For $8, a Panasonic Lumix GH5 battery grip was sitting on a Goodwill shelf. The man who owns the exact camera it fits left it there, and he has been kicking himself ever since.

That is the confession from the host of LGR, the retro tech channel, during his latest thrifting trip. “Honestly for 8 bucks I probably should’ve gone ahead and picked that up to have a spare, but I didn’t and now I have regerts.”

The GH5 is the camera he has used for LGR since 2017. He called the find “highly unexpected,” and still walked away.

Goodwill Started Printing QR Codes And A 50% Discount Clock

The trip is a montage of several Goodwill visits gathered over about a year. He still stops at the “Lucky Rock” out front to pay respects before heading inside.

One change caught his eye at a store he visited more recently. The pricing stickers used to be generic decals showing only a dollar amount. Now they carry QR codes and price dates, with 50% off taking effect once an item has sat there for five days.

“Fantastic,” he says, noting he has always liked seeing that system at Goodwills in other regions.

A Brand New Typewriter That Barely Lasted Three Years

Some finds are just curiosities. Early in the trip he spotted a boxed “Typecast” typewriter that looked almost new, and it was.

These We R Memory Keepers machines from American Crafts launched in the second half of 2016. Most retailers stopped listing them by the end of 2019. He had no idea anyone had made new mechanical typewriters recently, since the newest ones he usually sees date from the 1970s or 1980s.

He also noted the table that looked like a cratered lunar surface from years of condensation rings, which he said showed “the sheer refusal to ever use a coaster.”

What Came Home In The Cart

Several finds went straight into the haul. A Sony IDE DVD/CD-RW drive, model DRU-540A, was an easy yes, both for its usefulness and its shiny beige, silver and blue faceplate.

A pristine VHS copy of Star Trek Voyager, episodes 1 and 2, meant the 90-minute season one premiere Caretaker. “Aw heck yeah, that is coming home with me.”

In the CD aisle he found an official refill pack for Propellerhead’s Reason software, the Zero-G Creative Essentials pack. He loves making 1990s-style electronic music with old software, and says finding it “made my month.”

The software shelf yielded more. He took home Interplay’s Beat The House for Windows 95, a gambling guide by Avery Cardoza, and Bass Masters Classic Tournament Edition, billed as “the only 3D fishing game” in 1998. He left behind a Windows 95 card games pack and Sierra’s Hoyle Casino, since he already had similar titles.

The Things He Left Behind

Not everything gets rescued. He passed on a mid-century Westinghouse radio console with its turntable and speaker missing, though he loved the wooden dials. He also admired a well-made wooden cassette holder and wondered aloud why he did not buy it.

A Sony Bravia KDL-52XBR2 from 2006, a 52-inch LCD with a clear frame bezel, looked cool but did not tempt him. “If this was a plasma panel I would’ve absolutely jumped on it.”

A Dell 4:3 LCD monitor with built-in speakers and a USB hub did come home. He is always on the lookout for decent 4:3 monitors, especially ones that rotate.

Mr. K’s Is Where The Cheap DVDs Live

Next stop was Mr. K’s Used Books, Music & More, where most of the floor is books. In the back, the audio CD selection is one of the best nearby, and the DVD wall includes about fourteen shelves, each seven feet tall.

His favorite spot is the $3 bargain DVD shelves. His strategy is to look for titles from no recognizable studio, or from one that is known to be awful, and for DVDs missing the official logo on the spine.

It worked. He bought The Dooms Chapel Horror and DOT.KILL, a nod to his fondness for early dot-com cyber thrillers. On VHS he took home Hard Drive, a 1994 “hot, sexy, techno-thriller,” and he spotted John Tesh at Red Rocks and Yanni at the Acropolis, which he called “1990s mom classics.”

Behind glass, a colorful cube turned out to be a Nex Playground, a small motion-control console he had never seen in person. He says it went viral about a year ago and outsold the Xbox Series in US retail sales at the end of 2025.

Sweeten Creek Antiques Fills 31,000 Square Feet

His last stop was Sweeten Creek Antiques, which labels itself retro, vintage and collectibles. He says it covers about 31,000 square feet with roughly 130 vendor stalls, and he likes its layout and variety among the many antique shops in the Asheville area.

It reminded him of the Regeneration Station warehouse he always meant to film, which was destroyed by Hurricane Helene before he got to. He admits much of Sweeten Creek is not thrifty in price, but he is willing to stretch the definition to keep the series going.

Thrift Store Lessons From The Trip

A few habits stand out. If a thrift find is cheap and fits gear you already use, buy the spare, because the regret lasts longer than the price.

• Check the CD and software shelves, where odd professional tools can hide.
• Look at how stores price. Many now use QR codes and automatic markdowns.
• Learn what you actually use before filling the cart, as he did with the monitor and drive.

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