September 2015 – Things I find in the garbage

Recent sales (August 31 – September 27)

September 30, 2015September 29, 2015 garbagefinds12 Comments

Sales have been slow (apparently typical for this time of year) so I decided to combine my usual two week summary posts into one nearly month long summary. Sales 1 through 5 are from the first two weeks of this period while the rest are from the latter. Things are picking up a bit, and I expect to be making decent cash again by mid October.

1. Mannequin: On Kijiji for 30$. I’m sure I could have gotten more for this, but by the time I listed it I was sick of having it around and took the first offer I received. Found a couple months ago in the Plateau and mentioned on Facebook.

2. Yard sale: 103$. Not my best sale, which I suspect had something to do with it being labour day weekend.

3. Christian Dior sunglasses for repair: On eBay for 35$. Found May 2015 in Westmount.

4. Silver ring: On Etsy for 20$. I forget where I would have found this one.

5. Murano glass vase: On eBay for 25$. The last of the three to sell. Found June 2014 in Mount Royal.

6. Sony F1 Walkman for repair: On eBay for 50$. This was a very nice model that just needed a new belt. Found August 2015 in Hampstead.

7. WWII-era sewing kit: On eBay for 18$. Found at the liquidators but not mentioned on the blog.

8. Harley Davidson belt buckle: On eBay for 15$. I had this listed for quite some time and am very happy to see it leave my house. I might have found it in Rosemont, but I’m not sure.

9. Sterling silver cigarette case: On eBay for 140$. Found July 2015 at the liquidators.

10. Yard sale #2: 42$. A pretty poor sale that was cut short by rain just as people started to come. Regardless, I made a bit of spending money.

11. Ephemera, photos, negatives, audio reels, and video film: to a local archive for 60$. They basically gives me money for this kind of stuff as long as it’s related (or could be related) to Montreal. It’s a good deal for me as I just let the things pile up before unloading it for a decent price. Found in various places across the city.

12. Necklace and earrings: To a reader for 30$. Someone emailed me months ago about these and I only recently got back to them. Just goes to show how behind I’ve been! They were two pieces (a silver necklace and silver hoop earrings) I found in Westmount back in May. I could have sold them for more on Etsy, but I’m generally happy to give a deal to those who can come and pick the stuff up. That saves me the time it takes to list, pack, and ship the item.

13. Ring: To my Mom for 20$. I wanted to give it to her for free but she refused! I forget where I found it now, but it was silver with a turquoise stone.

13. Mexican silver turquoise pendant: On Etsy for 21$. If I remember correctly I found this while out on a walk in Rosemont this spring. However, it never made the blog.

14. Silver Buddhist eternal knot pendant: On Etsy for 35$. Found March 2015 amongst a great hoard of jewelry in NDG (but only recently listed).

Total: 644$, 14256.75$ since the new year began. This is actually a pretty poor total, especially considering it spans nearly the entire month! Part of the problem (in addition to the slow eBay sales) was that I was unable to have a really good yard sale. I hope to get a few more in before the season ends for good, which is around the end of October here in Montreal.

My goal to reach 20k in garbage earnings this year is looking less likely now with the recent poor showings. I’m still hopeful though, as the next three months of the year are the big ones and I intend to get a lot of new listings up. I’ll need to average close to 2000$ a month to get it done.

In the meantime this slow month has really depleted my already limited financial reserves. If you feel like treating me to a latté, a micro-brew beer, or whatever check out my donate page!

New eBay listings (Link to all eBay listings)

1. Lot of 1970s Post Cereal hockey game pieces
2. 1977 Dreamstage art exhibit poster
3. Lot of 6 Sony 3D TV glasses
4. 3 Montreal Olympics programs
5. Rare Polish edition of Animal Farm
6. Sankyo Clover music box keychain
7. Leak Trough-Line 3 (untested)
8. 1920s Quebec folk art painting
9. Lot of 1930s steamship menus
10. Art Nouveau era "Bride's Book"
11. 1930s Bermuda / West Indies steamship brochure
12. 1930s Bermuda travel brochure
13. 1930s Canadian Pacific Hotel brochure
14. Vintage Scottish clan plaque – McKeown family

New Etsy listings (Link to my store)

15. Vintage Mexican silver cascade choker necklace
16. Brutalist peacock feather pendant (another one of my favourite pieces)
17. Chinese silver enameled cat brooch
18. Monet gold-toned bracelet
19. Monet gold-toned necklace
20. Circular silver earrings – Greek key pattern
21. Large 916 silver brooch
22. Vintage Monet brooch
23. Vintage Star of David silver and marcasite pendant
24. Vintage 9ct on silver cufflinks
25. Sterling silver and fabric cufflinks
26. Silver turtle bracelet
27. Vintage La Rel costume jewelry earrings
28. Silver Celtic triskele earrings
29. Reuven Israel modernist brooch
30. Silver Irish Harp enameled earrings
31. Great sterling silver necklace with inlaid pink stones (this is one of my nicest jewelry pieces)

New Kijiji (local) listings (feel free to make me an offer on any of these!)

