You know the staff in most thrift stores never shop high end merchandise and honestly have no idea what some of the donated goods sold for new. A local thrift store had a nice Kirby G series for sale with all the accessories and the display box for $10. I didn't buy it, Kirbys are just not my thing, but talking to the clerk a couple of days later after it was sold she told me she messed up should have priced it at $40. I asked why $40? She told me because it was a $200 vacuum new. When I told her they sell for closer to $1500 you could see her struggling to get her mind around the whole concept of a vacuum that probably cost the equivalent of two months rent in our town.
I saw the same thing after buying that $25 Electrolux Epic 8000. The clerks at the Salvation Army had no idea what the thing was or what they sold for (it was in an outdoor yard, not even in the store itself along side some really beat uprights), and honestly it is the first and so far only Electrolux vacuum I have seen in person. Even for me Electrolux was kind of a vague concept. I knew the name and that they existed but that roach at the thrift shop was the first real Electrolux vacuum I had encountered in my life. No friends or family members have high end vacuums. They are so expensive and thus so rare that lower income working people are never aware of these high end items. If it isn't in K-Mart, Wally World or Target it doesn't exist.
As a result us collectors can get some real bargains, though at my income level I often feel a little guilty bargain hunting in a thrift store where the goods are donated by others so the poor can afford to buy what they need.
