Spring pt.1

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I’m going to switch from a monthly format to a seasonal one, because the former requires a bit too much micromanagement (of photos, exact dates I found things, etc). When people are clearing out a house, sometimes I’ll find things at the same place for months on end, so this offers me a bit more flexibility in that regard.

One house (still producing finds!) has tossed a seemingly endless supply of old kid’s junk. The vast majority isn’t salvageable but I’m able to pick some fun things from the detritus, most notably (so far) a Comical Clara wind-up tin toy that seems to be fairly collectible.

Otherwise there’s been a bit of very random stuff, such as a bunch of old Italian communist posters and a 1976 Montreal Olympics flag that just sold at auction for 67$. Hopefully the finds here continue into the summer.

I decided to experiment with a different route a few weeks back, and was rewarded nearly instantly by a recently sold house. Most of the trash is picked up the next morning in this one area, but a little section is picked up in the late afternoon, so often people won’t put out the trash until the next day. However, some put it out at night, and those piles seem to be disproportionately good. Anyways, I found an old yellow organizer with its content, which was mostly sewing stuff but also including some coins, medals, buttons and other quality junk. Probably the most valuable items are a 1965 French silver coin, and a silver medal commemorating the 1935 silver jubilee of George V.

The next week I saved a bucket filled with mostly pennies. I didn’t see anything last week though, so maybe this spot has been exhausted (and maybe I missed some even better finds in the weeks prior).

And for miscellaneous finds, I saved four little sterling silver forks at a one-off spot, and a bag of French Euro coins just down the street. The latter was given out when France was converting to the Euro back in 2002, and contains a little over 15 Euros. I sold them to my neighbour for the face value in CAD. Otherwise, here’s two fun books, one in English and one in Czech.

The Habs game is starting soon, and then I’m going out for trash again. Go Habs Go!

April pt.1

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It’s been a busy month. Spring is here, the trash has been bountiful, and I’ve done three sales in the past two weeks (with another planned for tomorrow). There were so many good finds that it’ll take a couple posts to share them, and that’s not including the stuff I’m holding for potential individual posts.

One spot produced boxes full of brand new pottery from China. Over two weeks, I accumulated about 3x what you see above, all of it wrapped nicely in foam and bubble wrap. Some had price tags in yuan on them; the ones that did were priced equivalent to 15-20 CAD each. I’m pretty picky about my pottery, but I thought these were pretty good quality. Nonetheless I was worried that they wouldn’t sell well at my yard sale, as dishes aren’t usually a hot commodity, but I’ve already sold about 2 boxes worth. I also picked up some packaged food which was either not expired or lightly expired, some of which I’ve been eating. I haven’t seen anything here in the last couple weeks, but I’d be willing to take more free food and pottery if it’s offered.

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It was a big month for Lego as well. This spot especially – most of the bags were packing material, but a few were stuffed with Lego. All in all I saved about 15kg (33lbs) along with some instruction books, all of which sold for a bit over 200$. At another house, I saved another 8kg or so, which sold for like 182$.

I recently rediscovered the local auction house, the type that focuses on pretty mundane stuff like this. So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the prices realized. I’ll get into that more in a future post, but this strategy turns Lego into “easy money.”

Here’s some of the more miscellaneous finds of the month. That bent mirror was sterling, and contributed somewhere between 100-150 grams (who can remember?) to my scrap pile.

As for treasures, I’ve found a bunch. The second batch was actually from March, but who’s keeping track? The first batch is mostly silver and a little bit of white gold, a reduction from a larger collection, while the second were three pieces inside a slightly busted glass-topped box, all of which were gold.

I guess I’ve also been busy watching Canadiens playoff hockey (or listening on TSN 690 if I want to go out for a trash run). It’s been a fun run so far, here’s hoping for a good game tonight against Buffalo! The city is a lot more fun when the team is contending … and it also helps me sell my Canadiens stuff at yard sales. Anyways, I’m planning to do one tomorrow, and will post the deets soon on my garbage.news announcement page.

March photo dump

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Today I’ll do my first of this “Instagram-inspired” post. Basically, these are pictures of things I find that probably don’t warrant a post of their own, but I think are cool, fun, interesting, or valuable enough for an honourable mention. My plan right now is to do this monthly, and probably in the middle of the month, but we’ll see how it goes.

These are the one-off finds, from places that tossed only a few notable things, or maybe even just one. There were four American dollars in that wallet. Besides the 500$ in old bills I found wrapped in a bed sheet when an apartment was cleaned out a few years back, I haven’t have much luck finding cash hauls since 2018, which was a crazy year that produced three hauls between 1-400$. I’ve been finding the occasional small bill, but that’s it … for the time being, at least.

Here’s some of my finds from two big piles that took a long time to sort through. One was from a well-to-do part of town, the other from a humble part of Côte-des-Neiges. I’ll let you guess which is which! The former might produce again, the other seems to have been a one-hit wonder.

And finally, the miscellaneous treasures of the month, all from pretty upscale neighbourhoods. The box seemed to hold a mix of coming-of-age junk, maybe relating to Greek Orthodoxy? The best things inside were a little 9k gold bracelet, and a pretty 10k gold ring. Elsewhere, I scrounged a bit of silver and some Euro coins from the bottom of a white bag. I thought those folks had moved, and was surprised to see a bit more trash there last week, including a bigger haul of jewelry that is probably destined for next month’s post. Finally, in addition to a bunch of other yard sale type stuff, another person tossed a bunch of jewelry (mostly silver, but a few gold bits), and also a little change purse that had like 20$ inside. Easy money! I think that Hermes watch is real, but it’s missing the crystal.