Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

[melancholy]

That VR headset is so awesome and random! I love it so much, I want to know the story on why that exists. Did yours come with the space stickers?

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Pretty cool. It does look retro. Made in 2018 though.

[Skynet]

I got one of those phone VR headsets a few years back, looks identical just without the PBS logo. I think it was about $20

[Calavera]

That VR headset is so awesome and random! I love it so much, I want to know the story on why that exists. Did yours come with the space stickers?

Agreed! For only $3 there was no way I was going to pass it up. Yep mine came with the stickers as well. Here is a picture of the actual one I have. (and yes I purposely arranged it in the same way as the image from Ebay.)








As you can see from the last picture it still has the protective film on the lenses so it has never been used.

I looked into it a little as to why PBS would make a VR headset and it seems they made an app several years back called "PBS Lunar Base VR"
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pbs-lunar ... 39254?l=iw

Still pretty odd though. Like something LGR might show on Oddware in 2045.

[Calavera]

So I've come to a point now where I need to sell whatever I can. It kind of sucks but I guess it is what it is. I need the money much more than I need this stuff. If there is anything anyone wants to buy let me know. Unfortunately I think most of you are overseas so the shipping probably wouldn't be worth it. But I'll send anywhere as long as you pay shipping.

[Calavera]

Wow almost 3 months with no update! I've bought a few things here and there but just haven't posted about them. I found another Laserdisc player awhile back. I thought I posted about it here but I guess not. It is a Panasonic CLD-S303 with Karaoke!


I got it for $10. As I was taking it out to the car I noticed it had an older Goodwill price tag on it. If I had noticed that I might not have bought it. That usually means someone bought it from Goodwill at some point then ended up either returning it or donating it again which doesn't exactly bode well for it working. So I get it home plug it in and pop in a disc and.....nothing. It powers up but the disc doesn't spin at all. So I take it apart and look around and eventually notice that the metal bar that helps hold the disc in is slightly bent. Apparently this is a fairly common problem and happens when something heavy is sat on top of it for a long time. The bar has screws on each side so all I had to do was slightly loosen the screws on each side until the disc would spin properly. After that voila! It works great!

Next up is a couple things I got just yesterday. First is a Panasonic KX-TG6645 cordless home phone setup with 5 handsets.



Usually at Goodwill they will have an old cordless phone that is just the base and one handset and will want $5-$6 for it. So how much for this complete in box set of 5 handsets with chargers and wall adapters and the base unit? $5.99! For that much I had to get them. Why would I even want these you are probably thinking. They are from 2011 so not exactly retro. I had two ideas for them. First I thought I might be able to sell them for maybe around $50. The last few that sold on Ebay was $50 for just the base and one handset. Then there were two complete in box like I have that sold for $15 and $30. So I could possibly piece them out to get the most money out of them.

But I'm just going to go with my second plan. My mom still uses a house phone. It isn't an actual landline but through the internet service were you can plug any old phone into the internet. So I decided to just hook them up for her. The one she is currently using is a different one I got from Goodwill years ago and these are slightly better so why not get some use out of them. They all work fine except for one handset that won't power up. That and one ac adapter was missing but since one of the handsets don't work I don't need that AC adapter anyways. So it just makes it a 4 handset unit instead of a 5 and really she only needs 2 anyways.

Something I thought was pretty neat was that the original receipt from when they were originally bought at Sam's Club was still in the box. They were purchased on at 7:06PM on September 22nd, 2011 for $119.86 from a Sam's Club in Indianapolis,IN. It seems they were bought by business called Jan's Flowers and Gifts.





The last item is this old in box GAF XL/2 Sound 2:1 Zoom Super 8 Sound Movie Camera that I got at a flea market for $4!



For $4 I couldn't pass it up. The original box itself is cool and the camera itself would make a nice decoration for someone who was into film and/or cameras. I have no idea if it actually works and probably won't be testing it. I could buy an ancient Super 8 cartridge that expired over 40 years ago off Ebay for only $5 but I think something like this is better used as a prop or decoration nowadays. Something kind of funny about the camera is that I noticed the $4 price was stuck on over another one. When I peeled it off it showed that they were asking $8 for it. But behind that was yet another price tag where they were originally asking $20! No way would I have paid $20 for it and probably would have passed on it at $8. The flea market I got it from has had some of the same items there for literally years. I wonder how long the camera was there before they lowered the price? Even at $4 pretty much nobody but me would even want it.

[Calavera]

Next up we have an amazing purchase! Totally not mundane and totally worth posting about!

Tah-da!





That is right, you are looking at the proud new owner of a Belkin F1B024-E Data Transfer Switch which offers economical sharing of a printer or fax modem! And how much did this marvel of modern technology cost me? Just 99 cents! (+tax so $1.07)

Why would I buy this? For 99 cents it is hard for me to pass up anything that is remotely interesting looking. I probably won't ever use it as a data switch but it has a cool look to it. It might look good just as a decoration in a retro computer setup or mixed in with a retro hi-fi setup. I've got a "power strip box" that it would go great with.

