This *is* a Thrift Store, Right? Right?

My husband and I went to lunch the other day and on the cross-town trip home we hit my usual thrift store route (comprised of five non-profit charity stores on a two mile strip all on the same side of the street, very convenient!) on what Life magazine once names The Ugliest Street in America. The street doesn't look so hot now, so it must have been truly heinous back in the day.

Speaking of heinous, I thought I'd share some of what I found at some charity (read: donated goods) stores that claim to be thrift stores. Call me crazy, but I always thought the point of most non-profit thrift stores was to sell donated goods for a good cause at below retail prices. I seriously think the pricers flipped these items over, saw "PYREX" on the bottom, and thought to themselves, hrmmm, that's an automatic mark-up.

Yes, that says $25 for the four pieces, none with lids no less. I am amused at the mix of patterns Town and Country with Early American), it was on such a high shelf I couldn't even tell what the second bowl is. I had to take this picture with my camera over my head to even see all the goods for sale, because of course these were locked up in a glass case. 

How about $30 for these three pieces? They were locked up in a case with the four piece above as if they were precious goods, also on the top shelf so one could not examine closer.

This set of Butterfly Gold was at the same store as the two above items, but not locked up even though the price, $45, was much higher. I don't understand the logic. 

This set of Woodlands has been around at another store forever. Notice the white price tag, thus making it ineligible for the store's color-coded markdown system of 25%, 50%, 75% off certain older items based on tag color. They want $36 for this set.

I didn't even take pictures of the three DWD bowls I found, one at each of the remaining three stores. They were all 470s and each store wanted at least $4.

This was at Savers, not on my route but I had a Craigslist Pyrex parking lot sale meet up (clearing out for the things I really want) so I hit the store on the way home. The poor green 403 was so DWD yet it was $3. The fairly good Woodlands 403 was $4. I just don't understand. I don't collect Woodlands so I walked away. I'm no longer in the "must have all Pyrex I see" phase and instead have moved on to the "I only want this kind of Pyrex for this kind of price" phase. I figure the latter phase will take me more time to collect but I will also have the thrill of the hunt, right? I'll still pick up the occasional in-demand piece for trade or sale, though, as sometimes even I can't resist a great deal on a great piece!

Jacquelyn