FRIDAY UPDATE: The sale has been cancelled for Saturday, May 11, due to inclement weather in the forecast. The sale is set to continue Saturday, May 18.
FAYETTEVILLE -- A black couch with dodo birds is gone.
Along with three hanging lamps from the 1970s.
But fans of True Detective can still buy a Hoyt Foods poster for $5 on Saturday.
Hoyt Foods was a fictional chicken company in Season 3 of the HBO television drama, which was filmed in Northwest Arkansas from February 2018 until August.
The Salvation Army Thrift Store in Fayetteville is liquidating nine truckloads of clothing, furniture and props from the show.
"It was such a large donation, I didn't have room to store it," said Capt. Joshua Robinett, the Salvation Army's area commander for Northwest Arkansas.
The film crew bought lots of stuff from vintage and thrift stores in Fayetteville, including the Salvation Army Thrift Store at 1645 S. West Ave. Then it donated much of it back to the Salvation Army.
Robinett said True Detective wanted the Salvation Army to wait until after the episodes had aired before selling the props. The eight episodes of Season 3 aired Jan. 13 through Feb. 24.
The Salvation Army Thrift Store's True Detective sale is being held over three Saturdays -- April 27, May 11 and May 18. The thrift store is normally open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, but shoppers willing to pay $10 can get it at 8 a.m. Saturday and May 18.
"All of this stuff is marked fairly," Robinett said. "It's not marked way up because it was on the show."
On the first day of the True Detective sale, April 27, about 500 items from the show were sold, netting about $2,000, said Terri Rutherford, manager of the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Fayetteville.
She said another truckload of stuff will be hauled in for Saturday's sale. Rutherford said she didn't know exactly what will be in that truck.
Only a fraction of the props for sale actually appeared on the show. The film crew apparently bought way more than it needed, just in case. Spotting a particular item that appeared in one of the eight episodes of Season 3 requires a detective's eye.
The April 27 sale included three 1970s-era hanging lamps and two black couches, one "with dodo birds all over it," said Rutherford.
"Just vintage old farmhouse looking stuff," she said. "Middle-class furniture of the time."
The lamps and couches sold for $80 each, Rutherford said.
Left over from the first day of the sale was a chair from the apartment of Wayne Hays, the lead character in the show, an Arkansas State Police detective played by the actor Mahershala Ali.
The chair is priced at $10, said Katie Morris, a spokesman for the Salvation Army.
Shirts are priced from $2 to $4. A $5 tag hangs from a cracked "vegan leather jacket," as Rutherford described it.
Some of the items have blue tape from the True Detective set explaining how or where it was used on the show. A $7 sport coat is labeled "Tom Purcell Trailer."
The actor Scoot McNairy portrays Tom Purcell in Season 3. Purcell is the father of two missing children in True Detective.
Robinett said proceeds from the thrift store go toward the Salvation Army's homeless shelters in Northwest Arkansas, and for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The Salvation Army has emergency shelters in Fayetteville and Bentonville in Northwest Arkansas.
Harriet Wells, an employee of Cheap Thrills, a vintage clothing store in Fayetteville, said the True Detective crew shopped there, too.
"They spent a lot of money all over town," she said. "They spent quite a bit with us."
Wells watched the show and said the clothing looked familiar.
"All those extras in it were wearing clothes they had bought from us and other people," she said, referring to other Fayetteville shops.
Wells said that after filming ended in August, thrift store owners in Fayetteville were invited to a private sale at the True Detective warehouse.
"They invited people to purchase stuff back," she said.
Wells and Cheap Thrills owner Greta P. Allendorf took them up on the offer.
"We bought a ton of stuff at a very good price," Wells said. "They were very fair and really nice. We just went through and picked the things we wanted. It was like going to a yard sale."
Wells said she was glad that the used clothing wasn't just thrown away.
Some of the clothing that she and Allendorf purchased was displayed on a rack at Cheap Thrills under a sign that read "As seen on True Detective."
"People did love the idea of buying stuff that had been in the show," Wells said. "They got a kick out of it."
Robin, a shopkeeper at 410 Vintage Market in Fayetteville, who didn't want to give her last name, said the shop sold several items to the True Detective crew.
"This orange cabinet was in the police station," she said, referring to the police station on the television show.
A pair of size 9 men's work boots includes a tag noting that the footwear is from the set of True Detective.
Robin said the boots were worn on the show by Steven Williams, the actor who played Junius Watts, a suspect.
The boots are priced at $45.
Robinett said the True Detective crew bought local and supported local businesses.
"Then, when they were all done, they donated it back," he said.
A Section on 05/09/2019