I'm a professional scavenger making a living selling curbside garbage. This blog details my finds and sales. It also acts as an archive for things beautiful and historic that would otherwise have been destroyed.
Yesterday, I found a great load of trash on Esplanade near Marie-Anne. I spent a while there, and came back with some pretty interesting stuff. However, because of my imminent move and the fact that I’m working more frequently, I don’t really have the time now to do it all justice. I’ll give you a hint though – it’s all paper.
For now, there’s a few odds and ends from the same place I can show ya.
A couple of beautiful old alarm clocks. Neither really wound, but I figure someone might have an interest in fixing them. I left them out “for free” in my yard sale and they’re both gone, so that’s good.
A couple of old wood tobacco pipes. The stem on one is cracked, but that’s probably easily fixed.
I like this old lamp. It needs a good clean and a nice lampshade, but otherwise it looks really nice!
I’m not sure what this metal things is. It looks cool though. My guess was something to do with shoe-making. Any thoughts?
I was at work today and found all these photograph holders. A bunch of them contained printoffs of generic pictures of horses and others were prints of some pretty cool drawings of horses and people. I’ll sort through it later – I don’t really want the horse pictures, but I’ll keep a few of the drawings as well as the books themselves.
A while back, not too long before I left on my trip, I happened to go to a storage facility in the Griffintown section of Montreal. A friend of mine was working there, and having worked the same job (and passed it on to him) I knew the dumpsters there were pretty decent. I had found a nice shiny trumpet, a cool palm-tree candle holder, and some books (including a mid 1800s book on fabric table measurements), among other things.
I had a bit of spare time after work and met up with him while he was at the facility, mostly to peek into the garbage. I came across some pretty technical science books, and then I pulled out this green garbage bag. It was full of old love letters, 155 in total, all postmarked in the early 1940s. I was pretty interested, but didn’t have the time to look much at them. I grabbed the bag and headed on home.
Later, I showed them to my roommate Courtney, who took a pretty strong interest in them. I was happy that someone else was interested in them and the unique and personal story they offered, and gave them to her to do with as she pleased.
Now, she has just created a blog devoted to these letters and the exploration of intensely personal and cultural history within. In her own words: “This blog is a romance, a mystery and a glimpse into the past.”
I think it’s a pretty awesome idea, and I think she has the vision and passion needed to make it a really interesting and historically valuable project.
But anyways, enough from me. Check out the first post here!
I’ve been a bit busy lately, organizing for the move and trying to be a bit more minimal in regards to my possessions. I’ve been pretty good so far, cutting ties with things that I previously felt the need to keep for whatever reason. I find most of the stuff I’ve gotten rid of falls into the “vaguely sentimental” or “vaguely valuable but difficult to capitalize / sunk cost” categories. The thought of moving all this crap is a good motivator, and has led to a pile of free stuff on the curb. In the end, I won’t remember the vaguely sentimental and I would gladly lose out of a theoretical money or accept a sunk cost (such as a half-bottle of automatic transmission fluid) for the right to not have to think about it or move it anymore.
Anyways, this is all to say I haven’t been as able to fulfill my garbaging duties, or if I have then I haven’t been able to fulfill my cataloging duties. I should be posting more regularly soon enough. In the meantime, here are a few things to look over.
The big (mother?) dog was broken off when I found this, but a little krazy glue fixed it up just fine. It’s a pretty cute piece, though I don’t smoke so I have no real use for it. Maybe I can put it in my (future) Etsy store for 10$ based on it’s kitsch value alone. Or maybe I can try to barter it for a beer on CL.
I really like this piece. Pretty retro, and really charming. I feel good just looking at it. The colors are really nice. I’m keeping this one!
A skeleton key. I wonder how a skeleton key key-hole works, as it seems like it would work a bit different from contemporary keys. My mom will claim this in 5…4…3…..
I found this laptop (Gateway MA2) a while back on Esplanade between Villeneuve and Mont-Royal. I plugged it in and it started smoking and smelled nasty. It might not be too hard a fix though, and have arranged to bring it in and see how much it might cost. If it’s cheap, I might get it done so that I can possess the power of laptop. Other than the smoke, it looks really clean. It has Windows XP, so it’s reasonably modern as well.
Even if it’s mostly toast, it’s good to have salvaged it from the trash. I’m sure there’s a few good parts on it, and there are two different labels on the bottom indicating that you shouldn’t throw it out. Something about the “lamp in this display [containing] mercury.” Unless you’re an alchemist, having mercury around is generally bad news, and your local garbage person may not appreciate getting mercury fumes in their face. Acute exposure to fumes “results in profound central nervous system effects, including psychotic reactions characterized by delirium, hallucinations, and suicidal tendency.”
Anyways, that’s the end of my PSA for today. I’m going to go to a picnic in the park.