32. Huge bag of postage stamps
33. Oval mirror
34. Round table
35. iPhone 4s, locked to Bell, cracked screen
36. Vintage wood chandelier
37. Art Nouveau standing ashtray
38. 1940s Munro table hockey game
29. Grundig radio

Slide scanning – Expo 67

September 28, 2015 garbagefinds9 Comments

I spent most of last week doing some much needed organizing. This included tidying up a few different storage areas and purging stuff that wasn’t worth selling. I put this off for way too long, and still have lots of other things left to do! I’ll likely be relatively quiet on the blogging front again this week, but expect another post on Friday (or Monday if I get sidetracked).

I went on most of my usual rounds but didn’t focus so much on getting blogging material. I did come across some great stuff at one spot, and I’ll share that here sometime in the near future.

On Friday I picked up copies of some found slides I scanned a while back. I had copies of them previously, but they were accidentally made to be of a lower quality than I prefer. I like a photo you can click and zoom in on! All the photos are stills of Montreal’s Expo 67. I found most of them in St-Henri back in September of 2014. Most were marked as being taken in July of 1967. The last two I found at a place in Snowdon.

I thought it would be fun to post the scans here. If you enjoy these then you might also enjoy the scans I posted on my other (mostly inactive) blog back in May of 2013. Anyways, here you go!

The liquidator pt. 3

September 18, 2015 garbagefinds25 Comments

I’ve been checking on the trash of the liquidator (part one, part two) every garbage day since I found some great stuff there near the end of June. At first I assumed they were clearing out the house but it’s now clear that they actually live there themselves. I guess they bring their work home with them sometimes because I’ve been finding small quantities of interesting stuff there on a semi-regular basis.

Often I’ll just find a few thing worth saving, such as this photograph from around the turn of the century.

Sometimes there will be a bin full of broken or mediocre china. The pieces are occasionally very fancy but those are always broken beyond repair (or at least are not worth the price to repair). I’ve added a few functional if unspectacular pieces for my home collection.

For the last couple of months I’ve been keeping my eye on a spot in Westmount. In a bit of a twist I discovered that this liquidator was working a job at that same house – a few things I saw in their garbage bore the names of the people who once lived there. It was a bit funny and strange to this stuff pop up in a totally different part of town.

I’ll share some of my finds (mostly great ephemera!) from the Westmount place soon. For now, here’s the related stuff I found at the liquidators. Here are four sealed high quality cassette tapes. These actually sell pretty well on eBay, but they don’t go for quite enough for me to bother listing them. They’ll go to my yard sale pile instead.

There was a bunch of 1976 Olympic ephemera, including four competition programs, four “all about the games” booklets, and a general information brochure. A similar competition program (but in worse condition) recently sold on eBay for 20$ so I might be able to make a bit of money here.

The booklet on the right is a guide to the Swiss Olympic delegation, while the one on the right is actually veiled Christian literature.

It’s actually kind of funny. It starts out looking very official and not unlike like your average information booklet. However, the last few pages (and these final two in particular) are filled with religious references. There’s also a “please send me more information” insert. I wonder if this worked on anyone? It was published by a local organization called Literature Crusades.

Otherwise, I found a bit of Expo 67 related stuff, including a 1969 map of Man and His World …

… and a pamphlet called “Introducing Expo 67” which seems to have been published before the event.

I also saved three old yearbooks from the 1930s. They’re pretty cool to look at, as you might expect.

One peculiar historical oddity is the number of casual Hitler references. I noted several (and two on this page alone!) while only briefly looking through them. These were written in the pre-war days of course, so most people weren’t yet aware of how terrible Hitler actually was.

On a side note: if anyone knows what Marcelle Lambert means by “kirk” let us know in the comments! I couldn’t figure that out.

I’ll share some of my Westmount finds soon!