December 2015 – Page 3 – Things I find in the garbage

Before we begin I’m going to advertise my last sale of the year! I’ll be at the Plant Holiday Art Market on December 12th between 12-6PM. Come by if you want to see an eccentric collection of garbage finds, including knick-knacks, jewelry, buttons, baubles, books, records, ephemera, bric-a-brac, and etcetera. There will be 24 other vendors as well, selling locally made prints, soaps, jewelry, perfumes, cards, knits, and lots of other great stuff. There will also be coffee, tea, and snacks. Check out the Facebook page for more information. The event will take place at 185 Van Horne in the Mile End.

And now, without further ado, your regularly scheduled programming…

I visited this spot in Upper Westmount each garbage day between June and September. Nearly every week I found loads of big black bags on the curb, most of which were stuffed with old papers. I saved a great collection of ephemera that altogether represented the life of an entire family. I doubt much was ever tossed in this household.

I keep an eye on garage sale listings. I’ll sometimes check to see if the people at these addresses toss things the week before or after the sale. This practice isn’t always fruitful but once in a while it pays off. I saw an ad for an estate sale at the house in September, a couple of months since I first started picking there. The pictures showed rooms full of antiques and other treasures, evidence of a life lived luxuriously. There was a bit out on the curb after the sale – mostly large, unspectacular furniture – but the best was long gone, and within two weeks there was no more trash to be found.

I found a nearly overwhelming amount of stuff, and plans to do a thorough cataloging of items were foiled by the reality: that I just didn’t have the time. Nonetheless, in this post I’ll share a selection of the coolest travel ephemera. I’ll show the rest in a not to distant future.

I very much enjoyed finding this old train ephemera. “The Canadian” still runs to this day, traversing the long and beautiful distance between Toronto and Vancouver. I actually took this train on two different occasions, though both times I missed out on what is likely the best part – the stretch between Jasper and Vancouver.

I found a program, a ticket holder, a ticket book, and a postcard, all of which are from the early 1960s. I’m pretty sure they’re still using the same train cars today.

Once there the family went to the Calgary Stampede. I saved a bunch of related ephemera, my favourite of which was this 1964 Riley and McCormick “Cowboy Catalogue.” It features Western styles and other cowboy related accessories.

I also rescued a paper hat and two cardboard fans made to advertise Calgary TV and radio stations.

They also went on at least one trip to Europe in the mid 50s. Here’s the travel insurance …

… and the International Driving Permit.

They crossed the ocean in the S.S. Liberté (first class, of course) and amassed a nice collection of mementos.

I saved a bunch of magazines (L’atlantique) that were apparently printed on the ship. They must have been a lot of work to put together.

One section is titled “latest news received by radio.” This edition features a bunch of Cold War era geopolitics, and also a story on the development of the wildly successful Polio vaccine.

I love finding old menus. This one is for an August 13, 1955 dinner on the Liberté.

While this one is from a restaurant in Nice.

There were tonnes of cool vintage maps, many of which I sold at yard sales. This one is my favourite though, because the artwork is excellent and because it conveniently folds out into the size of a nice poster (making it potentially cool as a decoration).

It was made by British Railways and portrays the British Isles. The artist was a guy by the name of Cecil Meyer.

I’ll finish with a couple of things from stores. This is a catalogue for Gubelin, a prestigious jewelry maker and retailer.

Unfortunately I didn’t find any fancy watches here! Though I did come across a certificate of authenticity for an 18k gold watch.

This is the 1950s equivalent of a promotional corporate email. The P. Marechal company (to which I can find no reference to on the internet) is offering their past customer a free bottle of Replique de Raphael.

Here’s the actual gift card …

… and this is their perfume price list. I figured the perfume aficionados among us might be curious to see what was on sale in 1956! I assume these prices are in based on the now defunct French franc.

I’ll share part two sometime in the coming weeks!

The city of Montreal has plans to bring composting services to all of its boroughs by 2016. This seems, at least to a layman environmentalist type, to be a good policy that should help to reduce waste.

However, I also like the decision as a professional scavenger. A great example why can be seen in the borough of Villeray.

Villeray is a historically working class (but now increasingly gentrified) neighbourhood a few kilometers north of my place in the Plateau. Like a lot of the city it was built up in the early 1900s (especially 1915-1930), and was further developed after WWII. One of my favourite found photos, featuring a family posing in front of their house with their cow was shot there. (In case you missed it, a local journalist wrote an article about the photo which you can see here – it’s in French, but Google Translate can help you get the gist of it).

