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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

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Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#321

Post by BeFlatXIII »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #115
matthewowen wrote: post #68

I live near UPenn. Some locals call the end of the academic year "Penn Christmas". I definitely see some resentment, but having made an international move in my life I have sympathy for it. You need to buy things to live, shipping that stuff when you move away is often very expensive and time consuming, so you condense your life down to a few suitcases and do the best you can.

The real Penn Christmas miracle was getting used tech (laptops/tablets/mp3 players/etc) that was export-controlled. Some students legally couldn’t bring that stuff back to their country and didn’t have time to sell it.

How thorough were the customs inspections? Seems like an easy thing to sneak out.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#322

Post by s1artibartfast »

newccount wrote: post #301

The true value of these luxury goods is likely closer to that appraised by those undergrads than by the author - i.e trash. Literally billions of dollars of unsold inventory are burnt and destroyed by Luxury brands to avoid marking them down to their correct market value. Cartier's parent company alone destroyed "400 million GBP" of watches in 2 years[1]. Why would you destroy billions of dollars of merchandise if th…

An alternative is that $1k simply isn't a lot of money to some people. I came to this realization in college when I had some very wealthy housemates who would occasionally treat expensive items as disposable single use

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#323

Post by CrimsonCape »

motorest wrote: post #313
newccount wrote: post #301

The true value of these luxury goods is likely closer to that appraised by those undergrads than by the author - i.e trash. Literally billions of dollars of unsold inventory are burnt and destroyed by Luxury brands to avoid marking them down to their correct market value. Cartier's parent company alone destroyed "400 million GBP" of watches in 2 years[1]. Why would you destroy billions of dollars of merchandise if th…

> The true value of these luxury goods is likely closer to that appraised by those undergrads than by the author - i.e trash. The explanation might be simpler than this: as the students are moving out, taking this stuff with them might be prohibitively expensive. They might have liquidated their belongings and, as they have a hard deadline to get out, they need to get rid of things. Also, it seems the author might ha…

I got plantar warts from a climbing gym, and now I make all efforts to never get them again. You should be cautious before wearing used shoes and make all efforts to scrub and wash the shoe interior before wearing. Plantar warts is the HPV virus and cannot be killed with antibacterial methods, bleach, and requires like 30 minutes of rolling boil to destroy the virus. The best you can do is physically scrub and rinse the virus away from where it might find skin contact.

To answer your question, the cost of a used shoe could be the cost of time, despair, and anxiety spent treating a transmissible disease.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#324

Post by mox1 »

rightbyte wrote: post #314
horsawlarway wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the rationalization that I've used successfully before. Every item takes space, and space costs money. Space often costs quite a bit of money. If I'm paying $2000/m for a 750sqft apartment (not unreasonable for many metros), then every square foot costs me ~$3/month minimum (often quite a bit more because I also have to heat, clean, and organize it as well). How many months of storage does it take to mean you…

> Mentally shifting the equation to a more realistic "opportunity cost" model for items is healthy. There is usually no opportunity cost though. Those shoes you keep around have no margin cost for the apartment until you need a bigger place.

There is absolutely an opportunity cost for all of the stuff you own. I won't publish my entire thinking on this, but after seeing my parents collect, hoard and store things for years and years, I place a high value on not having something (I tell myself that I am letting the store hold it for me.)

I still have too much stuff and its a fraction of what my parents had.

(Perhaps this is more of an American thing?)

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#325

Post by motorest »

Supermancho wrote: post #317
motorest wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The true value of these luxury goods is likely closer to that appraised by those undergrads than by the author - i.e trash. The explanation might be simpler than this: as the students are moving out, taking this stuff with them might be prohibitively expensive. They might have liquidated their belongings and, as they have a hard deadline to get out, they need to get rid of things. Also, it seems the author might ha…

> https://www.thepoke.com/2019/09/29/americans-cant-believe-ka... Punchline: This is a great idea. It sure would save me a lot of money on coats. I'm gonna bet used Valentinos, in my size, are still gonna be at least 200$. I'm not a shoes guy, but I know they are worth something.

