Month: November 2012

Electronics of yesteryear

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I went out on Monday night to see if there was any food being thrown out at a local store (there was, and I got a bunch of fruit). I came across these bags along the way, put out on a non-garbage night. One of the bags was completely full of travel photos and another bag was mostly photos as well. The other bags had some doorknob and doorknob pieces, sink faucets, and vintage-y electronic stuff. I focused on the electronics and took a bunch back with me.

This Sony headset looks pretty sturdy. I bet it was pretty good in the 80s, and might still be pretty good. It has a weird two-pronged hookup at the end.

This Sony “Foot Switch” was intended for some kind of musical purpose. It looks pretty much unused.

Remember these? Some old rabbit ears are sell-able, but these ones aren’t particularly exceptional so I’m not going to try.

A whole bunch of speaker wire.

Some kind of fasteners.

A Zenith RF Converter. I have no idea what that means.

Finally, a 900 mhz transmitter and receiver (which seems to be some kind of wireless thing so that two TVs can play the same thing at once). There’s also a two channel amplifier which is probably for a stereo system.

Now, what am I going to do with this stuff? Most I’m giving away via Craigslist (someone already seems to be interested), and I’m going to take a shot at selling the wire and two channel amplifier on Ebay. Not sure how that’ll work out, but I’ll let you know!

More things from the other day

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I found this dog picture painted on Kodak photo paper. It’s pretty big and pretty fun. I think it’ll look good above the toilet in the bathroom.

Some old recipes books.

Another old recipe book…

It was partly to promote the Purity brand of flour and oats produced by the Western Canada Flour Mills Company. The owner inscribed it in 1915, so I reckon that’s around when this book was made.

There’s a lot of stuff in here, not just things involving Purity products. This page is recipes of stuff intended to be jarred, like pickles. There’s a weird recipe involving putting an egg in coffee that I might have to try too.

In the back of the cookbook there were some recipes hand-written on old paper (this is a higher quality image, so if you want to try to read it you can. The handwriting’s not super neat).

Here’s an old “Archie” magazine with a french magazine on Film from 1949.

A look at the inside of the film magazine.

Here’s a cool wood and ceramic pepper shaker. I like the design of it. There’s no markings on it but I imagine it’s old enough.

Here’s “Dad’s Prayer,” which looks to be hand-written with a fountain pen. When I first found this the brother of the man who passed away asked politely if he could have it back. I agree and he took it inside with him. Later he came out again and handed it to me. He said I could have it, clearly emotional, and then walked by himself down the street, lost in thought.

Here’s a transcription:

Dad’s Prayer

Oh lord, bless this house
Make it a home we love to live in.
God, bless the people who live in it.
Give us love, contentment, peace of mind,
Joy of heart, perfect health.
Lord give us many other good things
Give us ample supplies to live in the present
And make the future safe and secure.
Amen

I should have more up tomorrow.

Round 2

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And now for round two in my series of the things I found on Monday.

A Zippo lighter from the 80s in it’s original box. It seems to be pretty much unused, but the flint has disappeared. It looks like it turned into a dust… is that possible?


A vintage Waterman fountain pen. The tip (and maybe the goldish inlays on the pen) is 14k gold.

A nice old tin, marked Zaanse Schans, which is a place in Holland.

Here’s a cool cigarette case with a native design on the front. On the bottom is a price-tag that says 15$, so I’ll try to get that on Etsy!

This Eastman Kodak Timer has a bit of rust on the top but it still works like it should. It probably would have been used mostly in dark rooms (given the brand name). You wind it up as you would an old alarm clock.


Here’s an old Seagram Whiskey pitcher. It’s in perfect shape – no cracks or chips or anything. It seems weird for a whiskey company to make a promotional pitcher but it happened.


And finally here’s a cigarette case, made by the MacDonald cigarette company, commemorating the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (who’s still going now in 2012, pretty impressive!). It’s a beautiful piece in perfect condition. Some guy in Calgary is trying to sell the same one for 100$, so maybe I can get a bit of cash for it.

Keep checking back! I’ll probably have some more stuff up tomorrow.