As some of you may know, I work at a major thrift store in Provo. I love thrift stores, they’re the perfect solution for those who don’t have the budget to support buying regularly from high street stores, and they use their profits to support good causes. Some thrift stores even offer life skills classes in return for custom, get more information here if you think this might benefit you. We get thousands of items donated daily. I work in the back sorting through those donations to see what’s good enough to be resold and what’s not. I have been working there for eight months now and I have seen lots and lots of geeky items. If you follow me on I Love the Star Wars Prequels, you know that I post updates sometimes about prequels-related merchandise. Star Wars is perhaps the biggest franchise represented as far as action figures, toys, and collectible items. This is a sampling of some of the geek items I’ve seen at the store from a variety of fandoms and favorite media. If you’re after a bargain and are intrigued to see what somewhere like the Houston flea market has in store, going to check it out could make for an excellent day out.

1. Harry Potter with Mirror of Erised hologram The item was on a platform. Harry was on it, and the mirror was a hologram so that when you moved the piece you could see Harry’s family in the glass.

   

2. Star Wars 30th Anniversary Stamps I remember when these originally came out ten years ago. They’re a pretty cool set. I’ve seen at least two sheets of these in mint or near-mint condition.

   

3. Star Trek new movies action figures and phasers I rarey rarely RARELY see Star Trek stuff. One day we got a bunch that were still in factory packaging.

   

4. The Magic School Bus playset The set was in a pretty old plastic bag. We had the Bus, the Friz and Liz as well as most of the class dressed in safari gear. Talk about a throwback!

   

5. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe minifigs It was so cool to see some Narnia representation. There were multiple figures of the White Witch, but one of each of the Pevensie children and Mr. Tumnus.

   

6. LOTR Action figures These were some of the nicest action figures I have seen from any franchise. We had Aragorn, weapons included; one of the hobbits, and an elf warrior in armor.

   

7. Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon When you get a big bucket of toys, chances are some of them are from the same set or have their detached pieces in the mix. The first cool one I saw had its wings detatched, but luckily still in the bucket with the other toys it had come with. Wings attached, this Toothless had a 1 ½ foot wingspan. This week,I found a one-piece Toothless with the wings attatched and sort of curled up. It was shaped such that I could cradle it comfortably on my arm, so it gave me some idea of what it feels like to have a pet baby dragon.

   

8. Action figures from the Star Wars Prequels Last fall we once got a whole bunch of Prequels action figures at once. We had kid Anakin, a female Tusken Raider, a headless Asajj Ventress, Plo Kloon, Mace Windu, AOTC Obi-wan, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Shaak Tii. Bear in mind, any and all Star Wars action figures almost NEVER have their lightsabers or other weapons attached.

   

9. Clone Wars pilot There’s a whole series of Star Wars bobbleheads riding on spaceships. But the Clone Pilot was so cute I had to take him home! I love bobbleheads, nowadays you can even get Custom Bobbleheads from your photo that you submit.

   

10. Dragonball Z VHS collection Let me go on the record to say that it is good to have coworkers who are in other fandoms, because they recognize the value of some of the things we get-Pokemon cards, for isntance. During last summer, one day we got a whole tote of Dragonball Z episodes on VHS, like several collections of tapes, about fifty total. My coworker who was a Dragonball Z fan insisted that we needed to sort through the tapes to see how many sets we could put together, because there were illustrations on the sides of the cassette cases that, when put together, made pictures. I helped him out because I have an eye for that sort of thing. We spent the better part of an afternoon trying to put together several of the elaborate tape sets to see if we could sell them by the set at a higher value. We were unable to complete most of these sets, however, and we had to sell the tapes individually.

    

11. Thor Sometimes in a pile of miscellaneous toys we’ll get some nice 6-inch action figures mixed in. Very early on in my work I saw a movie-accurate Thor and a Loki in the same mix. Sadly, the smaller action figures have to be put in bags with the smaller toys. This week we got a plush Thor more based on the comics version but very cute.

    

12. Bueno Nacho Rufus I didn’t really like the show Kim Possible, but one of the few things I did like about it was Rufus, Ron Stoppable’s pet naked mole rat. This week we got a large plus Rufus wearing a sombrero and a t-shirt that said Buenoo Nacho.

    

13. Captain America All of the Captain America toys and action figures we get do not have the shield with them–except for one I saw a few weeks ago.

    

14. Rise of the Guardians action figures I’ve seen a couple of Jack Frost action figures, but the other day I saw a little Sandy figure. Sandy is a seriously underrated Guardian, if you ask me.

    

15. More Star Wars action figures During the summer I once saw ROTJ Luke Skywalker with a speeder. This week we had R2D2 and C-3P0; Today we had AOTC Anakin and Obi-wan (Anakin was missing an arm); and ROTS Anakin and Obi-wan. Also the last two Saturdays in a row I have seen large Jedi starfighters.

    

Lizy Cole

Lizy Cole is originally from San Antonio, Texas but also has strong ties to Arizona. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s degree in English. She enjoys reading, writing, and being a fangirl. Her current big fandoms are Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.