Things I find in the garbage

About a month ago I happened upon a big collection of bags, inside of which was either old (ie: 70s-90s) kitchen stuff or old bathroom / personal care products. There weren’t many bonus goodies in the kitchen bags, but there was some fun stuff mixed in with the latter. I had to sift through some real junk, but I spotted some silver jewelry early on so I did a thorough search of the bottom of the bags.

I came up with several nice pieces, most of which featured butterscotch amber or shiny black stone (hematite?). All have unusual or illegible hallmarks, but I think they likely came from Poland given the other items I found here, and also because Poland is apparently a big hub for amber jewelry.

These folks seem to be tossing once a month or so, which is kind of annoying because there’s not much else going on in this area and I don’t like going out of my way for nothing. But, so it goes.

This stuff is from an interesting, if short-lived spot in one of the Jewish neighbourhoods this summer. The collection above probably went from a junk box right into the trash. There are plenty of fun pieces here, including: a bird off a Napoleonic cartridge pouch, an 1886 silver Swiss franc, a bronze-looking pin commemorating the 50th anniversary of the massacres of Jews at Babi Yar, and an old Jewish medallion (like this one). The most interesting might be the key fob for the Athenee Palace hotel in Bucharest, which is described on Wikipedia as “arguably Europe’s most notorious den of spies” from its opening in 1914 to the end of the Cold War. Judging by its heavy brass construction and the way the room number is pressed into the metal, my guess is that this fob is from the early years.

Otherwise, I picked up some bigger brass items, like that ornate oil lamp and some bookends from Jerusalem. I also found some older skullcaps, one of which has a Soviet-era tag. Both my mom and I have done research on the latter. She thinks they’re from Central Asia generally but are not Jewish in particular, while I suspect that given the rest of the Jewish stuff it’s more likely that they have some relation to that community, maybe Bukharan Jews in particular given their larger size. If anyone knows their kippahs, maybe they can chime in and let us know what they think.