The Savvy Picker travels around the southeast looking for vintage merchandise to stock her brick-and-mortar and online shops. She recently visited the North Georgia Mountains, where she spent several glorious hours at Community Thrift. Keep reading to check out her hauls and pick up a few tricks of the trade.
In my last article, I mentioned hearing about a thrift store in Cleveland that was “overloaded.” In other words, a re-seller’s dream. Since I heard this prior to the store’s opening, I was one of the first to pull into the parking lot at 10 am, and before I even got out of the car, I knew it was going to be one heck of a successful shopping trip. I wasn’t wrong.
Community Thrift is one of the most expansive thrift stores I have seen so far. It is housed in a fairly large building, but they have so much merchandise the store has expanded out to a few tents, metal sheds, and an entire bay of storage units! The bays are all full of goods and surprisingly well organized. One bay houses lighting, another medical supplies, another furniture, etc. They even had one bay that was mostly full of baskets. (I found a great vintage lidded basket from Mexico in that one!)
Before going inside the store, I popped into a metal outbuilding full of Christmas items! There, I picked up a vintage nativity set and a few ornaments.
But the most exciting things I found were on the loot-laden shelves in the main building. Like the bays in the outside storage unit, these shelves were organized by category. I was immediately drawn to the pottery section, where I picked up a few pieces of blue and white pottery, which always sells well for me, along with some beautiful Tonala pottery from Mexico. (The large bird vase pictured below sold in my shop about an hour after I put it out.)
I also found a shelf stocked with vintage cameras, another type of merchandise that sells well for me, so I picked up a few of those!
Community Thrift has carts for your shopping convenience, so when my cart was loaded, I headed to the checkout. It took the cashiers a while to check me out because I had discovered so much great merch. Then, AFTER I paid, I noticed two important signs. One announced half-priced jewelry. The other, half-priced items in the glass case. By then, the line behind me was quite long. (Due to the aforementioned quantities of great merch!) It was also right in front of all the sale items in the glass case!
You know how shoppers feel about that one customer who holds everyone else up because they buy so much stuff? Yeah, me too. And since I happened to be that person, I decided to go back to the car and unload, then return to check out the sale items. This was a good move because by the time I finished carefully packing things into my car, the checkout line was gone and I was able to score these two German beer steins and this cobalt blue salt-glazed bottle for half price!
Then I moved on to the jewelry! Jewelry is a consistent seller in my shop, so I acquired a nice variety of pieces ranging from plastic to sterling. Other than the sterling, most of these items cost a dollar or less!
Time to check out for the second time, which was easy to do since the jewelry and the items from the case were right up near the register.
But as I was leaving the store, I spotted a treasure I could not go home without. So back to the register I went to check out for a third time!
Based on the painting style, I am guessing this piece is from the 1940s, and I also think it is most likely from Great Britain. And it’s yellow. Definitely yellow. But I can’t tell you much else about it, and so far, neither can any of my resources. One friend suggested it is a firewood bin. If you happen to know what it is, let me know!
I discovered one of the best things about this store when I overheard a conversation between someone who works at Community Thrift and a customer who stopped by to apply for a grant: Community Thrift gives away thousands of dollars in grants to organizations in White County every quarter!
If you’re the type of shopper who likes to plunder, Community Thrift has plenty of space to do just that, and you’re sure to find a treasure or two if you do!
Community Thrift Store is located at 1160 East Kytle Street in Cleveland, Georgia. They’re open from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, call 706-865-0574.
Who should visit: Shopper with time to check out the main store and the outbuilding.
Score of the day: Assorted jewelry
Predicted profit on jewelry: $150
Re-seller takeaway: When you walk in the door at Community Thrift, ask what the day’s sales are. And also, look for signs near the register.
The Savvy Picker publishes bi-monthly on Now Habersham. For more great reads and finds, click here. For additional tips on tracking vintage treasures, visit The Savvy Picker website.
