Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

indyweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 341 posts

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

#331

Post by darkwizard42 »

the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

I honestly find DENSITY is the core problem with getting rid of things easily. I've sold nearly everything from a 6-person sectional to a small 10 pack of Chinese tea and everything sells OR you can find a home for it on the local Buy Nothing. Usually I get pickups within 1-2 days on all these things.

It is a great case for more city style density (even in Brooklyn which is closer to 3-4 story walk-ups)

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

#332

Post by const_cast »

creer wrote: post #291
const_cast wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thrift store pricing is pretty good IMO. At least real thrift stores - those more curated vintage stores are, obviously, going to be higher priced. But if you know how to check for quality materials and craftsmanship you can find really, really good clothes and furniture for unbelievably cheap. The thing about fast fashion is, well, the clothes suck. They're more plastic than fabric, they fall apart, they look awful,…

Oh, there are still good finds to be found, no doubt. Some people have fun searching for designer pieces - and they can still do that. My objection is more to crude pricing - which ends up alienating plenty of people it doesn't need to.

The thrift store has never been about getting cheap junk, it's about getting second hand clothing. They're not competing with the likes of Shein because they can't. Ultimately, those consumers who do want cheap junk should be alienated, because that don't offer what they're searching for.

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

#333

Post by ForOldHack »

lsllc wrote: post #59
tdeck wrote: post #15

Move out waste is a huge thing. At my alma mater in 2014 they had some program where you could leave things in the common room and they would be collected and supposedly donated. I remember spending extra time cleaning my (good quality) things that I couldn't bring with me, and then the next day seeing everything had just been bagged up and dumped into 2 large dumpsters.

The problem is that move-out happens in May, but move-in happens in late Aug/early Sept. So there's lots of useful stuff being discarded in May (beds, desks, bookcases, in-window A/C units etc) that would likely be in demand in Sept but have long been sent to the landfill by then.

I kicked what looked like an empty card board box, and found two laptops w/ chargers, Retail $1800, Wiped their hard disks, updated all the software, put student software on it, and gave them away to other students.

I found literally a full bedroom of oak furniture, bed, a dresser, a desk, a bedside table, and an armoure... I could not get the armoure on my pickup truck, but I moved out all my old stuff, and moved in the oak, and oiled it all up, ( it had not been cared for well, so it soaked up all the oil, after a few treatments, it was grand.

Literally every university town, Berkeley, SF State, Cal State Chico... has yard sales in the late spring, and resales in the early fall, and a literal cottage industry of people who make money reselling, and armies of people who drive those neibourhoods late a night picking up everything they think they can resell - Its why all those mattresses are left.

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

#334

Post by bawolff »

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.

The shoes are probably the most valuable of the items mentioned.

The rest of the list was things like used leggings, used pillow cases, used slippers, used bath mat, used pyjama bottoms. Those are worth basically nothing and the author was valuing them at what it would cost to buy new.

Literally nobody is buying a used bath mat. That is worth $0 not $22

Literally nobody is going to spend $128 on a pair of used leggings. Maybe you could sell them, but not for $128.

$96 for a 2 used pillow shams is also crazy.

The author's valuation of these items is literally insane.

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

#335

Post by jazzyjackson »

freetime2 wrote: post #157
jazzyjackson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah liquidity is a big one. last I moved out of a house I didn't want to bother finding a buyer for my furniture (probably been worth 500 total max even waiting for someone who wanted to pay) so I ended up putting it in my yard the last day of my lease with a free sign and posted a photo to craiglist, dining table chairs office furniture... And that's the day I learned a 7 foot sleeper sofa can fit comfortably in th…

When I moved, I sold some furniture with a local consignment shop [1]. I sent them pictures, and they gave me estimates. They even sent a truck to pick up the furniture, with the transportation cost coming out of the final sale proceeds. It couldn’t have been simpler, and they mailed me a check when the items finally sold after about a month. [1] https://thehomeconsignmentcenter.com/location/

That's a very good option wish I'd thought of that

I recently came across a furniture company that has an interesting offer that anything you buy new from them can be sold back to them (at like 20 cents on the dollar) or you can buy a little cheaper refurbished furniture from them.

https://57stdesign.com/pages/design-circulation-1

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

#336

Post by tdeck »

ForOldHack wrote: post #333
lsllc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that move-out happens in May, but move-in happens in late Aug/early Sept. So there's lots of useful stuff being discarded in May (beds, desks, bookcases, in-window A/C units etc) that would likely be in demand in Sept but have long been sent to the landfill by then.

I kicked what looked like an empty card board box, and found two laptops w/ chargers, Retail $1800, Wiped their hard disks, updated all the software, put student software on it, and gave them away to other students. I found literally a full bedroom of oak furniture, bed, a dresser, a desk, a bedside table, and an armoure... I could not get the armoure on my pickup truck, but I moved out all my old stuff, and moved in…

It makes me happy that at least some of this stuff is getting saved. All the resources and labor being put into these things should not be going to waste.

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

#337

Post by horsawlarway »

barbazoo wrote: post #330
horsawlarway wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, and that's fair and I'm not saying you shouldn't donate like that (frankly - that about the only way you should donate if you want to actually be helpful).

I think the reality is that online marketplaces basically fill that gap, though.

Most folks who have items that they know aren't trash try to sell them themselves online these days (or best case - use things like "BuyNothing" groups).

But if you can't move it on facebook marketplace, the sad reality is that goodwill and the like are also probably going to put it in the trash if you donate it to them.

Even places like homeless shelters are very picky (exclusively "new" or "gently used" donations of specific items).

There's just a lot of work in "matching" used items to people who want/need those items, and most times the value of the item is lower than the value of that work (even when that work is heavily discounted by volunteers).

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

#338

Post by scotty79 »

neom wrote: post #316
scotty79 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said the word "Valentino", which is meaningless, way too many times for it to be healthy.

It's not meaningless, people have whole PhDs in this stuff and it's a component of the concentration of social cultural anthropology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_designer) But within the houses system, Valentino sits somewhere specific. Hence I am being specific about The House of Valentino. Valentino = Warhol.

Nobody wears Worhol's. Because there's no such thing. Because Warhol is not Valentino. And PhDs were written on even sillier stuff.

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

#339

Post by neom »

scotty79 wrote: post #338
neom wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not meaningless, people have whole PhDs in this stuff and it's a component of the concentration of social cultural anthropology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_(fashion_designer) But within the houses system, Valentino sits somewhere specific. Hence I am being specific about The House of Valentino. Valentino = Warhol.

Nobody wears Worhol's. Because there's no such thing. Because Warhol is not Valentino. And PhDs were written on even sillier stuff.

These things exist in this world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist

They're pretty cool, I recommend learning about them, personally, I did a whole degree on it...won 4 Emmy awards being one...silly me...

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

#340

Post by scotty79 »

neom wrote: post #339
scotty79 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wears Worhol's. Because there's no such thing. Because Warhol is not Valentino. And PhDs were written on even sillier stuff.

These things exist in this world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist They're pretty cool, I recommend learning about them, personally, I did a whole degree on it...won 4 Emmy awards being one...silly me...

Artists are cool, fashion designers however are bane of this world because they help funnel insane amount of materials straight to a landfill.

Congrats on your Emmys. Not sure why your interests include something as mundane as shoes and arguing with opinionated idiot on the internet. You obviously have better things to think about.

Post reply on HN