Not all was home videos, some were converting odd tapes to dvd that again I might add to Youtube because they aren't on dvd elsewhere or on digital. Is anybody interested in what you should do if you find a dead bald eagle? In the 90's the Wildlife foundation made a tape, its boring, but I hope to upload it soon just so I can have content for my pages. I have two Youtube accounts, one will be used for stuff my family filmed and I'll show, the other for random stuff found on VHS or maybe stuff I filmed that I don't want to put on the other account. At any rate I hope to have some stuff up soon.
Last month I got caught up on all the VHS tapes, and I stored the VCR and DVD recorder away until I got more. I won't keep them out or even get them out everytime I get a new one, but when I get about 20 or so, I'll pull them out if I'm bored. Now that I'm done with home movies, I'm not in a rush to convert much more. However my local second hand store had been closed anyways until recently so it wasn't like I could get more tapes. With the virus still around I don't like going out in public unless I really need too and really don't want my mom going out either, so unless necessary we try to stay at home.
After a while though you need to get out and do something, and we finally made our way back to Savvy Seconds, my local second hand store, and we did what we always do- mom gets books, and I get movies or CD's. No CD's this time, but enough movies to warrant a post, and one I like to call, the Savvy Loot Box!
Since its been a while, here's a refresher- instead of spending 20-40 bucks a month on a subscription box off the internet where I might like half the items, I spend under 20 bucks (usually under 5 or 10) at my local second hand store on items I want or will use. Most of the time its movies of CD's but I do usually find other stuff as well including baseball cards. This time I didn't buy any cards, but there were plenty there. Also on occasion I will throw in random items I bought at Dollar Tree, but not this time since I have enough to show.
With that being said, let's dig in.
I will say I ended up going twice within a span of a week and this is from both trips. I'll start with books. I've always liked Grumpy Cat, even so much as to buy the Christmas movie that otherwise would be unwatchable (unless you're an Aubrey Plaza fan, which I'm not one way or another). This copy is a little torn up, but books are 25 for a quarter, and finding 25 is usually a chore, so you take some that you are on the fence about.
Speaking of being on the fence, on the first trip I spotted the Hill Harper book but passed because my mom was well on her way to finding 25 books, and it wasn't a must need book. On the second trip though we struggled to find 10 so I added it with slim hopes I'll ever get around to reading it. I like Hill Harper though I heard he was in a bit of a situation on Twitter recently but I didn't see what happened.
The Katrina book I got on the second trip as well. I didn't see it the first time but my mom did. She doesn't like seeing stuff that brings back memories of sad stuff and passed on it. I explained to her that her interest in WWII and war documentaries are some of my interests as well to an extent. I'm not big on war stuff, but I told her that people always talk about the wars and all that stuff from the 40-60s and such, but I wasn't born until the 80's. So more modern history is stuff that interests me to some extent, and I feel since everyone live tweets now and emphasis is on "NOW" people tend to pass it over after it ends. It may be brought up in a conversation, but people move on. My point is you don't see as many retrospectives on more modern history because honestly, news channels have changed from presenting news to discussing news and it takes a hit on current events. I got this book because in the future someone may want more information on Hurricane Katrina and this will be something that will be sought after. I may not display it, but it will sit right next to my "What We Saw" book about September 11th. I can't say I'll ever sit down and read them completely, but I have gone through that book many times as it has many good pictures of such a horrible event.
So 3 books, so far, and technically I've spent 3 cents, but I'll say a nickel a book since they use to be 5 for 25 cents, so I'm out 15 cents so far. Let's keep looking.
This was on the 50 cents or under table and while I'm not a big space person, I thought it looked interesting. Inside were photocards, which I thought were postcards at first. The pictures are nice so I got the after looking at a couple. A quarter is a nice price and maybe I'll display these somehow in the future.
