Pictures and books in charity shops

I volunteer at a charity book / toy shop. We do have a shelf of older collectable books but they rarely sell. Our paperbacks are mostly priced at £1.99. We are very lucky that we have wonderful donations and all the stock in the shop is in excellent condition. We raise money to support vulnerable young people. Before we can do this, we have to pay rent and overheads and pricing books too low would not enable us to fulfil our charity work.

I read anything except Mills and Boone or similar. I too miss the little jems of novels formerly found in charity shops. But due to overpricing I no longer even look at books in certain charity shops I refuse to pay more than 30pence for a paperback. Only one charity shop locally sticks on 30p. It’s a registered charity but only helps people in the surrounding council housing estate. There are other charity shops but the average price of 80p to £1:20 means they don’t have much of a turnover with books. I regularly give bags of books to other local readers only returning my 30p paperbacks to the shop if they are getting low on stock.

i helped out in a charity shop back in 2003, i said i would like to stay in the back pricing and hanging clothes, i noticed when bags/boxes of items came in they were put to the side, when i asked why, i was told that they need to through them and put aside any jewellery, watches, ornaments, pictures and football tops and also books that look old. they had people come in to value them and either buy them or they would go to auction. you would probably noticed on charity shop price labels a number, the clothing is put out for up to a month then taken off the rails and put into large bales, they would be picked up and shipped to countries that need clothing.

I have always loved charity shops and have occasionally bought pictures from them but many of my books come from them. Ordinary charity shops tend to have a more generic selection of paperbacks by mostly popular authors in good condition and this is no bad thing as this is what most people are looking for. I don’t want to buy an old-looking, tatty, foxed book from these shops either. They don’t feel clean. However, I do also visit Oxfam bookshops and, as in commercial second hand bookshops, I am usually looking for more unusual, older books by out of print authors and/or on topics I am interested in. Sometimes, though I have seen ordinary secondhand paperbacks in the Oxfam book shop for £2.49/when they are still on sale in The Works across the road for £2 or three for £5!
I took three bags full of books, many more specialised music books, to our local Oxfam bookshop, I can gift aid, which is an added bonus. One was a thrilling page turner that I have had since I was a music student and was dated October 1984 called The Technique and Spirit of Fugue. Please don’t rush for it all at once, it may come in useful for a current music student.

Last week I bought an original painting from a charity shop for the first time in years. Yes, I have been in the charity shops every week, but had not seen a single picture that I wanted. The larger charities' shops seem to make goods in very good condition their priority now, especially regarding books.

I am looking for the unusual when I go charity shop hunting, for books, pictures or clothes. I have found that you are more likely to get the older, more interesting stuff in a local charity'a shop.

I love a good mooch in a charity shop for books and pictures. Sometimes I frame my own art from a frame I like Sometimes there a box of frames with nothing inside them. Charity shops aren’t what they were a few years ago. My local one seems to be charging an awful lot more for everything. The books that were once 50p or three for £1 are now £1 minimum. Even for the children books. Many hardbacks are now £2.
It seems even charity shop mooching has become unaffordable ?

After my FIL died, we (tactfully) edited/binned a lot of his books before the charity trip. Books and books of sermons anyone? No, thought not....

I agree that lately I haven’t seen any framed pictures that I like.
The frames though are worth having as there seems to be a lot in boxes in the charity shops in the last few years. I remember not being able to find any and having to pay for expensive ones in homeware shops horror !! But… fashions come around again

Theo Oxfam book shop I volunteered for would send to pulp any books that they had multiples of - saving the ones in the best condition they were ruthless - but it is a business and customers do care more about the aesthetic appearance of things than their content especially if there are a lot of other charity shops selling them cheaper. Rarer/ lesser known works people will happily pay a bit more.
The internet has tendered encyclopaedias, and some similar reference type books useless particularly if they have been kept stored in a stinky damp shed or garage for umpteen years on end.

Donors used to get very upset and indignant about their collection of National Geographic being refused.

I volunteer in the village charity shop and I also sort the books. I am afraid that older books just don't sell so they are regretably sold by the bag. It grieves me to do that but we are raising money for the village, ( all the money raised stays in the village and is used by village organisations like the swimming pool, school etc.), so anything is better than nothing. I do sell individual books to a book buying website but books have to be in good condition and have a ISBN number or they can't take them. Pictures also sell but mostly for the frames and again only the good ones sell.

