Spring pt.2

garbagefinds7 Comments

Astronomical spring is almost over. The season was pretty good to me, although things have been a bit slower (but still decent) as of late. Moving day is coming up, and although the phenomenon has rarely been a great source of trash for me, I have some new ideas for this year that I’ll be trying out.

One spot in a nice part of town was very good to me over a period of a couple of months. I saved lots of yard sale stuff, and some decent electronics such as digital cameras and a Nintendo DS. However, I was pretty busy at the time so I only got around to taking pictures of the jewelry, most of which came in two hauls over a few weeks. The first box on the left is the silver from the first haul, the middle the silver from the second, and the right is the gold from both.

The silver jewelry was pretty cool, and included a couple of Tiffany pieces (the skeleton key pendant and the classic Elsa Peretti heart pendant) and a Links of London necklace. That one pendant on the left is huge and ornate. All in all there was about 250 grams of silver (including stones), and a little over 6 grams of gold. Most likely, it belonged to teenagers or recently former teenagers who don’t know the value of their possessions.

I’m pretty sure this stuff was tossed by someone famous, but trash pickers are bound by professional ethics laws so I’m not telling. The sports cards were high quality and never opened, they made me around 300$ at auction. The jewelry there is all silver or white gold. And there may be a trend where people are now throwing away unlocked iPhones. Maybe now that you can transfer your info to a new phone just by bringing it next to the old one, more phones are being factory reset than in the past. I posted about an iPhone not long ago, found an unlocked 10 elsewhere, and then this 13 Pro Max. There were some cracks on the back glass, but was otherwise in fine condition. I sold it to a friend for 230$, which is about what I would have gotten from that local company I’ve started using to sell relatively new cell phones.

This one house was a one-hit wonder that I had high hopes for. On the first day, I salvaged a bunch of yard sale quality stuff, including some nice if unexceptional pens. I also saved a near-perfect vintage c. 50s or 60s Canadiens wool sweater. This was during our playoff run, so I did an eBay auction and it sold for 100$. I also found my first ever silver bar, a 1oz by Johnson Matthey for Scotiabank. I had to cut it out from the plastic to take a closer look, even if that might devalue it slightly in the eyes of some nerds. I was hoping for more bars, but I think this one just got overlooked. A couple weeks later I found a bunch of 1976 Olympic coin set boxes, but they were all empty.

In the random ephemera category, I found an old stock certificate for a Brooks Steam Motors Ltd, which from the sounds of things was an early automobile scam. Almost 100 years later Nikola would pull a similar trick, but with electric cars. The certificate is probably worth a little bit, but I’m thinking of getting it framed and put on my wall.

I also really like the New Lotus Cafe restaurant menu. This was a Chinese Restaurant in Montreal, and presumably it was designed around Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.

And lastly, a few other miscellaneous finds. I’m pretty confident the pieces on the top left are ivory. The heart has an unmarked 10k gold loop, and the bracelet has a 14k embellishment with a nice looking red stone. In completely random one-off piles, I found a gold pin that relates to dentistry somehow, and a 1976 Olympics participation medal. It’s made of copper and seems to be worth like 150$ bucks, just as a collectible.

I’m trying to do some work on my book. For now the progress is slow, but sometimes things can evolve quickly. So I have a bit of an absurd question that might help me on one chapter, which is: why don’t you become a professional trash picker like me? I know there are many reasons not to, I just want to hear them!

Spring pt.1

garbagefinds5 Comments

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

garbagefinds4 Comments

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.

Screenshot
Screenshot

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.