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Retail Versus Thrift

Since we've looked at how retail is sometimes cheaper than thrifting, we should also do the opposite. Here's a nice lot of embroidery floss at the online thrift auction that appears to be DMC (the numbers on the winders give that away) with approximately 150 skeins. They are used, but not much. The four containers are nice, as are the needles, card sorters and what I believe is a needle minder.

Minimum bid for this lot is $9.99, shipping to me is $19.45, and handling is $3.50. If I won this lot for the minimum bid I would pay $32.94 total, which if my estimate of the number of skeins is correct is about 22 cents per skein. Even with the high price for shipping, this is a solid bargain.

DMC floss is currently $1.15 per skein retail. You can find some bundles on Amazon like this one, but that actually works out to $1.16 per skein, so always figure out the price-per before you buy.

You can find very good bargains in some brick and mortar thrift stores. Here's that bundle of 105 DMC embroidery floss skeins that I recently purchased for $4.18, or about 4 cents per skein.

The main problem with thrifting floss versus buying it new is that you can't choose the colors. You basically just end up with someone else's stash that they donated. So that's a consideration. At the same time, if you can save $1.11 per skein by thrifting, and build up a collection as I have, in time you will acquire almost any color you need. You can also buy retail a few skeins that you aren't able to thrift in the colors you want, which is much cheaper than buying it all new.

One final note about a recent development I've noticed over the last couple years: Embroiderers and resellers have become aware of how cheap vintage floss is going at the online thrift auction, and they are now pouncing on the good listings, so don't ever expect to get it for a song. I imagine that $9.99 minimum bid will increase to $30.00 or even $40.00 by the time the auction ends.* Still, even at double the price I estimated, it's still a bargain. :)

Added: I just checked and the lot went for a final winning bid of $36.00.

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