Thrift store marathon

By now you've realized that Z and I are both marathon thrifters. It's one of those mutual obsessions that brought us together. He hunts records with an eye for unknowns and private labels, and he is good. He can pull one album from a pile and it will sell in France for $200. No lies. He does it on a daily basis and he knows the market. Portland was one of our destination cities because, "it has as many record stores as it did in the ’70s, and more per capita than any other U.S. city." read more Portland rock trivia here. Portlanders love their music.

And I just started hocking the treasures I've been collecting for the past 15 years. Doing it professionally gives me the excuse to give items a layover in my home before sending them off to Texas or Australia, plus I can pay the bills. Check out the Loyal shop down there on the right. I've sold things on Ebay professionally before and I actually prefer the community of Etsy. Instead of being one item in a sea of similar items on Ebay everything appears together in my shop, which gives it a visual context and aesthetic.

We started our morning at the post office.  

 Anyway. Zach and I don't regularly head out of town for thrifting, we usually cruise a 10 mile radius around our home base. But recently we headed down to Corvallis for a wedding and had such a good time at the thrifts in Salem and Albany that we decided to make a once a month go of it.

First stop, Goodwill in Wilsonville, the store was virtually empty and, unfortunately for my budget, I discovered that Goodwill had started putting out their halloween costumes, which basically means all the fantastic vintage and ethnic clothes are out. Goodwill has a monopoly and they are often criticized for overcharging, Zach scores pretty well, so we hit a lot of them.

Zach's first score! This pile is full of popular classic rock. Led Zep, ACDC and Black Sabbath.

My favorite find was this red eyed buffalo bull.

Okay so this is Boba Fett in his environment of rock, wood and rusted metal. He sits in the consul of the car and is Z.'s copilot. I'm a terrible co-pilot.

Whole wheat pear and nut muffin break. We pack food so we don't have to spend money eating out and  so we can hit as many thrifts without stopping. 

There are no photo's, but we did stop at a Goodwill in Woodburn, I found some coffee cups. We drove from Woodburn to Salem on the smaller 99 freeway, which led us through some beautiful farmland.

Oh yeah. it was game day, so the highway down to Woodburn was packed with cheering cars. And you know what's funny, the OSU Ducks were playing Fresno State bulldogs, so we did see some Bulldog fans on the road too.

grass for golf courses

We made it to Salem and hit the Bins

 There he goes, into the pit. The Bins can be ruthless or kind. We've discovered that the bins in small towns are usually kinder, people don't grab, push or admonish you or bemoan their condition loudly. I found some vintage clothes, some pattern transfers and Z. found a small stack of records. They roll out a new row of carts every half hour and people line up like it's a swim meet, swinging their arms hopping leg to leg, eyeballing each cart. As soon as the last cart is in place everyone digs in. It sometimes smells and feels like sorting the world laundry pile, gloves or a 10 minute hand washing session are mandatory.

Teen Challenge in Salem

Looks promising, but it's also a little too pricey. Neither of us bought anything.

Painting of Mt. hood and a Plastic California tray. 

 The Union Gospel Mission store is huge.

Zach is in the back warehouse digging, and I just wandered through room after room after room.

They even had a Bearded Dragon in here

I ended up getting this needlepoint for 90 cents and Z. found a few records.

This is our trunk getting full.

So I'm going to break this up and tell you a little bit about my hunting process for the shop. So, most of the time I don't start with a basket, I just walk the aisles looking at everything. I don't deal in clothes, so I skip those areas. If I see something I love I inspect it carefully, but leave it on the shelf and keep going. Sometimes I'll pick things up and keep looking too. After I've looked at everything I think about the few pieces I really liked and I go back to them and inspect them again. If I've been collecting things then sometimes I lay them out and inspect them again too.  I look for damage, I consider the price and most of all I consider if I love it or not. I rarely ask Z. for help, but sometimes it does take me a few coming back to's to decide. I only purchase things for Loyal that I absolutely adore.

Humane Society in Salem.

They had a huge sale and I mostly found a few things we needed around the house. 

Nice Stack! Zach's feeling good.

  Of course we couldn't pass through without seeing the capitol building. The golden figure is an Oregon Pioneer.

Driving down to Albany, this tiny forest always captures my imagination.

St. Vincents in Albany.

This place is huge. I bought shoes, but no major finds here.

 Teen Challenge in Albany, another really big thrift store, Last time I was here I scored some great items for Loyal, but this time, nothing. That's how it goes.

See those hours? A lot of thrift stores are open later than usual and thankfully it allows us more time to get to them. We hit Helping Hand at about 4:30pm.

The front room where Touched by an Angel is on.

The back warehouse,  where Karate Kid is playing on 6 televisions.

Z. has already disappeared.

I found this great tray and a piece of Nemadji pottery. By this time I'm pooped out and Z. still hit another goodwill and a value village open 'til 9pm.

This little guy, was found at one of the last stops of the day, Goodwill. Unfortunately, his head was broken off and then reglued with hot glue, he was a mess and we left him behind.

We listened to The Moth on the way home and came home to some hungry kitties.

Stay tuned to Loyal for some of the treasures I didn't show you.