Sorry, how much is that rubbish? Oh, I want one now...

I sometimes go into charity shops, and even go as far as to buy things from them. There, I said it! I even said it on the interwebs and everything. I'm not embarrassed by this, but what I do remember is at school, it was somehow the ultimate insult that something you owned helped to do a small bit of good in the world via it's second hand purchase. I remember a girl who was massively picked on because she had a bike that came courtesy of a Marie Curie shop for £3. Nowadays, it's not so bad to go in and see what you can find, especially if it's something for a one-off or to get dirty. However, this isn't the main reason I'll be seen going into them. It's because they are home to some absolute stonkers that, somehow, the lady behind the counter who looks as animatronic as the cash register didn't realise was worth a fortune/rare/explosive. I've bought a pair of brand new Converse shoes in an Oxfam for £8, as opposed to the £50 I planned to pay. I was mightily impressed with myself, but nowhere near as impressed as I was with a friend of mine, who wondered into a Cancer Research shop, gave the robot lady the £4.50 that was on the price tag... and walked out as the proud owner of nearly £1,000 worth of (seemingly) brand new Gucci handbag!



Now, this is something I still find a bit odd, although I do more or less understand it. If she'd bought any other bag, it'd probably be worth what she'd paid, it'd still hold whatever mysteries lurk within ladies' handbags, and it still would have gone nicely in the musical she was appearing in (hence the visit to the charity shop for a bag), but the fact that it was made by some Italian guy recently inflated it's value by more than 100 times what she paid. Really? I know that a Gucci bag is "desirable" and that's where "added value" comes in etc, but it's just a bag, surely? If it's a cheap bag, then people will look for the best priced one, yet someone having to spend nearly £1,000 makes them want it more? Barmy!

She picked it up because she really liked it. The value and the guy who made it are added extras. However, if she'd bought it brand new for the full price (assuming she had that kind of money spare) then people would have thought that she'd gone a bit woozy in the head, and then promptly point to the multitude of equally adequate bags that cost about 1% of this price. But why? She'd be happy with her purchase, and it would be worth £1,000 to her. It reminds me of when Lexus decided to shy away from making saloons that were almost painful in their boringness and take on Ferrari et al in the supercar game. Now, we have the LFA that comes in at a measly £370,000. Anyone who watched Top Gear when they tested this car will remember how they sung it's praises... until the price came up. Suddenly, it was a joke: a Lamborghini Gallardo for twice the price and if someone went so far as to actually buy one, they would be declared so mad as to not be safe even to hold an opinion. But if someone likes it that much, who cares? It's not a tin of Baked Beans, it's something that you wish to have, so who cares about any alternatives that you might have bought instead.

Well everyone does, it seems. It appears that the only reason that things like these are so desirable is because they're expensive. If Ferraris sold for £30,000 a pop, would people covet them as much as they do? They sure didn't do so with the now dead TVR. So, it seems, unless you have a reputation for building Asian saloons that make you fall asleep just saying their name (Lexus IS200...zzzzzzz) then expensive seems to be a winner. Somehow. It seems to show off not just how much taste you apparently have, but how much money, and let's be honest, would you rather walk around town in trakkie bottoms, or a good looking hand-tailored suit? It's the having something that is expensive that makes people want to buy these things.

Hence why I'll occasionally be in a charity shop. Hopefully, someone's kindly donated a Saville Row suit in my size that I can snap up that the billion-year old grumpy cyborg woman behind the till thought was worth the same as a used towel.

Tweet