Surprising finds at a second hand store

My daughter needed strings for her new guitar that Santa Claus brought her. Neither my husband nor I ever learned how to play a musical instrument. Outside the school system that is.  Both of us went to elementary schools were it was compulsory for everyone to learn an instrument at a young age. Pianaca for my husband in Japan, a tin whistle for me in Ireland. Neither of us remember, neither of us can read music!  But somehow all four of my children are musical! We are learning through them. 

But the guitar is still brand new to us all. So when my daughter broke a string on her new guitar we weren't sure how you can go about replacing it. Thankfully, she knows a lot more than us and explained that we can buy guitar strings in a music store. The nearest music store is in an annex of Maruhiro and as such we knew it would be really busy this week and wanted another option. Thankfully my husband remembered someone once telling him how second hand stores are a great option for the parts for musical instruments. So off I went to 2nd Street, a large second hand chain store in Japan.

In the branch we went to they had a small area for music related items. They actually had a few guitars on sale, about a dozen. There were also amps, foot pedals, various types of stands for instruments and several other items I have no idea about! At first we didn't see any strings and we were disappointed. But after playing in the crane game area upstairs (another surprising find) we decided to take one more look before going home and my daughter spotted some. They had ones for acoustic guitars and eclectic ones too. They had different brands and sizes. She wasn't sure of the size, so I bought two different sizes.

They were 880 yen for a pack of six. When I got home and looked up the price online, I think that we got a bargain. From what I can tell, usually the size and quantity we bought is at least 1800 yen. However, as I said I am no expert. But it makes sense that they would be cheaper in a second hand store. Basically somebody sold their unused strings at a fraction of the price they bought them and thus we got them at a discounted price. A win-win for all!