I work in a thrift store, and can guarantee you that for every example of nice, interesting things, we get tonnes of dirty old junk that you wouldn't use to serve up your dog's food.
its expensive to take your junk to the dump, so people "donate" it to us, because our dumping fees are part of the business.
that being said, we get all kinds of treasures amongst it all - a lot of my own kitchen gadgets and presentation ware is vintage, retro or just surprisingly brand new and cost no more than a very few dollars to me.
for example, today I came across two pieces of antique Carlton Ware that were in perfect condition and upon research, last sold for $180 a piece. You gotta know what you are looking at.
