The photographer

garbagefinds5 Comments

I went out for a walk on one of the first truly warm days of the year. I was headed for my storage space, although I forget exactly why. This being a blog about finding things in the garbage, you might not be surprised to hear that I spotted a huge pile on my way there.

I think I was the first to stop and look. Some guys were still bringing new things out when I got there. I asked about bugs and they indicated there were none. However, whoever owned this stuff struggled with cleaning, and probably did a bit of hoarding too. Also, they were a smoker, although the stink was pretty moderate compared to some places I’ve picked at.

I sifted through many bags filled with grimy junk in hopes of finding a buried treasure. I spent about three hours digging, and made a little pile (on the left in the photo above). At some point it was big enough that I carried it to my garage and then came back and started a new pile. About 1.5 hours in, some others started showing up and poking around. I talked to some 20 something about why people throw out photos, and another guy who was poking around handed me a camera bag (with camera) that I had missed.

The guy was definitely into photography. I saved a couple albums, most of which are well composed nature shots, many probably taken in the park facing the building. More importantly for my finances, I saved two Nikon cameras from the early 2010s (including the one that guy handed to me). They were very well cared for (unlike a lot of the other stuff), and in near mint condition apart from the moderate cigarette stench. I tossed the bags, straps, and other components that would be hard to de-smell, and gave the cameras to a friend who knows a lot more than I do about them. She was able to freshen them up and test them, and she’ll sell them in exchange for a cut. I should make some decent money once it’s all said and done, though it may take a while.

My favourite find though was this ring, which I found near the end of my three hours of digging. It was amongst a bunch of junky bric-a-brac at the bottom of a big black bag. It’s got Soviet hallmarks, a hammer and sickle with the number 583, which was the Soviet standard for 14k gold (elsewhere, 585). The ruby is almost certainly lab grown, apparently they were in style there back in the day. The raised setting is pretty cool, and makes this a fairly flashy cocktail-style ring. It looks like it was only lightly used, if at all.

Based on eBay’s sold listings, I think this is probably worth about 1k CAD, give or take, but I’m not in a rush to sell it. For now it’s still a cool reminder that trash can be very good, even when it’s messy and smells like Export As.

In other news, I made a little website. Introducing garbage.news, a way to promote my yard sales without clogging up this blog, or making people log into Instagram or other websites. It’s a very basic page that I hope is pretty straightforward, just put in your email and hit subscribe! If you don’t have a WordPress account, it appears to make you a basic profile that is linked to your email, but you don’t have to use it. Anyways, sign up now and I’ll send out a test post in the coming days to see how it’s working. It did well in beta testing (my mom and sister basically, ha ha) but depending on your email provider they may go to “spam” or “social” – if so, I think if you move them to your regular inbox, they’ll go there in the future. Please let me know here if there are any issues in signing up or otherwise.

On a side note, when I chose that domain, I was trying to find something that would be easy to remember. But I also thought it was a good investment gamble. I figure there is a non-0% chance that someone might want to buy the garbage.news domain someday!

The 5 million dollar house

garbagefinds11 Comments

One of my most recent spots was a big house in a nice neighbourhood. It had been put on the market, and I guessed it was going for 5 million. I checked online and it turns out I was just about right, although I would have lost by Price is Right rules – 4.995m. It was a nice, if bland house with a sweet swimming pool. When I’m picking the trash of people this well off, I’m hoping they go “full privilege.” In my financial position, I can spend 1-10$ and not really regret it at all. I assume that some of the people that make 100x what I do, probably feel the same way about 100-1000$ transactions.

These guys never went full privilege, to their credit. No gold, not much jewelry. A lot of empty Hermes boxes, but only a couple of Hermes products (perfumes). I saved a bunch of clothes, but most were really boring so I donated them. Same with the household and kitchen stuff.

Of course I did save a few notable things, otherwise I wouldn’t be posting about it. One day a bunch of picture frames got tossed; I took some yard sale quality ones and left some junkier ones. This one looks pretty plain, but was easily the most valuable of that bunch. It’s a solid silver Tiffany frame, and given that it weighs over 100 grams, it’s worth about 400$ for scrap. Given the dents, scratches, and other defects, I think that’s all it is, but obviously a find like that makes my trash run worthwhile.

