Was up early this morning, had a few tasks in Central Frankston. I had to kill about an hour in Frankston… So I had a coffee and a few of my favourite mini cigars at Trimms (only place in Frankston one can have a smoke with their coffee). After my well deserved and long anticipated coffee (first time after our last 3 months lockdown) I popped into the RSPCA Op Shop across the road, unfortunately no new stock – well at least book wise. After the RSPCA I headed down to the Salvos (all within walking distance), they are overstocked but I only found one book, that was a good fit for the online store.
I completed my task I had planned and walked back home, feeling unsatisfied and with a little bit of spare cash, I managed to get a lift from a friend down to Chelsea Heights, I had been thinking about going there for a few days, perhaps serendipity, providence etc…
There are 2 Thrift stores next to each other in Chelsea Heights, two very modern stores, A Vinnies and A Salvos. The address is 1-5 Hartwood Ct, Chelsea Heights VIC 3196.
Both store are very clean and resemble boutique clothing stores in shopping centres. We went to the Salvos Store first, they have a medium sized book section and I picked out about 10 books, nothing really rare but great staples for any book shop, once we were done we walked next door to the Vinnie’s and were greeted with a sign that they are having a 50% off book sale for the next 3 days, as I mentioned earlier had a gut feeling to come this way this week.
Once inside I got talking to one of the volunteers, think she may have been a school librarian, and she said they were well overstocked with books, every time she sold some books more would come in and she mentioned they may have another 1000 books to come out. I promised to buy a few shopping carts of books, and proceeded to fill 3 baskets with some really nice hard covers, nothing fantastic, but again, just nice hard cover copies of books people actually commonly read. The book section in the Vinnie’s is quite large, a great variety of books, alphabetically sorted, mostly paper backs, but a lot of modern books.. still to be found at book stores, if you are looking for a summer holiday read and you are in the area, drop in to both stores… They are both great causes, helping many people in need, plus why buy new when most of these books appear unread or read once and quickly donated.
To a collector like me, I have a few authors I keep my eyes open for, these are rare finds in thrift stores and markets, and I usually have to hunt them down in overseas books shops and eBay etc.
My haul today was 40-50+ books, a lot of first editions and mostly hard cover:
I can say I’ve mostly had enough book hunting for today, also running out of funds. Please check out your local Op/Thrift store… better to recycle than cut down another tree, and you will be helping people in need, especially with Xmas coming along in a few weeks.. A few dollars spent in store is a family having Xmas dinner potentially. Do your part, if you can or donate to the Xmas appeal.
Till the next treasure hunt.