Do you ever think about the provenance of things for sale in charity shops? (could be upsetting)

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I often see items in charity shops and wonder about the situations that led to them being there. Some of them must be sad and others probably amusing.

Most stuff is straightforward - outgrown baby things and toys, clothes that people have replaced with new items or which no longer fit, upgraded electricals, unwanted gifts etc.

But I was doing a charity shop trawl the other day and, among other things, there was a lovely soft little teddy bear with "I love Daddy" written across his tummy and a '50th Wedding Anniversary' picture frame - quite a nice one too - although it had the 'stock' picture in there and hadn't apparently been used; unless it had and the personal photo had since been removed before donating or even by the shop staff themselves before displaying.

I've also seen other one-of-a-kind personalised items that one would have expected to mean something very special to the owners or to their descendants - not talking about generic tat taken off the rack in the gift shop with the top 20 kids' names printed on, but things engraved with a person's name and '40 years' service at XXX company' and the like. Obviously only worth a couple of quid at most to anybody unconnected.

I think the same about things that come up on eBay or for auction as well - such as this from a few days ago - a man who was awarded a very special medal, but now needs the money: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-51383434. It seems sad to me that somebody with plenty of money will end up owning it, even though it will hold no personal memories at all for them and will surely bring them much less joy than the man who was specifically awarded it. Also, this story from November about a man selling his late father's much-loved teddy: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-50574030

Maybe I overthink things and maybe some people are just pragmatic about 'stuff'. Perhaps some of the personal items came from deceased people with no family and an anonymous house clearance company has swept their former home and already sold anything valuable.

Am I the only one - just a pathetic, sentimental old fool - or have other people pondered this? Or have you given something to a charity shop that might have caused people to wonder the same? Did you find it hard to part with but needed the space, easy to offload something that had become a burden or held painful/mixed memories or just thought "I don't want this clutter" and didn't give it a second thought?

I read on here a few years ago of somebody finding a mass of presents to a teacher in a charity shop. Some of them were personalised from the children, and they were in the nearest charity shop to the school.

I like a story and offten come up with one. I love more vintage items - crockery, household, clothes etc

My favourite was in Cheltnham (gotta do charity shops there stuff is amazing) and it was clear they had had a whole house donation from a military family whose parents were recently deceased but they had led an amazing life - all their evening wear - designer but from New York, Paris etc, his and hers. Handbags, leather gloves, scarves. Pair of framed tennis rackets even his whites, then all their books, his cuffs box even some stiff collars, a top hat and its leather box, it went on and on - amazing items and such a story - a little sad but also I a sure they would have loved peoples reuse of items etc

I stood in my local hospice shop and cried after my mother died, on a rack there were beautiful occasion outfits, dresses and coats with matching fascinators all in covers. My mum was a smart elegant lady and they were the sort of things she would have chosen, I felt overwhelmed by the thought that someone else’s mum had died and all her lovely things had gone to charity shop 😢

It's a small comfort to know that MIL's stockpiles of clothes, crockery, etc are available to make other people happy, now. Various places that need stocks of books to lend out like hospital waiting rooms now have a hundred more books each. A small group of people who are too mentally ill etc to work but who knit hats and scarves and gloves and socks for homeless people now have enough yarn for a year. The after-school club has pencils and all for a term, and refuges that give families a new-start kit of saucepans etc have managed to kit out a dozen families. Local vets always want old towels and bedding, refuges want ones in decent nick (unless they've just had a delivery from a department store's end of line)

It's harder work getting stuff sorted and to where it can do good, but it's helping FIL, doing what MIL wanted. And us, tbh.

Now if prospective students would go to charity shops to buy large sets of robust crockery, that would be great - but according to MN threads their parents buy yet more new from Tesco/Argos/IKEA.

My godfather was a collector of certain antiques, and it really helped me get through his funeral talking to a guy in the trade (imagine a less good-looking Lovejoy, leather jacket and all), who said they'll all miss the old guy and all, but as a silver lining, some of them will be able to get some of the good stuff now.

I really hate the amount of teacher tat that gets sold - how many mugs does anyone need? I hope some of it in the charity shops is re-bought for another teacher, at least. Cards and booze. Or actually, a gift card in case they don't drink and it's lighter to carry home.

