‘Till Your Well Runs Dry

It’s been a bit of a slow week here at garbagefinds.com. I found a little bit each day but never enough to warrant an individual post. On Monday I went to Ahuntsic and found some jewellery amongst other moving-related trash.

Most wasn’t particularly valuable but I did find a few pieces marked 10k gold (the ring, the love pendant and the scarab pendant) and sterling silver. For scrap alone the gold pieces would net me around 50$ but if I try the Etsy / Ebay route I should be able to make twice that or more.

There’s been less trash coming out of this house near Westmount recently. It’s been a producer for around a month and a half now but perhaps it’s finally close to being cleared out. A “for sale” sign has appeared out front. I hope the good times keep on rolling but every spot inevitably stops producing at some point.

I found this vintage hockey puck there on Tuesday. It’s from the 1950s and is fairly collectible. Ones like it sell on Ebay for around 30-35$.

I also found a cool old bottle of iodine.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a bottle with the classic “skull and crossbones” symbol for poison. It was probably also made in the 50s.

I got a flat tire later on my Tuesday morning route after a mostly uneventful stop at Montreal-Ouest. I had to take the bike out to TMR on Wednesday while the car waited for its new tires. Finds were few and far between, however. The hunting in TMR has been more difficult as two houses that produced a lot for me the last couple months have stopped throwing things out. The well has run dry, apparently. The owners finally moved away from one of the houses while the other is now undergoing renovations perhaps in preparation for a sale.

This piece is the only TMR find worth noting and I’ll need your help to identify what it is. It looks to be silver-plated and has a weird (if somehow familiar) doohickey on the bottom.

The only marks I can find on it are “E.W” and “4”, both of which are stamped on the doohickey part. It’s about 3.5″ wide and 3″ tall. To me it looks Victorian in design. Let me know if you have any idea what it is!

Thursday morning I went back to the western part of Verdun to check out a place where I found cool stuff last week. Once again there were bags full of stuff to look through, though most of it wasn’t particularly interesting.

In one of the bags was this old household shrine to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It’s a pretty big piece measuring around 15″ or 40cm tall. It looks to be made of some kind of plaster.

The back is marked “Petrucci Frères” (Brothers). I did a bit of research and found a great article (link) about the history of the company and religious art production in Montreal. According to the article the Petrucci Frères company existed between 1908 and 1923 before changing names upon a merge with another religious art company. This piece must have come from that time, especially since the use of plaster as an art medium was most popular around this time. Saint Thérèse was only canonized in 1925 but it’s quite likely that someone modified the writing (on the bottom) after the fact. I suspect someone repainted it at some point as well. Regardless, it’s in quite good condition for its age.

Also in the bag was this large, 2′ tall crucifix. It’s made of the same material and was likely made around the same time. It’s also in really good condition for its age, especially considering that these plaster pieces are fairly fragile. It looks like the right arm broke off at one point but was glued back. I’ll have to do some research to see if these kind of pieces are collectible.

This morning’s trip to NDG and Westmount was also pretty bare. I did find this cute little piece, however. It was made for something sewing-related but it seems too small to hold a sewing machine. If you know what this was made to do let us know in the comments. It’ll look great with a bit of work and could make a great end table.

Hopefully the finds pick up next week. I plan on taking Monday off to relax but should be good to go the rest of the week.

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If you are interested in buying any of the items you see on my blog I would love to hear from you! Email me at thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you within a few days.