My least favorite one is the last one, I'm not sure why you'd include a photo of a sign as being one of the better choices, but whatever. I was actually surprised to see all twelve were included, I figured it was so cheap because 1-2 were missing, but the pricing is sometimes all over for items, so I was happy either way. My favorite is actually the overhead view of Florida. I like seeing satellite images of Earth from space. Too bad more of the Florida Keys couldn't be shown but I still like it. Overall I was happy with each photo aside from the sign one.
Total so far: 40 cents. Not bad for 4 items.
VHS tapes are 5 for 50 cents, despite what they say on the box. The first two are of Dennis Swanberg who I've mentioned before, and a family friend was a big fan of his. When I started converting my tapes I've already done, I had one of Swanberg's other tapes and I actually enjoyed it, so when I saw these I went ahead and got it. Sometimes I struggle to find 5 or 10 tapes so I also grabbed them in case I needed one or two more. I'm pretty sure tapes are just 10 cents each and you don't need to buy quantities of 5 but I still do. Not only because it gives me something to watch, but clears the shelves so hopefully others can get the stuff I don't want (like 18 copies of Apollo 13).
My mom like Willie Nelson, and I thought the box cover was nice so I got that one too. As mentioned before, I try to stay away from stuff I could find on DVD so I like the oddball stuff. Music tapes usually never get transferred to other media so if I have any interest I usually get it.
The last two I was on the fence about. Well, I like A Prairie Home Companion so the Garrison Keiller one was an easy choice, but the Donut Man one seemed a little too out there for me. What is it? I had to flip it over to read about it...
Before I could read it, I was met with this! This is either stuff of dreams or nightmares, and now there's no way I'm not getting it. MMM, DONUTS!
I got 10 VHS tapes on the first trip, here were the rest-
For someone who has never been to Branson, I sure do like tapes of Branson. One day I'll go and be unimpressed and likely never get anymore. Until then I hope to find a Shoji Tabuchi take since I've found many of the other performers. Honestly though, I'm positive this never made it to DVD and since it is part of Missouri history (for better or worse), I want to check it out.
Speaking of Missouri history, I was elated to find the next two tapes. There is a local filmmaker/documentarian that films a lot of local history for my area. I can't say I'm his biggest fan for some reason, but I still would like to see his footage. The St. Joseph hospital is no longer around in the next town over (Boonville, MO) much like the hospital that replaced it but it may soon come back, I don't know. Anyways I don't really know anything about the older hospital, so I'm excited to see that one. However excited I am to see that one, I'm more excited to see the one on the Flood of 1993. I've never seen how he shot it, but I've wanted it for a long time. Whenever you look for the Flood of 1993 on the internet, all you can ever find is flooding on the Mississippi River or how bad the St. Louis area was hit. They were hit bad, I've watched many of them, but more locally in Mid-Missouri not much is said. When it is, it talks about Cedar City just north of Jefferson City, which was wiped out, and from Jeff City onto St. Louis. Nothing is mentioned about Boonville, Wooldridge, Glasgow, or towns big and small toward Kansas City. It's always bugged me and this might be the best footage that I'll ever find. I'm not sure if I will upload this to Youtube because of the copyright on it and not sure if he is still selling these or not or his family even). Other stuff I plan to put on Youtube are things my family filmed or things that you can't still buy. I still might put bits of it up with credit going to him, we'll see.
The next film was a made for TV film about a flood. It was made for Family Channel I think and I figured why not. I've seen worse films that whatever this may be, so we'll see what happens. I doubt I upload it either, but there's a good chance somebody else already has, kind of like how Night of the Twisters is on Youtube.
The last one is a random tape of movies recorded off television. I like finding these because I hope they are network versions with commercials still in it. At worst they aren't and I might actually watch the first two despite having no real desire to in the past. At best, I can find some commercials or maybe something else on them and the label is wrong. At any rate I've never seen a GE tape before and rarely do I find that hard plastic type cover for them, I guess soft plastic.
On my second trip I laughed at the movies I got, and for good reason.