While not particularly wealthy Villeray has lots of history, making it a potentially interesting destination for picking. However, with two trash days a week the good finds were spread pretty thin, making the borough not worth going out of my way to visit.

Until recently, that is. I discovered the change by chance, when I went to Villeray on a Thursday night and noticed a distinct lack of garbage. I saw lots of compost bins though. Apparently the borough recently transformed one of their weekly garbage days into a compost day.

I want happy to hear the news. With only one trash day a week the neighbourhood is suddenly worth visiting. It means twice as much garbage for the same amount of effort. I compare the difference to a juice concentrate – all the flavor (theoretically anyways) in a package a fraction of the size. A garbage concentrate if you will, though I imagine that would taste pretty bad in real life…

It’s nice to have another good Monday night picking option. I’ve been going to NDG / Hampstead for much of the year, but the finds have been pretty dry of late. It’s good to switch things up sometimes.

I came across these boxes of books on last week’s trip to Villeray. A woman was bringing out a bunch of stuff that looked to be the remains of an estate sale (I found a “vente de succession” sign in some nearby recycling bags).

I took a selection of the books I found most interesting. There were a fair amount of classics that should sell fairly easily.

There were also plenty of Ukrainian books, and lots of evidence that whoever owned them had no love for the Soviet Union. Most notable is a book simply titled “How to Defeat Russia.” I also found a sweet 1950s book of Ukrainian patterns, but I lost that to another scavenger when I neglected to protect my pile. I guess I could have made my claim to the book, but it wasn’t really worth the effort.

I saved a whole bunch of records too. I was mostly lucky to find these before another else did. There’s some decent stuff in here, including some old breakable “gypsy music,” some classical and a bunch of twist. The woman who was doing the tossing actually handed me the shoe box of 45s while I was looking through the books. I went back to the same spot this week and found a few more records, this time mostly Ukrainian music.

Just up the road was this massive pile that extended over quite a length of the curb. I couldn’t figure out why things were being tossed. I rarely feel weird about trash picking these days, but this spot had an odd air to it that made my slightly uncomfortable. In one of the bags was a recent passport belonging to someone younger than me. I gave a cursory look around just in case any jewelry or other valuables were tossed, but I wasn’t as thorough usual.

The only thing I saved was this USB microphone. I haven’t tested it but it’s in good cosmetic condition. They sell for around 30$ on eBay, so if it works it’s a decent get.

I went on a bike ride in the Plateau and came across a pleasant surprise out front of some relatively new condos.

The boxes looked like they had potential, and I indeed came across some nice items in my rummaging.

Hanging around at the bottom of that box were two silver commemorative coins from the popular 1976 Montreal Olympics set. They’re not super valuable or anything – they’re worth about 15$ each for their silver content – but it amazes me how willing some people are to casually toss out precious metals. More on that later!

The box produced a bunch of other miscellaneous junk, including some electronics, a loonie; …

… a neat medal from the 1982 Montreal Marathon (I like how it’s actually a cool piece of art);

… and a couple watches. I don’t think the Citizen is anything special, but the Mondaine (billed as the “Official Swiss Railways Watch”) is quite nice and should fetch a decent sum if it works.

I also came across some decent stuff in Mount Royal.

Most of my finds came from this bag. Inside were a bunch of glasses cases and jewelry boxes. Given my recent issues in the neighbourhood I just threw the whole bag in the car and sorted through it when I got home. It wasn’t stuffed with gold and silver as I had hoped, but I still salvaged some nice stuff.

This cool coin was inside one of the boxes. It’s 80% silver (you can see the mark just below the seal) and was made for the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the Italian city of Udine. It’s a very beautifully designed coin – click on the close-ups below for a closer look.

This made three commemorative silver coins found in one week! It’s a bit funny because I’ve never found one in all my previous years of picking. I’ve found other silver coins but they were always intended for circulation. These were made for collecting or investment, which in a way makes them especially odd to find. It’s worth about 15$ dollars for its weight in silver, though I may be able to get more due to the fact that it seems to be fairly uncommon.

Also inside the bag was a nice pipe collection.

One was made in the shape of some dude’s head. It was produced by FBC in Saint-Claude (France).

Otherwise, I saved a passably good Foosball table (TMR); …

… a heart shaped box full of American quarters (Rosemont);

… and a 12 pound bag of unopened, unexpired dog food (Westmount). The original price tag was 46.99$. I checked for recalls and found nothing. It’s going to one of my dog-owning friends, perhaps in exchange for some human food.

Month: December 2015

First class

Garbage concentrate