> I'm gonna bet used Valentinos, in my size, are still gonna be at least 200$. I'm not a shoes guy, but I know they are worth something.

That might be true, but it doesn't refute the idea that a) the value listed in the blog is quite possibly inflated, b) it makes financial sense for the students to throw out stuff like used shoes. Of course dumpster divers always find valuables, but it's also a fact that people moving out often give away valuables they can't take with them. There are even expat boards in Facebook where people give away things before moving abroad. In fact, there are businesses specialized in clearing out rentals for a fee, meaning people pay companies to take away stuff they use, including furniture and appliances, even when they are in perfectly good condition.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#326

Post by duckmysick »

newccount wrote: post #301

The true value of these luxury goods is likely closer to that appraised by those undergrads than by the author - i.e trash. Literally billions of dollars of unsold inventory are burnt and destroyed by Luxury brands to avoid marking them down to their correct market value. Cartier's parent company alone destroyed "400 million GBP" of watches in 2 years[1]. Why would you destroy billions of dollars of merchandise if th…

> the LVMH tiktok scandal

Can you tell us more about it?

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#328

Post by datavirtue »

motorest wrote: post #325
Supermancho wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.thepoke.com/2019/09/29/americans-cant-believe-ka... Punchline: This is a great idea. It sure would save me a lot of money on coats. I'm gonna bet used Valentinos, in my size, are still gonna be at least 200$. I'm not a shoes guy, but I know they are worth something.

> I'm gonna bet used Valentinos, in my size, are still gonna be at least 200$. I'm not a shoes guy, but I know they are worth something. That might be true, but it doesn't refute the idea that a) the value listed in the blog is quite possibly inflated, b) it makes financial sense for the students to throw out stuff like used shoes. Of course dumpster divers always find valuables, but it's also a fact that people movi…

Oh yeah, the junk hauling business is super profitable. They usually advertise their open warehouse sales on Craigslist or FBM or you can ask them. I bought an electric high fire 18" kiln for $100. They are typically worth $500-1000 for an old one. ~$3k new.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#329

Post by horsawlarway »

barbazoo wrote: post #318
horsawlarway wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go volunteer at an organization that will accept this stuff as donations. I think you're going to be in for a shock... 2/3rds of the donations go right in the trash (they will optimistically call it salvage/recycling).

Source?

My experiences volunteering at goodwill and habit for humanity ReStore.

A bag will come in full of items. A small subset of that bag will be pulled out to go on shelves. The majority of the bag will be sent to "salvage" (trash/recycling).

Some folks have a curated selection of items they bring in that mostly get accepted, but usually the folks doing that just take it to a real consignment shop, or sell it on something like facebook marketplace.

Generally - a large portion of the donations are exactly this situation: used items in a big trashbag that come in after a move (or eviction [or death]).

They go in the trash. Where the owner probably should have put them a while back. I also don't like how much churn exists in our modern consumption economy - but it's not doing favors to pretend it doesn't exist. Much of our "stuff" is low cost, semi-consumable items that will end up trashed - by design. I don't like it either, but saying "Donate it" is like pretending recycling is going to solve plastic pollution.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#330

Post by barbazoo »

horsawlarway wrote: post #329
barbazoo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

My experiences volunteering at goodwill and habit for humanity ReStore. A bag will come in full of items. A small subset of that bag will be pulled out to go on shelves. The majority of the bag will be sent to "salvage" (trash/recycling). Some folks have a curated selection of items they bring in that mostly get accepted, but usually the folks doing that just take it to a real consignment shop, or sell it on somethin…

Gotcha. I think I had a different situation in mind where the things are already pre-selected. If there's bags of garbage or stuff nobody needs, sure those would have to be disposed of. Totally depends on what the input is.
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