board price increases at the import level, wholesale and retail levels. Everybody is accepting for the moment. But should they continue, and there is no reason they shouldn't, the consumer will eventually balk at pricing which is prohibitive simply because our dollar can't buy shit anymore.
I'm a Nikon kinda guy, I own a used and road battered D1X my buddy gave me, but that camera you got, with lens and flash? $42? DEAL!!!!!
JustME: Great job! (I love REM)
And Casey Fannnnn, I know end of world (feel fine) was already "boprrowed" with great effect, but some of your phrases were too fantastic lot to have flashed on it again, i.e.:
....
Microtome scrap book
Forklift tragedy
Autoerotic stragulation
[right? RIGHT!]
DNA mystery paste radioactive retarded children alien abduction offer me alternatives I decline...
I agree that buying usable stuff at fantastic markdowns is the way to go.
I'm an ironworker, so buying full-price Levis, etc, is a waste. Here in NJ, Marshalls, Burlington Coat factory, and "seconds" type stores are where I get most of my work clothes.
I brown-bag at work, which over the last 25 years has saved me about 100,000.00 dollars, realistically.
I steal whatever else I can.
Rob - I'll give you eighty bucks for the lot.
:^)
Government can't print excess money. First you need to know how that process works.
So Inflation ain't an answer. Obviously. The trillions for Iraqi are coming from future taxpayers.
If the 70-300 lens is in good condition i'll buy it from you for $150.
They really did'nt know what they had there with that camera, if it's working. The body alone is worth $300, the flash $200, the lens a couple hundred.
The camera is a bit old, but if it's got low mileage on the ccd it's a deal of a lifetime, you should have some fun with it! I'd invest in a tune-up with Canon (includes a good cleaning and check of all components, and any firmware upgrades), and then with the money you saved, get a decent lens collection. :)
I've been playing with fixed lenses lately ("prime"), I have been getting amazing shots with a Nikor 50mm fixed, with 2.8 I can get great shots at low light, and it's a fast lens. Not bad for $100!
I know just enough about photography to be dangerous (my business partner is a pro industry photographer of 20 years) but i know enough to know you got a hell of deal on that kit.
I wonder if they thought it was a film camera.
Great deal... GREAT. So great that I can't help but wonder if it is "hot".
The D60 is a NICE camera (and I am a Nikon guy) but what makes it incredible is that you'd be hard pressed to find any ONE part of that package for the price you paid (except maybe the 1GB CF) anywhere if the store knew what they had.
At $42 i doubt it's hot...but there is a chance, if it's sent in for a tune up, that it could come up stolen.
Nah, i think it's more it was a mistake, that it was donated and the people there had no clue what it was worth. That's even hard to beleive, that nobody in the store saw it and realized what a deal it is and snagged it for themselves. Stolen goods generally don't end up at thrift stores - most of the stuff is donated.
If it was on Craigslist, I'd suspect the same, if it were stolen the thief would want at least 75% of list price, even a pawnshop would give you half of it's worth.
The thrift store thing is a great way to get deals, if you live in a wealthy area. I'm not above poking around the donation stores in the weathier areas, they have brand new clothes going for pennies, good, solid furniture, all kinds of stuff that richer folk dump off when they clean out the garage or closets, or are getting rid of stuff after a divorce.
I'm an artist, and I like to fram my own work, and posters, and things like that, and I know that framing shops are one of the biggest rip offs going - $150 to frame a poster? Get real!
So what I do is hit the thrift stores and salvage yards in Emeryville, and pick up old junky paintings and stuff, that have really, really nice old frames, and simply restore and repaint or stain the frame, maybe replace the glass. It's not hard to frame, just takes patience and the right tools. I can frame something really nice for under $20, $40 if I have to replace the glass.
And for the record, i donate to St. Paul DeVincent. I generally ask people I know if they want something I'm getting rid of, and if nobody wants it, it goes to the thrift. I don't feel guilty at all, the money goes to a good cause, and after all the clothes and electronics and furniture I've donated, a really really good deal like Rob got would'nt bother me at all. :)
St Vincent DePaul and the Ventura County Rescue Mission get all our "stuff" as well.
Yes, I will be getting the cleaning package at the reputable place in T.O. and I always intended to check the stolen items status. If stolen, no prob the $42 is well spent. The body and 70-300 have original s/ns so it should be easy to check. The 70-300 is in very good condition with just a little more play in the manual focus barrel ring than I'm used to but I don't know if that is because of the AF and Image Stabilization as I'm used to stiff all manual 35mm works. (Camera Guy I'll need a few days to even see if it is working propery before I decide what I'm going to do with everything.) My Olympus OM-2 SP has served well for my years of what my family calls artsy-farsty photography. I'm a natural light macro and scenery type guy.
I'm a digital Nikon-phile myself. Coolpix L3 and 5800 for point and shoot. 2 weeks ago I got an Emprex 10Mpixel that has the same interface and mechanics as the L3 for $99 at the Fry's 1 day anniversary sale.
The reason I think it was so cheap besides it being a very cheap store to start is because the D60 looks exactly like a 35mm system. With no manual mode and fully discharged battery anyone looking at it wouldn't know. I bought this with the express intent of teaching my 16 and 13yos "real" photography; stops, brackets, apeture, depth of field, etc. that the point and "perfect" digitals don't offer.
Man, I looked at the ebay closing prices on some of these components. First, people on ebay pay too much and second wow I did get a deal even if I had to by a wall/car charger for $30 and an interface cable for $8. I expect the tune up will run $40-60 as well.
Oh, and the lenses came with the caps and haze filters and a polarizing filters. J&R and B&H want another $90 for those.
Tamron lenses are crap, but for that price I'd be thrilled to have the camera and throw the lens away.
Don't get me wrong; if you're just taking pictures to post on the Web the lens should be fine. But any zoom with a range like 70-300, even a Nikkor, is going to cut corners on the optics.
The camera does not matter: it's just a box that in the olden days kept your film out of the light, and nowadays does nothing but hold all the electramatronic stuff. The lens is the ONLY thing that matters.
Dawg -
That stuff you got? Its all crap man. But I feel sorry for you, so I will give you $100 for it all (and I will pay for shipping) so you don't feel too bad about it... :)
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