Thrift store drama

[unclehobart]

Has this ever happend to you?

After bringing home todays purchases we have noticed that one still has one of those anti shoplifting magnet dealies from the original merchant that go right through the meat of the clothes on a low hem. Its a JCpenny tag that has *warning* tampering with tag will release garment destroying ink and could cause injury. ... how lovely.

Anyone know how to defeat these stupid things? I'm about to go out into the garage and tap it with a drill to dry and release it in a safe direction.

 

[Professur]

Gimme a photo. These things are designed to be difficult to remove in a store. But with a half decent toolkit, they're no bother. (Oh shit. I remember your toolkit.)

 

[unclehobart]

 

[unclehobart]

I was thinking of slipping a ziploc bag over the end and slicing a hole just large enough for the mechanism to get through, and tapping the cone side with a fine drill to either bleed out the ink or let the pressure ball pop in a harmless direction... and repeating the process with the flat side as it seems to have a little depth to it as well and might have extra ink over there. I just hope the thing doesn't have a mini explosive in it that will send plastic fragments into my hands and eyes.

 

[Professur]

I was gonna suggest saran wrap. Nope, that's not one I've seen up here. Can you get a look up the inside of that cone? I'd wager that you could use a file/rasp to slice a ring off it, exposing a pin that's cuttable.

 

[unclehobart]

I've been reading up on this kind of tag... or at least tag style. Apparently the cone side is a spring with ball bearings and a copper band for the alarm. Its the disk side thats tricky. It has 2 tubes of nasty dye; one being a visible marker and one being a UV marker. It can't be frozen and you sure don't want to force it. If the pin is pulled out with the bearings in lock mode, needles rip up through the dye packs. The way to apparently take this sucker on is to hack through the cone cap and disassmble the spring assembly. It should then fall right apart.

 

[Inkara1]

Might I also suggest not going to that thrift store anymore? If they didn't check for something big like an ink tag, then who knows what other hot items they might be accepting?

 

[unclehobart]

We were also in the laibility loop because we didn't notice the darn thing either until we got home. It was tucked down deep on the lowest hem of the dress

in any case... success!

 

[unclehobart]

Dremels truly are the tool of the gods.

 

[chcr]

Amazing to think it was invented by a dentist, huh?

 

[Leslie]

they don`t have a return for credit policy?

If not, they might suddenly get one if you call the cops

 

[woodman19_99]

That's freakin cool! I have always wondered what the inside of those things looked like. Now you need to rig it to play a nasty joke on someone!

 

[tonksy]

they don`t have a return for credit policy?

If not, they might suddenly get one if you call the cops

But then I couldn't sell it for 3X what I paid for it.

 

[unclehobart]

Being as we bought it from a thrift store and not a JC Penny there are no returns... thrift store sales are final. A JC Penny may have understood and taken the thing off... but the nearest unit would be an hours round trip and cost more in gas than the dress was worth. My tools were right here and gutting it for the sake of manly inquisitive science took only 10.

 

[Inkara1]

I just hope you're not selling stolen goods.

 

[Leslie]

Being as we bought it from a thrift store and not a JC Penny there are no returns... thrift store sales are final.

Ours aren`t, that`s why I asked

 

[tonksy]

I just hope you're not selling stolen goods.

But...but...we paid for it. I've got a receipt
I think that Goodwill would have taken it back, all their sales aren't final...especially if their tag is still on the item. But we would have had to take the drive to Smyrna and back again and that would have spent the $4 the dress costs and I would be out of any profit I stand to make.

 

[Inkara1]

I still remember the time my mom and I were driving down the main street in town and she saw my old rocking horse from when I was a kid sitting out in front of an antique store.

 

[Winky]

magnet

 

[Professur]

We were also in the laibility loop because we didn't notice the darn thing either until we got home. It was tucked down deep on the lowest hem of the dress

in any case... success!

Yeah, that's pretty much how I figured it would come off. But I'd have cut lower on the cone and cut the pin.