Not necessarily contradictory. One pair of signs says everything is $1 or less, and the other pair says everything is $1 or more. The logical conclusion is that everything is exactly $1.

...because as we all know from reading The Consumerist, companies strive to be straightforward and fair whenever possible. :)

Oh God. This is right after the whole "Not a Sign" thing.

Head exploding in 5...4...3...

There is no period behind the roof sign, so that could be nothing over $1oo.00

If that store really has everything for $1 on the nose, I would call that the most genius storefront known to mankind.

@FrugalFreak: Yeah but the window signs say Nothing over $1

This isn't just the big banner sign: "All frozen food $1 or more"

I'm so confused!

Am I the only one who thinks this was photoshopped?

Or maybe just wishful thinking on my part, in hopes that such a dumb set of signs cannot possible exist.

@rockasocky: Well, technically there's nothing wrong with the signs as long as EVERYTHING inside the store is exactly $1.00 because then the signs are true. Everything costs at least $1.00, but at the same time everything is $1.00 and less.

Can you imagine the sort of grocery shrink ray they must have to have such inelastic pricing though?

If I wasn't from NJ, I would think this was fake...but yep, I've seen stuff like this.

There's no logical inconsistency here. Clearly, this store contains nothing, since the intersection of (Everything $1) is the empty set. Any merchandise that happens to be within this store is either not for sale, or doesn't actually exist.

This must be where Target buys their signs and baskets.

@Kogenta:
Can you imagine the sort of grocery shrink ray they must have to have such inelastic pricing though?

In my experience, this sort of place usually sells "trailing edge" stuff that is very close to (or sometimes past) the expiration date. Its bought cheaply as other stores rotate stock, and sold at a big discount. So, I imagine they have a simple rule for their buyer: If we can't sell it for profit at $1/unit, don't buy it.

@FrugalFreak: The line underneath the zeroes is the same thing as a period.

Irvington, NJ, my Consumerist friends. Go check it out!

@ludwigk: It's a house of mirrors and somewhere in the middle is a box of Hamburger Helper.

Oh, and I sent my sister the link to the Target "This is not a sign" post, which gave her the inspiration to take this picture, lol.

Gotta love NJ.

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like a Photoshop job?

@GayNerd: No. But you're wrong also.

x being the price of the item

x 1;

It's a redundant way of saying

x==1;

The signs are stupid and a waste of space but not contradictory.

Apparently it's at 646 Nye Ave, Irvington NJ. What's weird is look at the Birds-Eye view of the store.. the roof says Bravo on it! Is this a treasure hunt?

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&ss=ypid.YN573x9807348&encType=1

I find these signs to be shallow and pedantic.

@ludwigk: Although I applaud your attempt to demonstrate your knowledge of the empty set, see the comments above, summarized here for your convenience.

Proposition { x | x ∈ store ∧ price(x) ≤ $1 ∧ price(x) ≥ $1} ⇒ price(x) = $1, ∀x
Corollary. x ≠ ∅

Proof. (Left as an exercise to the reader.)

nonprofit blog = blog under a nonprofit org
failblog = non profit fail

Here it is in the (American-style, super-blurry, useless-for-reading-names-of-businesses) street view

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=dollar+near+Irvington,+NJ&ll=40.725145,-74.232945&layer=c&cbll=40.725141,-74.233077&panoid=wL8o96ZH7IY3A1tbQveKFA&cbp=12,139,,1,-4

It's nice to see their yellow pages entry, at least, is non-contradictory:

Just For A Dollar
646 Nye Ave, Irvington, NJ‎
(973) 399-7739‎

Definite fake. See in the close-up of the neon "Nothing Over $1" inset, you can see a reflection of the guy taking the picture? Yeah, same reflection is in the "Nothing Over $1" on the actual store, 3rd from the right. That's pretty impossible. Also there's some pretty obvious artifacting on the green lettering at the top.

@FrugalFreak: That reminds me of the old Muppet movie way back when. The Muppets are buying a used car for their adventure/journey and a fly lands on the price sticker. One of them slaps the fly and splats it, and it makes a dot, lowering the price from $5000 to $50.00.

@youbastid: No?

Clearly NOTHING OVER $1°° is the name of the store and "EVERYTHING A $1.00 OR MORE" is what they have.

I could call my store FREE SOCKS and have "EVERYTHING $100,000°°

Sure nobody would by anything but I don't have a store anyways.

@Michael Belisle: my post, which got borked at some point due to brackets, was correct as written, but I had misread the first sign as "everything under $1".

Even without the contradictory signs, I still don't understand the point of an "everything over $1" store. You go to a dollar store because you want to buy cheap crap, and you know how much you are going to pay for it.

A Mercedes dealership can call itself "everything over $1".

@rockasocky: I've seen many things in Jersey that I wished simply didn't exist.

No No No... It's very clear!
It's "Nothing Over $1.00" TM. It's a trade mark.

So it's "At Nothing Over $1.00 TM, we sell products at 1$ and over."

@Hoss: Non-profit fail? LIKE GM?

@Michael Belisle: This is hard.

New jersey?

Ever see the adds for 'Housewives of NJ'? My first thought was 'don't they check the water for lead anymore?'

If a post-op transexual dwarf with a rainbow wig was added to the lineup, hardly anyone would notice.

@youbastid: Artifacting can also occur due to the extremely cheap camera I bought my sister.

@Michael Belisle: great, now my wrong post is "Most Discussed", everyone will read it and think that I'm a moran:

[images.huffingtonpost.com]

and proof by contradiction is *always* the fastest and easiest way to go, until you're saddled with a strong constructivist prof who doesn't accept the old reductio ad absurdum.

@Con Seannery '09: Illegal in 1 Giz: Hahaha. Nice.

@youbastid: And the shadows are all wrong.

*expert nod*

@ludwigk: Just trying to help you out.

You see, now that you and I have both commented again, your thread is that much more ahead in the race.

My first thought was (being familiar with the Seattle area) the Korean/Chinese/Filipino shop owner translated the signs wrong when they ordered them. Someone in Jersey should go see if the shop is indeed owned by an Asian/Pac Islander.

@MikeHerbst: Yes, this is true, but then you have to deal with sizing. You get a big can o soup for $1, and a little can of soup for how much? Based on the signs, both cans must be $1.

@ekzachtly: Quite contradictory indeed. One pair of signs says nothing over $1 (nothing is more than $1). The other pair informs us that EVERYTHING is either a $1 or more than $1. So can I spend less than a dollar here? Only according to the first sign. Can't imagine what these store employees think every time they walk into their store.

It's not confusing. There is nothing OVER the "Nothing Over 1" sign. Unless you count the sky. But everyone knows you're supposed to always ignore the sky in these word riddles.

Also, also in NJ, there's a dollar store that recently changed its name from The Dollar (or Less) store, to the Dollar (more or less) store. Truth in advertising. Only dollar or more store I still support.

Just saw the same photo at Lostinjersey: [lostinjersey.wordpress.com] The photo seems to have been posted at Gawker on the 23rd: [cache.gawker.com]

Can't someone just give the address of this store?

I can't vouch for this particular store, but here in Jersey City where I live, there are a ton of "$0.99 and less and up" stores that drive me crazy. What's the point in putting a price in your store's name if you're going to say everything costs either more or less than that price? UGH!

So, even if it looks Photoshopped, I bet it's not. There really are stores like that here in Jersey.

Uh...uh...baba boie baba boie Howard Stern's penis!

@Michael Belisle:

Oh man.. you just brought me back to my Discrete Logic class.

@WorldHarmony: Is the Consumerist site a division of Gawker?