18 Strangest Items That Goodwill Employees Have Ever Seen

Thrift stores are a great place to find unique and affordable items, but many people also visit thrift stores to sell or donate their belongings. There are so many strange items they get daily, and we have compiled them for you to know. It is fun, and something is surely outrageous. 

$5,000 In Old Jeans

“My mom used to work for goodwill. She’s found rather neat items. One time, she found $5,000 in someone’s old jeans. She was kind enough to return it to its rightful owner by looking into who donated the items. And she found a hand grenade in an old jacket.”

Live Frog

“I manage a small non-profit thrift store and I found a live frog in a box of donations last summer. It was probably just stored in the garage for awhile and the frog climbed in. Other than that, I find gross donations way more often than weird ones.”

Urn

“I was a receiving and loading lead at the store for a few years. We had this guy that cleaned out storage units for a living, and then he’d dump whatever he couldn’t flip with us for a tax slip.

He pulls up and we’re going through it all. Pretty nice stuff; looked like it was an estate sale. We get it all unloaded, and then we start snooping through to see what needs to get brought to where and we find this green glass vase filled with sand.

I started pouring the sand out into the trash so we could figure out if the vase were worth using “That’s not sand”

Somehow we ended up with an unmarked, full urn.”

“Ashes, I’ve got a bag here in my office that has some guy from Florida in it. I keep him around; he wards off ghosts and angry customers.”

Hand Grenade

“My aunt’s a cop and had to go investigate a donated hand grenade.”

Dirty Diapers

“Someone donated an entire trash bag full of dirty diapers.”

Gold and Platinum Jewels

“Some rich old lady came in and donated a ziplock bag full of gold and platinum jewelry – it was real.”

Beanie Baby Collections

“Huge beanie baby collections. Guess someone finally figured out after 20 years that they weren’t a solid investment. It’s something you hear about, but I never really saw before.”

Read: 10 “THINGS” You Have One That Makes You “Immediately” Unattractive

Suitcase With Adult Toys

“Somehow, a suitcase full of adult toys made it onto the floor and was brought to our attention by an elderly lady who wanted to purchase the suitcase but didn’t want “the extra stuff inside.”

Money

“We were allowed to keep any money we found, usually the occasional few bucks in a purse someone forgot. Other times it could be big bills or one lady locked out and found a stash of around $2000 in two dollar bills in a trinket box.”

“And a camel-hair coat with $750 in one of the pockets.”

Underwear

“Dirty laundry. It happened so often that we had to wear gloves to go through clothing. Washed everything at least once to be safe. Who gets don’t wear their underwear and is like, meh, I’ll donate it and not wash it?!?”

Gold Mine Of Middle School Drama

“My coworker found a 12-year-old’s journal. It was a gold mine of middle school drama. Also, had a lot of stories about Jacob from Twilight and wishing she was a werewolf. We read through the whole book and cried laughing. I think years from now that same girl will wonder where that journal is, and desperately wish she had it again.”

Human Skull

“A classmate of mine found a human skull that was donated. It still had remnants of human on it. They reported it to the police, and it turns out it was part of an active murder investigation one state over.”

Signed Edition of Harry Potter

“Finally, a question I can answer, I once found a signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, strange in why would anyone give it away!? I managed to buy it for 50p, and it’s honestly my prized possession today.”

Read: 13 Things That Are Perfectly Legal BUT Feels ILLEGAL Doing It (Agree?)

Counterfeit Money

“Printed money, one time someone dropped off a backpack full of obviously copied money on big sheets of paper, and secret service came out and got it and everything.”

Old Mac From the 90s

“Someone donated an old Mac from the mid-90s that still worked. We fired it up, and it had all sorts of personal stuff on it; we wiped it and sold it. Remember to wipe your drives, people!”

Evening Gowns

“One day a Russian lady came in with about six gorgeous evening gowns. She kept telling us that she’d had them since she was young in Russia and that they were high-end/designer dresses (we couldn’t read the tag).

From my knowledge of sewing/dressmaking, I can tell you these things were exquisite. I was working with the books, but I got a good look at them, and the seams were breathtakingly neat. Hand-embellished with beads, crystals, and hand-embroidered details on some, they’d been taken good care of, too, as the colors weren’t faded or discolored, and she’d even brought them to the shop in garment bags.

She said she’d brought them in because she was well past wearing them (I think she was in her 60s), they certainly wouldnt fit her, and she wanted some young woman to get to ‘experience the joy of wearing them’. These dresses were GORGEOUS, y’all.

Unfortunately, I left before they were taken out of the back room into the shop, so I never saw who bought them. They were probably bought as debs dresses in the end.”

Old Guitar

“I can say that my grandmother almost donated a 1958 Gibson ES 335 to the Goodwill in the mid-90s when I was a teenager. If I weren’t learning how to play the guitar at the time it would be long gone.

It was her second husband who died of a heart attack in the 70’s, it sat in her attic for 20 years until she gave it to me.”

Illegal Weapons

“Illegal weapons are sometimes donated as well. I once discovered a pair of LC-1 chairs designed by Le Corbusier valued at about $4.000 each. The serial number dated three years old.

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This article originally appeared on Mrs Daaku Studio.