Since the announcement earlier this week that it will close for good on December 1, the Swap Shop has been the hottest topic in town. Reader Kristin posed this excellent question on the My Southborough Facebook page: What was the best thing you ever got from the Swap Shop? The answers were so much fun to read, I decided to pose the question here on the blog, as well.
The responses on Facebook suggest toys are the most popular Swap Shop score, from ride-ons, razor scooters, and bikes, to all manner of Barbie gear. Furniture items including a pie safe and wooden rocking chair were also named as treasured finds.
So what about you, Swap Shop frequenters. What are your favorite finds? Share your stories in the comments.
I love all the great books I find in the swap shop. So sad that it is closing!!
It’s the books for me too. All the trashy bodice-ripper novels that take my mind off everyday things….fun to read but not to buy… :>)
I found a container of 60+ Thomas trains and track- it equalled hundreds of hours of play.
A Barbie ride on jeep. It had 2 seats so both of my little ones would go “off roading” all over the back yard. We kept it for a year and then returned it to the S.S. I’m sure some lucky Southborough little girl is enjoying it now.
My neighbor’s daughter once found the “mother load” …..at least for a 10 yr. old. From the swap shop she got an American Girl doll sleigh and the doll’s full body snow suit….all in pristine condition.
My ongoing hand saw collection. About 20 years ago I picked up a hand saw and hung it on a nail in my garage. I am now up to about 80+ hand saws hanging on the garage wall. I don’t suspect they have any value but it has been fun creating the collection and has made for some good conversations. Every now and then I use one of them on a project but for the most part it’s been fun seeing people’s reaction when they see the collection. Some people have even seen the collection and brought over there unused saws to add to it. At some point I will run out of wall space and bring them all back or pass it on to someone who wants to keep collecting going.
I got 5 battery powered jeeps and offroad vehicles. The battery powered motors didn’t work in most of them but my grandsons who are 3 and 5 didn’t care at all. They were blasting around with them at our house on Thanksgiving.
My first visit to the Swap Shop resulted in a new friend and a lazy-boy chair. It was our first weekend in town (10 years ago) and our home needed furniture. As I dragged the most comfortable chair in the world out of the Swap Shop, Scott asked me if I needed some help. I did. And, thanks to an offer to help, my family gained a place to sit and, even better, a friend.
My son got most of his bikes from the swap shop in excellent condition, and over the years we are talking probably 5 bikes. Such a shame.
When my daughter was 2, my wife brought home a full-sized Fisher-Price kitchen play set with an entire box of toy food. She’s 7 now, and it’s still a much-loved fixture in her room.
Around the same time, my daughter and I were walking back to our car when we crossed paths with a dad carrying a LEGO table with an enormous bag of blocks. He took one look at us and asked “Can I just carry this straight to your car?”
Beyond the things we’ve gotten from the Swap Shop, it’s provided a valuable lesson to my daughter in giving back. She knows that, if she wants to take something from the Swap Shop, she needs to leave something that someone else might actually want.
That said, I get it. We’ve all seen the minivans that park in those first three or four spaces and just lay in wait. It’s a shame that so many are disrespecting the Shop’s intent, and disrespecting the crew that keeps the Transfer Station running.
My family has found many treasures at the Swap Shop, but by far our best finds were two roller riders – basically a seat with wheels and a steering wheel – that my two boys and their friends had a blast riding down the Trottier sidewalk across from our house. They seemed to never outgrow the fun of those toys and I still have them, hoping our future grandchildren will use them one day. Philosophically, I love the idea of a Swap Shop. I was on the Recycling Committee when we opened the new recycling area at the Transfer Station, and I know some of us were more excited about getting that little building to house the Swap Shop than anything else. We don’t need to keep buying new things when we can reuse old ones. I know many people who have gotten good furniture at the Swap Shop, coffee makers, food processors, mirrors, skis, bikes, and, of course, books. I certainly would volunteer a few hours a month to help keep a lid on bad behavior at the Swap Shop – something I have never witnessed.
I picked up a Sony 5.1 surround sound receiver. When I got home I looked it up on the internet and saw it was still selling for $350.00. I tried it out and found it worked, since I was thinking of buying a less expensive unit, this was a real find. Last week while I was at the Transfer Station doing my part as a member of the Southborough Green Tech Committee asking folks to consider a free energy audit of their home from Mass Save, I picked up a Meade Telescope. It is sitting here next to me now, all I need do is order a replacement eyepiece ($10) and I have a great new toy.
I have another one. My daughter who had recently moved to the big city in New York was home for the weekend and mentioned she was in need of a vacuum cleaner. While I was making my usual Saturday trip to the recycling center, there standing in front of the Swap Shot was a vacuum cleaner waiting for adoption. It is now in the Big Apple living large.
I have gotten wicker lawn furniture, a Krups coffee maker, a Cuisinart toaster oven, two garden sprayers, the very very nice office chair I am sitting on as I write this! I LOVE the Swap Shop. (Now I have to read what the bad behavior is.)
Hey, now that I think of it, the chair I’m sitting on came from the swap shop! (Note for future kind donors: I prefer the Herman Miller “aeron” chair, in cobalt black, please…hah!)
My chair at work and home both came from the Swap Shop. My daughter’s Little Tykes desk, Little Tykes grocery store, picture frames, cork boards, big white boards, I found a water table like my daughter’s which I quickly delivered to another Swap Shop frequenter for her son, some holiday decorations, kids books & puzzles, wooden train tracks when my son was little, kids games, shall I go on?
I once found a working cash register at the Swap Shop. I use it for my yard sales :-D
2 large LLBean Duffle Bags. Perfect condition! Still using them…
What have I found at the swap shop? My beautiful porch table, glass top, wrought iron and wicker base in perfect condition, which I later matched up to 4 wrought iron chairs found in the metal section that I recovered the seats… hundreds of books taken, read and returned… lots of baby stuff left, taken, and then seen 6 months later left again. Truly a good swap there! It’s like a lending library of anything you can think of. Lots of kid toys taken, used for a while and then NEATLY left for another to enjoy.
I’ve also had stuff virtually grabbed out of my hands, only to be seen at a yard sale 2 days later (oh yes you know who you are!)… people collecting a big pile of stuff and instead of being happy with that, grabbing more stuff and yelling at people that had the nerve to try to take “their” pile… people just about attacking someone as they pull in with a beautiful antique bed frame to get to them first. I could have USED it, not taken it to sell…
I also know of someone who needed a part for their washing machine, went to the metal section instead of Sears, found the right part, took it home and fixed it.
It’s a great resource folks, isn’t there a way to help the guys that work there and have to deal every week with the lunatics? They work too hard for the abuse they often get, and I’ve seen volunteers in yelling matches with some of the abusers. How to police it so these folks get booted, and also people who don’t live in town.
One last suggestion if we manage to keep it open: I’ve often thought it sad that a lot of the stuff (not the junk, but the good stuff) is dumped into the hopper at the end of Saturday… is there a way to get a nonprofit (or several, rotating) to come in at the end of the day and collect good stuff for their stores?
Memories.
Sometimes I go in there for a quick tour just to see what shows up: a game I remember from childhood, licensed merchandise from a favorite long-ago TV show, decorative items from different decorating trends.