My best Goodwill success story... My daughter was a budding musician and when we would find instruments, we always bought them no matter what they were. If she didn’t learn to play them, she would still use them for decorations in her room. One day, walking through the Goodwill store, one of the employees cam out of the back with a cart and proceeded to unload things on the shelves. She put up a worn out pink violin case. Looked like it was a child’s grade school violin. I picked it right up and noticed a couple of “regulars” watching me to see if I put it back down.
I opened the case and the violin was a little rough. Intact but rough. I looked inside and I caught a glimpse of “Stradivarius”. Now, I know my fortune is not that good, but I put the violin back in the case and headed for the register. When I got home, I found that it was a copy of a Stradivarius made by a German craftsman (of some notoriety). Googling info, I saw this particular craftsman’s violins were fetching anywhere between $2500 to $4000.
So I called a local store that specialized in and restored classical instruments. I brought the violin down to the store and he said he would clean it up and fix whatever needed to be fixed for $500. He would put it on display in his store and when it sold, he would take his $500 out of that plus 10%. Three months later, he calls to let me know he just put a check in the mail to me. He sold it for $3500 and charged me 10% of the remaining $3000. So my $20 Goodwill violin netted me $2700.
That is awesome!
The only Goodwill story I have is about the night I was there when they tried to put out a huge endangered tortoise carapace that was a felony to have or sell.
:D