I also made a decent amount of money from these iPhones. It’s very rare that I find an iPhone that isn’t locked to iCloud (and therefore essentially a brick), but I usually give them a charge just in case. It turned out that two of the three were reset prior to being tossed. They both had a couple issues, one with the camera and one with a cracked back screen, but they were relatively modern (iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max), and I was able to easily sell them to a local business for 150$ and 195$ respectively. In the past I would have sold them on eBay, but this way saved me a lot of hassle and I think the price was very fair. The 3rd one is doomed to the e-waste pile unfortunately.

Other decent if unexciting finds include a couple small pieces of silver, a nice pewter wine funnel, and some new-in-box Wifi doohickies I was able to sell pretty easily on eBay for 80$ a pop. These folks have since moved, but this spot was nice while it lasted.

I decided to quit Instagram the other day. I just don’t like what the app has become. I first joined in 2015 when it was a fun, casual space. Now it’s all about reels, AI slop, and promoting addictive (and often fake) information. Funny enough though, after I quit I started having the temptation to post again. However, I think I can just post the same type of content here, where there are no ads and no BS. So, maybe I’ll do a new type of post soon, once I get enough random pictures to make it worthwhile.

I’ve been fairly lucky recently. Last week I had a couple nice gold hauls, from spots that were easy to pick. This week, I’ve come across two hoarder type piles, which were a lot of work to sort through and provided no easy money. However, there’s no way to know what you’re going to find, and who knows, maybe the easy money is coming next week. Also, the hoarder piles tend to produce more interesting yard sale quality junk.

Jim

garbagefinds24 Comments

On February 15th, around 1:40 in the morning, my stepdad passed away after a long battle with Lewy Body dementia. Lewy Body is a progressive disease, so the outcome was largely foretold and the main unknown was the exact timing.

My biological dad died from lung cancer when I was 12, so in a lot of ways Jim ended up being the primary father figure in my life. And I’m not sure where I’d be if not for his influence. For example, when I was young, I was generally anxious, painfully shy and largely avoided other humans. I refused to eat much besides peanut butter and jam sandwiches and disliked most food. My dad was a little too laissez-faire, Jim was more proactive.

I remember he made me sit at the table until I finished my chunky soup. I cried a bunch (I was probably like 8, ha ha), but I ate that soup. And now today, the only food I truly hate is olives.

He also made me start talking to people. I would have to call restaurants to make reservations, golf courses to make tee times, and so on. And what do you know, I ended up coming out of my shell, and became a reasonably functional human bean (pun intended, one of his favourites). It was basic exposure therapy, but it worked.

He was determined and sometimes bull-headed, which led him down many different paths. Most famously, he formed Operation Dismantle to oppose nuclear proliferation, and if you were Canadian and watching or listening to the news in the late 70s and 80s, there’s a good chance you saw him on your TV. More recently, he was focused on his own vision of world federalism, where his idealism led him down a path well before its time.

I hadn’t seen him since 2014, due to my own illness (agoraphobia/fear of traveling), and then his progressing dementia. I’ll always regret my part in that, but it is what it is. We grew apart for a few years there, and then the Lewy Bodies made it impossible to build much on the foundation afterwards. He had a hard time relating to my mental issues, which are apparently too complicated to be solved by exposure therapy alone. He never really understood the trash picking either. I think he doubted the long-term viability of it, which is fair. Only in recent years do I think, without a doubt, that I’ve proven that making an ok living doing this is possible. But by that time, his brain wasn’t working so well anymore.

He always loved owls and had a nice collection of miniatures. I sold him a bunch more several years back, when I found a nice collection on the curb. His brain was starting to go around then, so I’m not sure the headspace he was in when he decided to buy them. Maybe he just liked the owls, or maybe he just wanted to connect. Regardless, I’ll soon inherit a few of my favourites, as well as some other stuff. Dealing with someone’s possessions can be overwhelming, which is partly why some of it ends up in the trash (even when it’s treasure), but I think our family knows how to deal with it in the best way possible.

Anyways, he could be a pain in the arse sometimes, but no one could dispute his passion and his dedication to the betterment of humanity as a whole. He didn’t like religion and didn’t believe in heaven, but I’m more of an agnostic. Who knows, maybe some part of him is still out there, and hopefully he’s proud of what comes next for both me and humanity (even if it’s looking a little bleak right now).