My favourite spot in CDN has been less productive my last two times out. The well could be drying up, although I remember prematurely saying that a few weeks ago as well.
The only noteworthy thing I found was this framed picture featuring members of a YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Assocation) “Peerless Club” from 1934. I like its vintage art deco styling. Let me know if you have any idea what the “Peerless Club” might have been!
Monday and Tuesday were otherwise uneventful. I decided to go to TMR this morning and came away with a better haul.
This one house has been throwing away a lot of books over the last few weeks. I leave unfamiliar books to be recycled and take only what I think I can easily sell. This time around I got JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
This book contains a years worth of “L’oratoire” (published by St Joseph’s Oratory) magazines from 1944.
Also in a black garbage bag was this small Greek Orthodox wall hanging. There’s a certificate on the back that makes it sounds pretty fancy (gold sheets on canvas on aged wood, Byzantine style!). I found a similar piece on Ebay selling for 141$. Maybe I’ll list mine a bit cheaper in hopes that I can sell it quickly.
There’s been a “for sale” sign in front of this house for a very long time. The sign is now gone and renovations seem to have begun.
The bags were mostly filled with junk and debris but I managed to scrounge up three nice crystal glass vases and an oil lamp.
My best finds though came from this spot. The garbage was hauled away before I had the chance to take a look (you can see the truck in the background) but the recycling bit was full of awesome paper ephemera.
There was a bunch of Expo 67-related memorabilia. At top are two complete papers from the opening (by the Star and Gazette). At bottom is a 1966 Montreal Star Expo preview and a Journal de Montreal from the day of closing.
(I decided to take the pictures outside. They came out well but also look like they were taken on the moon!).
Here are several copies of a Montreal 67 magazine alongside various Expo maps and documents.
There was also a great collection of Expo souvenir and guide books. Everything here is in really excellent condition and altogether should make me some nice coin.
Lots of people saved mementos from the moon landing and this person was no exception. None of these are particularly uncommon or valuable but people still love seeing them at yard sales.
Here’s a bunch more mid-60s/early 70s magazines …
… and a collection of 70s and 80s theatre and ballet playbills.
This Montreal Gazette was published around the time when the Bill 101 language laws were proposed in Quebec (1977). I like how Camille Laurin (the guy in the photo) is holding a cigarette during what looks to be an official media event.
Speaking of smoking, here’s a promotional comic book produced for the Canadian Cancer Society back in 1971. I suppose this was around the time people started realizing that smoking can cause cancer.
I love maps and appreciated finding this 1960 Montreal transit map. This was before the metro was built and many neighbourhoods (such as Ville St Laurent) were developed.
There were plenty more maps and travel brochures. I’ll sell some of these at yard sales while others might go to an Ebay lot.
These late 50s-early 60s Canadian travel booklets are quite beautiful. Since they match up they might do well as an Ebay lot.
A couple more souvenirs for events deemed noteworthy by whoever owned this collection.
I’ve found surprisingly few 76 Olympics-related things in the garbage to this point and was happy to come across these old tickets to football (soccer) and water polo events. There seems to be a market for these old tickets on Ebay – they go used for between 10-20$ a piece. I’ll try to get 100$ for the lot.
Last but not least is a booklet published by Hockey Canada as a preamble to the 1972 Summit Series, a Canada vs USSR 8-game hockey tournament during the height of the Cold War. Canada won (of course) and the final goal is a classic moment in Canadian sports history. Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the Prime Minister at the time wrote the introduction. I haven’t been able to find anything like it on Ebay so far and I assume it has a bit of collector value.
Last weeks sales (June 2 – June 8)
“Freak show” signed photographs: Sold on Ebay for 154$. These were found with the Nazi Germany passports at the end of April. Post
-Total: 154$, 492 since May 18 (when I began keeping track)
Only one sale last week but it was a nice one. I figure as long as I can make around 150$ dollars a week I can stay afloat, though at some point I’d like to make a bit more.
I found some good stuff (and was given more for free!) in Outremont this morning but will hold off on showing that for now. With any luck my next post will also include things I find tomorrow morning in CDN and NDG.
I can imagine all that ephemera stacked on your coffee table … and you going through it one bit at a time. 🙂 Enjoy!
