All cleaned up

My Friday evening run through the Plateau was very pleasant and surprisingly productive.

I opened one of the bags above and came across a collection of old audio reels. Many are labelled as being recorded off the radio in the late 60s. One is marked as a CKLC (Kingston) broadcast featuring something called the “Committee of the Unemployed.” These might be of interests to an archivist I know.

My best finds of the day though sat in front of a beautiful home right by Parc Lafontaine. Inside the bags was a collection of old glasses and sunglasses. A lot of them are fairly nice and should make me a bit of cash. One pair in particular though stuck out. They’re by Metzler of Germany, a fairly desirable designer brand (second below). They’re gold plated, vintage and look pretty much brand new. I’ve already put them on eBay and expect them to sell for 75-100$.

Also inside the bags was a bunch of vintage bric-a-brac. One of my favourite pieces was a “charga-plate,” apparently a precursor of the modern day credit card that was used from the 1930s to 1950s. This one slipped out from in between a bunch of old waterlogged letters. I think it’s missing a bit of paper that would have been on but it’s still pretty cool. I hadn’t heard or seen a charga-plate previously. I’d guess that this one would have been an earlier model.

Otherwise I found: a nice MacDonald’s tobacco tin in good condition; a collection of five lithographed prints; an old leather book cover, probably for a bible; a Crane shower head; two crystal glass doorknobs; a vintage Slaymaker lock with key; and a one inch tall wooden figurine, among other things. I’ll definitely keep my eye on this spot going forward!

I took a little cruise last night and stopped at this pile in Cote-des-Neiges. The bags were full of what seemed like renovation-related junk.

Inside the bin though was an old alarm clock box full of different scents. I tossed a few that were nearly empty or not particularly valuable but kept and cleaned up the rest. I should be able to make some money from these, particularly with the Pierre Cardin, Chanel #5, and Aramis.

The most interesting though are the three bottles on the right. The logo is written in Cyrillic script and has a distinct Soviet feel to it. I’d also guess that the bottles were made in the 1960s. I have more research to do but I did find a similar bottle that’s bring sold for 55$. If anyone can read the label let me know what it says!

(Edit: apparently these are bottles of Krasnaya Moskva, a Soviet-made perfume that was very popular in its day.)

I spent a while yesterday cleaning up those antique silver pens I found a couple weeks ago. They look great! I’m thinking I can get 200$ for the fountain pen and 100$ for the Sheaffer. I bought a new cartridge for the latter which should make it easier to sell. They’re already on eBay, check out the listings here and here.

Last weeks sales (August 11 – August 17)
-American Airlines Wings: on eBay for 110$. I found these in TMR way back in March. I had to wait a few months but I found a buyer at a great price. Just goes to show the value of patience when selling on eBay!
-Wooden duck: to a local store for 10$. This story never made it to the blog. I was looking through some trash in front of a wealthy home in Outremont when a woman came out and told me she had a bunch of stuff up for grabs in her garage. Evidently she was moving, perhaps to an even nicer house. I took a few bottles of wine, a set of dishes (which I gave to my friend), and a few other things including this wooden duck. I was hoping the artist would be collectible but in the end it was just a nicely carved duck. Still, I’m happy with the 10$ and the fact that I don’t have to store it any more.
-10$ bill: 10$. I found this on Thursday. Easy money!
-5 British pounds: converted by the bank to 8.11$ Canadian. More easy money! I found this bill a month ago in TMR and just got around to converting it last week.
Total: 138$, 2508$ since May 18. Another passable if unspectacular total.