Yes, it was the teddy that particularly got to me. It probably was an older child, but that still makes me sad to think that a child grew up and didn't have any lovely memories of the time when they were little and their teddy declaring their love for their daddy.
Well thanks a lot for making me cry
I'm 35 weeks pregnant so let's just go with that as an excuse...
But it does make me sad when I see cuddly toys in charity shops. I think because my daughter loves her cuddly toys so much (shes 3) and it makes me sad that one day she will be happy to just chuck them away. Which I know is ridiculous because obviously a 16 year old won't still be playing with teddies.
All the Toy Story films make me bawling like a baby for the same reason

When my parents downsized I was in my 20s with a car boots worth of soft toys. Many of which had been joke presents in my late teens. I kept the ones I cared about, binned the ones that were in pieces and had no sentimental value to means gave the as new ones to a charity shop. I imagine that’s common so don’t be maudlin over them!

Our elderly neighbour died a couple of months ago. It was a sudden death, I know she was elderly but she had always been sprightly and able with no illness so it was still quite a shock to us. Absolutely lovely woman, extremely friendly neighbour and she loved to tell us about her eight children and thirty grandchildren and great grandchildren, she was extremely proud of her family. Anyway as soon as she died her children were clearing the house out, literally within a day or two. They gave all of her furniture away to charity (saw the British heart foundation truck taking it all away) and bagged the rest up either for the tip or to keep themselves. The house was up for sale three weeks after she’d died, they hadn’t even had the funeral yet. I found all of that incredibly sad, that was the home they all grew up in fwiw and meant a lot to our neighbour. I just found it rather sad that you die and within days your worldly possessions are sitting in a charity shop .

I was really shocked in a charity shop to see a relatively new item that had clearly been made specially for someone who’s grandfather had passed away.

It was one of his old checked shirts that had been made into a cushion and had an embroidered poem along the lines of “this is one of grandpa’s shirts that he once used to wear, when you miss him hold it close and feel like he is there.”

It was such a personal item, I can’t see who else would buy it or imagine why it was donated to the CS. Made me feel quite emotional.

I really hate the amount of teacher tat that gets sold

I teach in a college so thankfully have never been bought any of it but my cousins teach primary and my Gran also used to before retiring, they hate it too. My two cousins had twelve best teacher mugs between them one year.

The thing is, it's positive to gift something to a charity shop so another person can use it. I can see in a few years that good quality second hand items might be sought after again if we manage to pull back from this awful throwaway society.

I remember seeing a fashion history programme about why so few ordinary peoples clothes from previous centuries survive for museums. It's because they were seen as valuable: hand made,
worn, handed down, worn again, altered, re styled, handed on again, cut up for childrens clothes, scraps made into patchwork and eventually sold as rags. Nothing was wasted but they touched many human lives. We shouldn't think of things as one person's property for ever - the human race needs to share scarce resources again like we used to.

I'm sure the I love Daddy teddy was donated due to it being surplus rather than any problem with Daddy.

Re the memory cushions - I'm in a couple of sewing FB groups that are crazy about making these memory items (cushions, teddies etc). Sometimes people are making batches of 10 or 12 or more. I suspect it's more about the giver or maker feeling they get some closure from creating and giving these things to the family. It's not hard to imagine that sometimes the receivers didn't ask for them or don't like having them around. It's sentimental but it's still "Stuff".

OP I'm like this! I loved the idea of an antique engagement ring but decided against it as I didn't know if it had come with a 'sad' background

Sometimes it's because the memories are too painful. Eg., the one with the grandfather's shirts made into a cushion.

I adored my grandpa and if someone had made me that, I would have hugely appreciated the sentiment but ... no, I couldn't keep it. It would just make me want to cry all the time. And oddly, I'd feel almost painful about his lovely shirts being cut up (silly, I know).

That just made me think how different people are.

(Oh, and just in case it makes you smile, the 'I love Daddy' makes me remember when DD was tiny and someone got us a pack of babygros without realising that, though the first one was plain with a heart, the other two had 'I love my mummy!' and 'I love my daddy!' written across them. I charity shopped them, with a giggle. DD doesn't have a daddy.)

DH had to sort through his parents' house a decade ago after they died and kept an 80l capacity plastic box which is in pur garage (big enough for all the photos, trophies and a couple of ornaments) and got rid of everything else. It's just stuff.

I get rid of cards, ornaments, gifts and stuff all the time. The space in my house is more valuable to me than the physical items.

I love a charity shop but I do wonder sometimes who has donated items. I picked up a mac in a shop not far from us one day, and in the pocket was a clean folded cotton hanky and one of those rain hats that came in little pouches. Took me right back to when we were cleaning out DH's late mum's house and found cotton hankies and rain hats in the pocket of every coat and every handbag. No wonder DH said she was never without one!