The first four movies were ones I put back on the first trip. I didn't want to buy more than 10 on one trip so I put them back. I didn't hide them, I just put them on a shelf at eye level. When I went on Saturday it was about 2 hours before closing. The didn't open again until Wednesday and we got there about an hour after they opened. We wasn't trying to get anything in particular, we just wanted to look. Finding these in the same spot meant they unlikely moved any or added anymore so I just grabbed them and then I saw the last one was still sealed and grabbed it. Will I open it, likely not, but I remember that being our go to brand when we bought blank tapes so it reminded me of my childhood. As for the other tapes, I got Funny Farm because its a film I don't own, and figured at worst if I could convert it to a dvd, I can watch it whenever instead of trying to find it for free on a streaming service. If I find it cheap in store to buy, I'll probably get it.
The Chonda Pierce tape is a Christian comedian. I usually get them because they are clean humor, though I have to admit, I've seen a previous one of her's and I didn't laugh a whole lot. I figured for ten cents it worth it. The Stallions tape seems like one that wouldn't be made for DVD, so I got it. Lastly the Fatal Beauty/Bugsy tape I got because I hope to find commercials on, but if not its always a random tape to check out.
In total 15 tapes for 1.50, bringing my total to $1.90. Not bad so far.
On the second trip I spotted this pin for 10 cents. I actually got it for my cousin who is the biggest Hanson fan ever. I'm for real, she still goes to meet them in concert whenever they make it to Missouri. Even if she wasn't a fan, there's a lot that I like about this pin that I might have kept for myself. I like how it has Walmart on the pin and its the old logo too.
Total: $2.00
We're not done yet, but we almost are.
At .75 cents this was a gamble. One you may ask WHY? But I have a good reason. When I was a baby, I got this stuffed baby, and 30 plus years later I still have it. However with time, she has started to fall apart (I named my baby Yahtzee, odd I never wrote it out before). Anyways, the last few years my mom and I have tried to think of ways to fix he because she's starting to get really torn and tattered. She doesn't look like this, but when we saw this, we thought maybe we could wrap it around most of her body leaving her head and hands exposed which seem to be fine for now. If this works we will find clothing to put on her (which we actually do find in this store from time to time) so she can last another 30 plus years. At the end of this post I'll find a photo of her. *You guys never thought you read about this on this blog did you?
Total: $2.75
This I didn't buy, it was in the free cart out front. This is the second free trophy I've found in the last few months and this one is much better. That's real marble. I looked up anything I could about this race but could only find the track is in California, and around this time (former) NASCAR driver Kyle Larson raced at the track. He didn't race in this particular race (according to his old website), but he was around there at the time. I'm in the process of downsizing my dad's trophy collection (my mom's idea), and one day I took the top piece and connected it to the base (taking the tower part off), and it looks really nice. Now they can be used as book ends and even just to display. I figured if I found a trophy like this I could do that with other trophy's as well. For now I've kept this one in tact but its not on display. Even the topper is cool enough if I just want to eliminate the tower part.
One item left I believe but there's not much to see.
Blind bags or mystery bags are always a gamble, but also fun to open. With it saying "rags" on it I didn't expect much, and honestly I could use some rags sometimes saving washcloths for when I need it for other stuff (not so much dusting). I was hoping to find some screen printed shirts in here maybe to cut out or something, but no such luck. I won't bore you with what was inside, but they were all shirts that had stains (small not big ones), and ones that I figure they could sell this way instead of tossing (but then again they also have a recycling facility). At any rate, there were 15 shirts in the bag, 1-2 were screen printed but nothing to write home about. Maybe if we tried a bit we could get the stains out, and resell them. One had a H&M logo inside the back (where tags used to be), so it might have some value who knows.
So in total on two trips I spent a total of----- $3.75. Not bad on getting mostly stuff I wanted and a few surprises. I got more then what could be put in a box and shipped to me, so I'm not complaining.
So with that I'll end it here, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and next time I "should" have some cards to post about, I have them scanned and photographed ready to got. But before I wrap it up, let me find a picture of my doll I've had for 30 years.
In the first photo is how she is falling apart, the second one is how we sometimes dress her up. I guess she is like my security blanket, but I'm still glad I have her after all these years.
So anyways thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
