Proxy shopping through Japan has been my thing recently.
I have some hobby craft stuff nearby with the typical western boy tastes but nothings going to be carrying the more lewd tastes I have outside of Japan.

It's incredibly expensive though.
40,000¥ for a good quality tapestry
10$ of fees with JapanRabbit
30$ to ship (tariffs if you live in the land of unfreedom)
30$ in VAT
Just to get something to hang on your wall.

But you won't get it unless you head to JP yourself

I've been going to thrift stores for a while now. For the longest time I've been going, trying to find electronics things.

In the past few weeks, I've managed to pick up a few hard drives to stuff in my NAS. Interestingly, home/business security systems tend to be discarded regularly and they'll reliably have hard drives inside. To the untrained eye, they look just like a DVD player. I also snagged an SSD out of a PC that I thought about buying, but the CPU was rather old and too high power consumption to want to turn into a server. I also finally found a decent flat screen early- to mid-2000s CRT TV!

Lately, I've been taking much more of an interest in books. Often, you can get old and out-of-print books for only a few dollars. Like this one I found at a used bookstore! "An Introduction to Germany for Occupation Families". It was printed post-WWII for military families stationed in occupied Germany and goes over the temperament of German people, their history, and what they should expect to see once they arrive. A very fascinating little read for a book older than my parents!

I spend way too much time and money on second hand clothing from Japan, browsing online thrift stores, Yahoo auctions and the Mercari flea market. I've been collecting items from one particular brand for about 10 years and believe I have the largest collection of their early works including a one of thirty jacket. Outside that, the most interesting thing I've found was an artistic photobook about crossdressing and one about people's apartments taken during the 90's.

Brick and mortar thrift stores here typically don't have very good offerings. I would mainly be after camera stuff and scalpers usually pick those dry.

>>144754
¥40k seems incredibly expensive unless it's an enormous size. I've been meaning to get some artwork printed and framed for my PC room, but I'd do it at local print shops.

>>144855
40k is about standard for pixiv B2 sized. 100k lifesized. There's a lot of vendor markup to it I guess.

Mind you, it's not a low end product. The rendering is very nice and the fabric is good.

I got this a month or two ago off a local auction site, an IBM 5140 PC Convertible, the very first laptop ever made (depending on your definition).

It's in physically good, albeit non-functional condition, so I got it for relatively cheap. I only bought it to harvest the keyboard switches, to be honest, but I think I'll chuck in some cheap switches to replace them and then try my hand at repairing the thing because it's really quite neat. It doesn't take up nearly as much space as an actual vintage computer + a big ass CRT since it is ostensibly a portable PC, after all.

Just an old soviet analog rangefinder camera that more or less is a leica copy. Online auction.

Initially I was aiming for a yashica SLR, but buying old cameras from Japan can be complicated. Not only prices have gone up since 2020 due to high demand, but being a country with a very humid climate, most of them tend to have fungus in the lenses.

I-I don't really know where any thrift stores around me are. How do you go about finding them?

>>144918
VERY CAREFULLY

>>144758
I just pirate ebooks on my Kindle but I've been thinking of buying used paper copies of stuff I've already read to display on my bookshelf. I figure I've done the hard part of actually reading the books, I might as well spend a few bucks to balance out my apartment that's currently 90% anime decor.

>>144860
I imagine it's the only way to get it with the highest possible print resolution and you're supporting the artist too. It's not like it's a consumable either.

>>144905
Do you have any sample photos taken with it? And how much did you pay? I want to try and find an old SLR camera to play around with but trying to buy them from online auctions can be a bit intimidating.

>>144918
I normally just use Google Maps and search "thrift stores".

There are a few chain thrift stores in the US:
- Goodwill: Lots of clothes, holiday merchandise, kitchenware, kitchen appliances, miscellaneous electronics, some furniture, books, CD/DVDs, and vinyl records. Tends to be overpicked and heavily trafficked. Best value items are books in my opinion. Most are sold for <$4.
- Salvation Army Family Store: Lots of clothes, smaller miscellaneous selection than Goodwill, very large selection of furniture. Best value items are furniture; 25%, 50%, and 75% off after 7, 14, and 21-days of sitting unsold respectively.
- Uptown Cheapskate: Mostly focused on clothes
- Plato's Closet: Mostly focused on clothes
- Saver's Value Village: Similar to Goodwill. Never been to one, so can't give much of an opinion.