I think a lot of people are just decluttering more and not keeping things just for sentimental value. For instance when we moved, we went through all our engagement and wedding cards, selected ones that we wanted to keep and recycled the rest. We put them in a box with my headress, the ribbons from our wedding car and from our wedding cake and tucked it in the loft room.

I was only talking about this today, I love charity shops and bought a brand new labelled scarf for £2 with the £25 original sticker on, I did wonder why anyone would part with it as it's plain so would be easy to match and guessed maybe the owner died.

My own Dad died suddenly and had a couple of brand new jumpers he'd recently bought and didn't get chance to wear and they ended up at the charity shop.

When my mother died all her clothes went to a local charity shop. She used to say I had too many clothes, but I discovered she had far, far more than I ever did, including some brand new stuff still with the labels dangling. Also very expensive shoes and leather handbags. We were neither the same size or of the same taste, so it just had to go. I hope her clothing brought happiness to other people and money to the charity.
My father died within six months of my mother, so I had the same again, but with fewer items.
You never stop discovering things about yourself, do you? I realised that I am not in the slightest bit sentimental as I had no angst at all about getting rid of their posessions, even though i loved them dearly. My father had about 20 photo albums of bird photos from all over the world that he had taken on his travels. We burnt them. Who would have wanted those? Hundreds of unlabeled random birds in random trees!
I now take very few photos myself of scenery. I can no longer see the point as they will be of no interest when I'm gone.

Yes, the obviously personal things can be quite sad, but I suspect a lot of it is the oft recommended MN "token" gifts.

Or the relentless Secret Santa deluge of absolute shite.

As sad as it can be, it would be sadder if it all went to a landfill.

I find it hard to understand how people can give personal items away to strangers, OP, but I know I'm a weirdo

My gran had a prize tea set. it lived in a glass cabinet and noone was allowed to touch it (although I looked at it often as a child, and once accidentally put my head through the glass cabinet, for which I was severely reprimanded, but which thankfully the tea set survived!) My uncle still lived in my gran's house after she died, and we lost touch. I am sad I never got a chance to have her tea set. I'll bet he charity shopped it
On the other hand, DH's gran had 3 "special" tea sets, and she gave me the pick of them before she died. I don't really drink tea and have never had a tea party in my life, but I like to have it! I'm sure my girls will fight over it when I go. Better not take it to a charity shop!

I'm in the process of clearing out old toys for the charity shops. Stuff which the DC loved when they were 6, but don't want any more at 12.

But they LOVED those little things when they were 6. So it makes me bizarrely sad to get rid of them.

However... there are kids out there who will love them all over again, and whose parents may be on a tight budget and only be able to afford them from charity shops. Why would I hoard it all in my overstuffed house where it will never get used?

And I think you can even think that way about the belongings of the deceased. They enjoyed owning all those things and got as much joy as they could out of them for as long as possible. But they truly don't need or want them any more - they have "outgrown" them. Best that the stuff goes to someone who wants it now.

I used to manage a charity shop in Kensington and we used to get a lot of house clearances after people died. Being an affluent area, the stuff was often beautiful but very poignant. One lady brought in her mother's wedding dress - it was from the 1930s and was one of the loveliest things I've ever seen. She was extremely emotional so I took her into the back room and had a cup of coffee and a chat with her and made sure she was ok with donating it - she said she wanted it to do some good, and it did, because we sold it for £500. It really was spectacular.

We had a lot of older gentlemen bringing in their wives' belongings after they'd died - one brought us a carrier bagful of her wigs because he didn't know what to do with them. Another brought the coat his wife wore on their first date in the 50s and clothes she'd worn on their honeymoon. Lots of bric a brac that was precious to whoever it had belonged to, too, but sadly practically worthless. I lost count of the amount of holiday souvenirs and 'best grandad'-type ornaments we had to recycle. We did get some money for our recycling, but there was absolutely no market for items like those in the shop.

Possibly because of all this, I sometimes look at all my clutter and think that when I go, every bit of it represents a little bit of heartbreak for (probably) DD or DH who will have to pack it all up and give it away. It's a very sobering thought.

Mind, we also used to get given stained underwear, false teeth and worse so it's not all poignant and emotional!

I frequently buy things in charity shops. My ex took stuff that belonged to my mum and nan when he packed up to leave (I wasn't here). I have replaced those items with items that belonged to someone else's mum or nan. Gives me a nice feeling.