I used to love perusing charity shops until I had to sell and downsize and give away many of my treasured bric a brac and books.

I’m a ‘temporarily retired’ ( due to ill health ) book dealer - I’ve been one for 42 years, you never actually retire it’s in the blood, but there was nothing I used to enjoy more than wandering around charity shops and bric a brac places hunting for book bargains - in the late 90s early 2000s everything changed with the advent of the internet. The charity shops gradually, like one of our members said earlier, became more astute and wary and all my earlier learned knowledge of books ( with a few exceptions) went out of the window, as a quick check on specialist sites on the net showed them the rental price of whatever they were looking for!
So Oxfam and others opened up their own online store and many others followed suit. Other just checked their donations and sold individual books on eBay or wherever, making a profit for their charity no doubt, but killing the enjoyment of wandering round charity shops where mostly I find just modern books and rows of pristine paperbacks ( fifty shades of grey and similar) en masse!
Great for me to buy modern novels to read but no fun at all hunting for bargains! Where are all the Everyman books, the tatty hardbacks they are donated, well if they don’t check them many are considered too old and unappealing looking to be on the shelf , so they are put in black bags and sold by weight to firms such as ‘World of Books’ ‘ Resusabook’ ‘Music Magpie’ who pay the huge sum of c. 50p a bagful!
Here in south Wales we have Goldstone Books who do the same!
So Stardreamer that’s where most of your lovely older books end up! Of course there are exceptions like car boot sales and the old smaller charity shop that doesn’tbelong To a big concern but on average that’s the answer,
I can’t speak about pictures, I see a lot of often faded pics in such places inboxes mainly sold for frames, but I would imagine anything that looks ‘tasty’ goes through a similar checking process? I know way back I used to get called into charity shops to value books...and they always got a fair price but no longer!

JdotJ

I've collected pre 1980 Ladybird books for around 20 years now Could always find them in charity shops. Not any longer, they are like gold dust

Same with the 'Observers Book of' series - people started cottoning on!
I have the full collection of both (apart from a couple of very early Ladybirds) EBay was a good source and, often, no dearer than the charity shops.

I've collected pre 1980 Ladybird books for around 20 years now Could always find them in charity shops. Not any longer, they are like gold dust

Here’s one I got this afternoon. I love prints of ships.

FannyCornforth

Germanshepherdsmum

Is that you EP?

Oh yes!
Hello ?

I started a thread about a year ago about framed prints. (Ones of ‘proper’ paintings)
They used to be widely available, but not any more, sadly.

I have come across a large framed print which is pretty old (as has been in someone's house for over 30 years) It is in a nice quite thick wooden frame and is a print of A J Munnings "The Horse Fair" .... is it worth anything? I was hoping before it came it was an actual painting but sadly not!

As do I.

Unquestionably.
Welcome back Elderly Person -did you manage to stay clear of Covid with your elaborate precautions?
I do hope so.

As is the advice on diet on MissA's Diary of a Benefits Claimant.

Germanshepherdsmum

Is that you EP?

I agree the style is familiar.

Our book club runs on finds in charity shops. Definity a win win

Germanshepherdsmum

Is that you EP?

Oh yes!
Hello ?

I started a thread about a year ago about framed prints. (Ones of ‘proper’ paintings)
They used to be widely available, but not any more, sadly.

I bought a book on ebay that was from Oxfam. However I have sometimes not bought a book in their shops because I thought it was overpriced.

We sell lots and lots of books paperback 3 for £1 or 50p each and hardbacks £1 They are kept in author alphabetical order and the customers love that We have a wall of shelves full
We sell lots of pictures too ….prints, framed paintings, and canvasses However we do look artists up all the time and any with any value or signed go on eBay
We are very estute and every piece of brick a brac that is believed to have value us checked we do get many valuable ornaments in the donations one just sold for over £500
Likewise with books we can sell on Amazon if they have any value to them or occasionally a first edition or with the authors signature
I love the work I do it can be so exciting

Many charity shops have loads of books, mainly paperbacks. Oxfam has dedicated bookshops. The type of books seems to vary. We are on holiday in rural Wales and there are lots of old hard bound books in the charity shops. In London the books tend to be crime or modern fiction. I have a friend who collects pictures from charity shops. I used to buy them for the frames and once discovered that I had bought a signed and numbered print by a reasonably well respected artist.