By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Forget the "Antiques Roadshow." You can have more fun getting in line on Wednesday and Saturday mornings at the Mother Rice KCAA Pre-School Thrift Shop in Mo'ili-'ili, down the street from the Humane Society.

Myrna Cundy's husband bought a herringbone wool sport coat for $2.50 last week. I picked up a designer aloha shirt for $1. A Pegge Hopper print went for $20. Ron Lau scooped an Honolulu Academy of Arts poster from the Michener Collection show in 1995 for $4.

Sometimes as many as 50 people are waiting for the store to open, many of them from Micronesia.

Volunteer clerk Nenring Nerro from Wai'anae originally lived in Chuuk. She tells her friends about the shop because it's cheap. A little warm shirt for a 2-year-old goes for 25 cents. You can buy a pair of kid's jeans for 75 cents. Adult jeans go for $2.50.

Rosetina Tenter from Majuro in the Marshall Islands priced a second-hand sewing machine and would have bought it except for a missing part. She said she comes every Wednesday to buy clothes that she sends to relatives back in Micronesia.

However, the crowds prowling the aisles last Wednesday included quite a few antique hunters. It's no wonder. That's how Ruth DeRieux got to be a volunteer.

"About 22 years ago I walked down from the Humane Society to check out the thrift shop," she said. "I picked up a gold ring that I recognized as a Tiffany design, one of those three-rings-in-one, each a different color gold. It was priced at 10 cents.

"I told the cashier that a ring designed by Tiffany was worth a lot more than 10 cents but she said they wouldn't change the price just because of that. I've been volunteering here ever since."

Ron Lau has been a steady customer for as long as he can remember. Last Wednesday he bought a 1912 silver, second-hand trumpet in the original case for $30. He wouldn't have if I'd gotten there first. You have to be fast on your feet in the Mother Rice Thrift Shop.

"Why did you buy the trumpet?" I asked him.

"I'll show you," he answered.

We went outside to his pickup truck. He took a funny-looking wristwatch out of the glove compartment. "This is a watch I picked up in the thrift shop," he said. "I saw one on a Web site priced at $1,200. So when I saw a trumpet that's almost 100 years old, I bought it."

Another fellow sat on the floor to contemplate a framed print by Paul Klee priced at $20. "I like it but I don't know where I'd hang it," he lamented. "My walls are chock-a-block already." So he walked out with two books, both first editions.

I won't promise that you'll find a masterpiece priced at $3.50 at the Mother Rice Thrift Shop, but you'll have a lot of fun. How about a Bogartesque trench coat for $9 marked down to $4.50?

"We'll match prices with any thrift shop in town," said Beverly Ashford, head volunteer.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.