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Operational shoppers love a good find at charity shops, but it’s the staff who are discovering that there are some items with more than meets the eye.
It’s common for donation bags and furniture to hold long-forgotten treasures, and while some match-hunters are lucky enough to find them when they bring their purchases home, many hidden secrets are uncovered before they hit the store.
Nelson ReStore manager Rebekah Wyatt said one of the linen volunteers looked “as white as a sheet” when she told Wyatt there was something she needed to see.
Among a donation of sheets was a money bag containing about $ 4,000 in cash.
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Wyatt said the money was taken to the police, where it remained for a few weeks until a woman called ReStore.
She detailed what her sheets looked like and asked if anything had been found on them, she said.
“Her husband had been hiding money and had not told her.”
Martin De Ruyter / Things
A pile of donated sheets hid a bag of money that a man was keeping, unknown to his wife, who donated the clothes to Nelson’s ReStore.
He had noticed that the sheets were missing and had to “confess” to his wife what he had been doing, he said.
Fortunately, the husband and his money were reunited.
“We get it quite a bit, though surprisingly not so much [money]. “
Wyatt said that if people were hiding things, then their memory disappears, they move into a house or die, “you never know what is hidden in everyday items.”
“It really is a treasure hunt for customers, you never know what you will find in your pocket.”
On the Op Shopping New Zealand Facebook page, many members shared stories of finding between $ 10 and $ 50 in pockets and inside books, “junk jewelry” that turned out to be gold and a $ 3 lottery ticket for $ 68 worth of profit.
Barbara Quigley, a member of the Facebook page, said that people cleaning things for a deceased or elderly loved one should always carefully check hidden hiding places, “especially if there have been dementia problems.
Restore Nelson received two or three calls a week, Wyatt said, from people who inadvertently hoped to get donated items back, and sometimes it was the children who found out that their parents were donating things they preferred to keep.
“We have had children who come and find that the toys that their parents have donated to them and they have not told them.
“There was a boy who said: ‘That’s my horse, the grandfather did it.’
She said the father told the boy that he no longer played with him, but the boy sat down and refused to leave.
A husband suffered a case of wrong bag identity.
Martin De Ruyter / Things
Nelson Hospice Shop manager Dianne Timbs recalled a bag of designer clothing that was sold at the store and was accidentally donated by a woman whose husband took the wrong bag.
Hospice Shop Nelson manager Dianne Timbs said a woman who was out of town for work had told her husband to bring a bag of clothes that she had set aside for the operations store.
“It was the wrong bag that I had collected and donated.”
Instead, he had given her a bag of new designer clothes.
Timbs said the wife had called to see if she could get some of the clothes back, but they had all been sold.
“He was not in his good books.”
He also remembered a stash of bonus vouchers and important documents that had been found in the secret compartment of an old roll-top desk.
“We actually found the owner. The family was very grateful. “
Martin De Ruyter / Things
Ihc charity shop in Stoke inadvertently received money with a bag; fortunately, it found its way back to its owner.
The ihc charity shop had donated things that even the donors didn’t know about, manager Gill Burson said.
She was going through some donations when she found $ 300 worth of crisp new $ 20 bills, she said, “they slipped into the side pocket together so neatly.”
“An aunt had entered a residence and her niece was cleaning things.”
They were able to return the money to its rightful owner since the donation had been collected at the woman’s home, he said.
And while finding treasure was positive for staff and customers, Burson said they also found “gory things,” such as tissues, band-aids and dirty underwear.
“But you have to look at the positive.”