One of these bad boys

[ian]

Oooh, I haven't seen one of those data switches in 21 years! Nice find! And an even better price.

The good ones were always satisfying to switch, but the later cheap ones sounded crap.

[Calavera]

It's been awhile since I've posted in this thread, even longer since I've posted something really unique and uncommon. Well a couple of days ago I was looking through the records at Goodwill and found something I think is pretty interesting.





Seven Chinese Laserdiscs! I have no idea how these ended up in a Southeastern Indiana Goodwill but I was very happy to find them. I don't know if they are really worth much but I had to get them all because what are the odds of finding Chinese Laserdiscs in Indiana? They were $1.50 apiece so $10.50 for all of them. I also bought a couple of records too so my total was $15. I hardly every even look at the records at Goodwill anymore since it seems they take all the good stuff out and list it online but it seems sometimes some good stuff still slips through. It is great that most people have no idea what a Laserdisc is so these just get thrown in with the records.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

You are going to enjoy some hot Chinese Karaoke.

[Calavera]

You are going to enjoy some hot Chinese Karaoke.

I even have a Karaoke Laserdisc Player!

I put a couple of them in for like 2 minutes just to check them out and make sure they played alright. Nothing too exciting but maybe I need to sit and watch them all the way through. There could be some hidden hilariousness in there somewhere. It seems they are all Karoake discs except for the one with the sepia tone picture on the front. It is some old movie from the 50s, 1954 I think.

I was only half joking about watching them all the way through. When I was testing them I just had my LD player hooked to my flatscreen and the image quality wasn't great. I've since hooked my LD player to a CRT I had sitting in the back room so I want to try them on that and see how different the quality is. I'll upload a video of me trying them on the CRT because of course I will, I'm teh freakin' Calacera.

[Calavera]

Here is something interesting I bought about a month ago or so and forgot to post here. A "BIOSONE II Brainwave Monitor"




It was only $3, I like the look of it just as a decoration. And it's pretty unique, I wouldn't think there are very many around. There is only one on Ebay and they are asking $169.99 for it but that doesn't mean it's worth that much. Just somebody who had one threw a big number on it hoping someone would buy it. Who knows how long it has been listed.

I think it's pretty neat though, for $3 I couldn't pass it up.

[Big Boss Man]

Interesting find, I think it's like an EEG machine.

[Calavera]

Picked up a set of Sanyo SX-820 speakers made in May 1978 which means this month is their 46th birthday! They were $10 for both. It is so stupid how Goodwill prices speakers. They were priced at $4.99 each, as if somebody is just going to buy one of them. This wasn't just a one off time they did this, they always do this with speakers. The dumbest I ever saw was an old set of computer speakers that were wired together and each speaker had a price tag! I should have tried to buy them and if they insisted on charging for each one tell them I only want the left one and see what they did.

I usually don't buy old speakers very often there was something about these ones that I liked so I spent the $10. I had a record player set up in my room but I recently got a bigger bed so now there isn't really room for it. So since I had to try these speakers out anyways I set up a record player(and cassette in the backroom). The record player is a Kenwood KD-291R and the amp I'm using is an Optimus SA-155. The cassette deck is an Optimus SCT-86, I really like the compact size of it.

To me everything sounds just fine. I'm so glad I'm not an audiophile. I'm sure an audiophile would tell me that it sounds horrible and I need a setup that cost $10,000 to get the best sound from my records. I just like popping one on every once in awhile and listening to it just for fun. It sounds plenty good enough to me even without a diamond stylus and gold plated cables.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Play some funky disco on your 70s hifi speakers!

[Calavera]

Play some funky disco on your 70s hifi speakers!

The "death of disco" night at Comiskey park was July 12th 1979 so I've still got over a year to enjoy some funky disco from May 1978.

Believe it or not I don't have many disco records. A few I know of are Saturday Night Fever, Disco From Another Galaxy and of course what may be the best disco record ever produced.... Sesame Street Fever!




1:16 "Yeah cookie! Disco cookie!"

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Dsico cookie means something a bit different these days.

[Calavera]

Picked up this sweet AMC Pacer for $3

[melancholy]

Wow, if you would have just posted that last picture without context, I would have thought it was a real car.

[Calavera]

Wow, if you would have just posted that last picture without context, I would have thought it was a real car.

That's awesome, that is what I was going for with that last pic. Trying to make it look somewhat real.

I bought it just as a decoration more or less but it is actually an RC car. The remote is long gone of course. I wonder if there is some kind of modern futuristic controller that can work with any old RC car? Odds are if their is something like that it probably costs a lot more than $3