I likeb your blog for the variety of topics you cover,your excellent writing and descriptions as well as your photographs.I am a music student at university,originally from Manitoba,living in Montreal since 6 years.I have made Montreal my home for good.I live in Verdun and I know a lot of students who experience food shortages but are too proud to ask for help or go to charities.Could you suggest good places in Verdun,St.Henri and Cote St.Paul to dumpster dive for good food?I want to know.Also,I am a sucker for vinyl records,audio cassettes and music paraphernalia.I collect them.I collect vinyl records that are rock n’roll,classical music ,hard rock or folk/country—but not all artists.If you know any place in Montreal that dumps a lot of good vinyl records semi-regularly,I would love to check it out.I travel around by bike or metro and also walk around a lot.Tips appreciated.
I don’t go to Verdun or St Henri to dumpster dive but if you explore behind grocery stores you will eventually find some spots. As for records, those appear mostly at random. One time I came across a house in the Plateau and in front were bags and bags of nice records. You will often see records out in plain sight but also keep your eyes open for flat, square shapes inside garbage bags.
Last summer, I’m sure July 1st or the day before, I was coming down park Avenue, and there were some boxes of records right on the corner, somewhere around Fairmont or Laurier. It was just records, and the placing, close to the corner, made me think someone had deliberately put them there, rather than leave them outside their own house. They figured more people would notice there than on a side street.
Book and rummage sales are still getting records, I can’t tell whether they are getting interest or not, and since I don’t look at what is donated, I don’t know whether it’s junk or not. Going to those sales is going to be faster than randomly hoping to find records on the sidewalk. At closing time, such sales might welcome someone willing to make a deal.
Michael
I am curious what you did or will do about the Jewish family photos and valuable Nazi-era passsports that you recovered from the trash in downtown about a month or 6 weeks ago.They have too much historic value or sentimental value to be sold or given to just anyone.Did Jewish groups contact you?I am happy with the finds you have made in recent weeks about Expo 67 memorabilia and Barbie accessorires.But I think you can make more finds by going to different neighborhoods.You still haven’t been to Anjou,Montreal NOrth.Ville St.Leonard,LaSalle,Dorval,Pierrefonds,the western part of Ville Émard,Lachine,etc.
I still have most of that stuff and am still thinking about what to do with it. I’ll definitely discuss it once I come to a decision.
I’m a bit low on cash right now and gas prices are too high to go that far away, at least at the moment.
Are you actually finding the car worth the trouble, once the gas is paid for? Yes, it gets you further afield, but doesn’t get you close to each pile of garbage. And since you don’t seem to have room for lots of furniture, what I’d consider the most value of a car, being able to bring large items home, doesn’t seem to come into play. I’ve wheeled office chairs home (because I needed them, and they could be pushed along the sidewalk) but anything large is generally “invisible” to me, not worth considering since it’s too much trouble (or impossible) to get home.
Michael
It’s good for some neighbourhoods but not others. It’s mostly useless, annoying and expensive when exploring dense urban areas like the Plateau, Rosemont, Villeray, and parts of Verdun. I do prefer it when exploring less dense, more single-family home oriented areas like TMR, Verdun (the western part), NDG and Westmount (especially because of the hills).
I would be using the car less but my bike died and I haven’t gotten around to getting another one. I also need to repair a flat on my bike trailer.
Either way, my lack of money at the moment is more due to going to see a therapist which is quite expensive.
I’ve never had a driver’s license, so I’ve never felt the correlation between distance and gallons, or the rising price of gas. I was more making a point about the balance between the advantages of the car, versus the cost.
Therapy can be a real mney sink.
Michael
You”ve been to Point St.Charles and Eastern Verdun to check out the trash.But you have never reported on trash in St.Henri,a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.On Thursday mornings,western St.Henri has its garbage pickup as well as curbside recycling.Please check out Western St.Henri and Verdun West by car on Thursday morning.Western St.Henri is still more densely populated than Verdun west,so you may want to walk around there.
Somebody moved out of my apartment building last week and left behind a lot of garbage for the trash truck.There were tons of clothes,shoes,rubber tyres and odds and ends discarded.Garbage pickup day was just next morning.But I rescued only a plastic milk crate and a case of 12 Corona beer bottles.Luckily,6 of the 12 beer bottles had not even been opened-so I got to drink 6 beer bottles for free.I see a number of people rescuing metal for scrap from the trash as well as furniture.There are also plenty of bottle scavengers and can collectors who seem to just collect bottles and cans and seem blind to everything else.I see few people saving books,ephemera,souvenirs,knick-knacks and historic items from the trash.I wish more people would sscavenge for these things too,not just bottles and cans.Just how many recycling cans and garbage bags can just one superhero,Martin Gregory, open?There should be scavengers like you in all neighborhoods,not just can and bottle collectors.