I once found a hentai DVD at a thrift store. Didn't buy it though because why would I?

I went to an old and rare books shop and bought:
>The Life Of A South African Tribe I. Social Life
>The Life Of A South African Tribe II. Mental Life
>Comedies and Errors
never read them... told myself I would not return to the shop until I've read those books that I bought

>>150409
I only know two second hand book stores in my city that have some interesting stuff. There's another one that is super high end collectors.
But on the topic I'm also bumping this thread to remind me to (hopefully) have something pretty sugoi to show tomorrow.

>>145189
I did this and I only got clothing stores. Not even some Japanese only clothes stores.

>>144746
Yes, thrift stores are the best!
There's one that so many people I meet in my city don't even know about because it's not in the centre of the city, so it's worth searching for stores like that online.
I found anime shirts, manga in 3 different languages, amiibo and a magiranger action figure, each for less than 10 bucks and even cheaper during discount times. 10/10
>>150901
Maybe you can ask some locals or try similar keywords when looking online like "second-hand", "charity shop", "antiques", "junk shop" etc, doesn't have to be in google maps ig.
If nothing comes up for your city, you could try looking for one in the next big city

>>151039
>>150901
oh no, sorry, I meant to reply to >>150909 instead, I misclicked

I love it when a old person presumably dies and the family dumps their entire livelihood into the store. I mean it's sad for them yeah but I've gotten some IBM new old stock keyboards, typewriters, vintage cameras, and other antiques. My house is a museum at this point.
>>151039
To add onto that, check Facebook Marketplace. Your area might have peopel selling things there, it's normie filled but that's good because they usually don't know what they have. Unfortunately it is Facebook.

>>151048
Estate sales let you take out the middleman. It's how my sister furnished her apartment with real furniture instead of cheap plastic crap. The main issue is that you need to be ready to hit them at any moment, including at 6AM or the very second you hear of it so it's a very hectic way of doing things.
I should have paid more attention during covid since I think quite a few small nerd shops must have had clearance sales before closing for good.

>>151039
It’s pretty much furniture stores when I look those up. I know stores that sell anime figures in my area, but I tend to find them overpriced. The only thing I would consider buying from those are anime keychains and acrylic stands since it’s not worth the price to import those. But then again, I did spend like 60 to import a coaster and 80 for a Dark Magician Girl card. The only thrift stores I shop at are book stores.

>>151039
Thanks but I know my city like the back of my hand. Just not much call for second-hand bookshops any more.

Oh. It's here. I'll explain later for kissu.

>>151063
what is it

>>154002
Ah I'm back, forgot about this.
Well, it's a signed first edition of Gastronomie Pratique by Ali-Bab (Henri Babinski). It's probably the rarest book I own.
You know it's a first edition because it's about 300 pages instead of the later edition 1000+.

>>154073
It's pretty old so I'll have to do some restoration work.

Had a productive day at the thrift store. Found a Samsung Freestyle projector for $50. It was upside-down and stuck inside the case, so I guess the original owner got it stuck and decided to throw it away... Wasn't charged so I couldn't try it in the store, but got home, plugged in a USB C and it works! But there's a problem -- well, more of an oversight on my part -- I didn't realize it needs a remote, so I tried to pair it with my phone the pairing process says to "click okay on the projector", but the projector itself doesn't have a button to hit okay... So now I need to wait a few days for the remote to come in the mail (´• ω •`)

While at the thrift store I was also able to find a nice deal on a couch. It has a queen-sized pull-out mattress which is something I've been looking for for almost a year of frequenting that store. I have seen lots and lots of furniture move through that store, lots of furniture, but this is the first time I managed to find a pull-out mattress couch, so I had to snatch it up. It was a pain to move, but I think it was worth it... It was just $250.

>>154984
Looks good. Around here it's not rare to see people giving away furniture, but you need to provide the labor and transport to get it out of their house/apartment which is very much not free or fun. Obviously used furniture is a mixed bag, but as long as you deep clean it I think it's fine.