October 2016 – Page 2 – Things I find in the garbage

This wasn’t a particularly good period for sales, but it wasn’t particularly bad either. I’ll need to have productive holiday season to reach my goal of 24k for the year but I still feel like it’s very much within reach.

1. Vintage copper junk box: On eBay for 32$. This had the Chilean coat of arms on the top. Found a while back in TMR.

2. Apple keyboard: On eBay for 75$. This ended up selling for a pretty good price. I was thinking it’d be a 30-40$ item when I picked it up, so 75$ was a pleasant surprise. This specific model was very thin and had two USB jacks. Found in the lower Plateau.

3. HOG patch: On eBay for 7$. I don’t usually sell things for single digit profits on eBay, but I’ll consider doing so if the item is something I can easily throw into an envelope without worrying about packing. A patch is the perfect example of that. Found on Victoria Avenue in CDN a month or so ago.

4. Anime DVDs: On eBay for 45$. Not much remains of that huge collection I found last year.

5. Vintage Max Sievert camp stove part: On eBay for 50$. This is one of those things that sold within a day of my listing it, making me wonder if I should have asked for more. Oh well! Found on Oxford in NDG.

6. Persol sunglasses: On eBay for 46$. A nice old guy gave me a box of sunglasses while I was looking through his trash and these collapsible Persols were among them. One of the lenses was cracked but they were in good condition otherwise.

7. Zoom Handy Recorder: On eBay for 35$. It might have gone for more, but the battery door broke while I was testing it. The device still works fine but the buyer will have to tape the door in place. Found just a couple short blocks away from my home in the Mile End.

8. Yves Rocher “Fleur de Noel”: On eBay for 40$. For whatever reason I can’t seem to find a picture of this anywhere in my records. I thought I found it in Villeray, but I’m even starting to doubt that now. Regardless, it’s another perfume that sold on eBay.

9. Vintage GP Barbudo eyeglass frames: On eBay for 25$. These were listed on eBay for a long time before finally selling last week.

10. Mattel Hot Wheels tracks: On eBay for 35$. This was part of a toy car collection I found in Montreal West.

11. Yard sale: 330$. My last sale actually went pretty well, partly thanks to a sandwich board I had found earlier that week. Who would have thought that proper signage would increase foot traffic? Thanks to my mom for the pic!

12. iPod Touch: To a friend for 35$. Found in the lower Plateau.

13. iPad: On Kijiji for 50$. Cue my iPad stock photo. I found this specific device charged very slowly so I asked for a little less than I normally do. Found in the Mile End.

14. TI-84+ calculator: On Kijiji for 50$. This was one of my McGill Ghetto move-out day finds. I forgot to include it in that post, however.

15. Highlander 1969 Yearbook: On eBay for 40$. I only recently realized that I could make decent money selling old yearbooks. It’s always good to find another stream of income! In the last few months I’ve sold two for 80$, which is certainly better than nothing on both counts. This one came from Montreal’s Malcolm Campbell High School. Found this spring in Cote St-Luc.

16. Juliette Has A Gun: On eBay for 60$. Another McGill Ghetto find.

17. Pierre Cardin electronic lighter: On eBay for 36$. I have no idea how one would test an electronic lighter so I just sold it “as is”. It had a weird UFO-like design. Found late March in Hampstead.

18. Vintage bone bracelet: On Etsy for 15$. I’d had this for years and am happy that it’s finally gone.

19. Vintage 1930s Heinz soup sign: On eBay for 270$. My biggest single sale in a while! This would have been part of an old Heinz electric soup kitchen machine. I presume it will end up being a decoration of sorts. Found this February in Montreal West.

Total: 1276$, 17824$ since the new year.

Last week was reasonably productive. A house on my Monday night run provided several wall decorations including four framed antique postcards and photos, two Bradford Exchange clocks, an Irish family coat of arms, and one of those glass things that look nice in windows. As you can probably tell I’m not sure what to call that last piece (which you can see at top right), so if you know what words to use to describe it let me know in the comments! I figure the clocks and the coat of arms might be worth listing on eBay, though I expect they’ll take a while to sell.

I also found a little silver skewer (or toothpick?) with a cute dog on top. I always enjoy finding odd bits of silver! There are two hallmarks around the bottom – one is a five pointed star while the other is illegible, at least to me.

Later that night I saved an Egyptian themed 1962 Northmount High School yearbook as well as a Birth Control Handbook that was published by McGill University’s Student Society in the late 60s. There’s actually an interesting article about the latter on Atlas Obscura. Abortion was still illegal at the time, as was disseminating this kind of distinctly pro-choice information. This handbook was apparently one of the first of its kind, and over three million of the various editions were printed and distributed to schools in Canada and the United States.

In the same pile were a batch of Fortran coding forms. I don’t know anything about Fortran except that it had to do with old computers. If you ever used such a thing please share your Fortran related stories in the comments!

On Tuesday night I found a small collection of necklaces. I’m not sure what the beads are made of but the top three are quite heavy. As well, the necklace at top left has a 14k gold clasp. My most profitable find though might be the two small bits at the top – I’m not sure what they are, but the bottom sections are marked as 18k gold and are pretty hefty for their size. I suspect they’re worth about 80$ for scrap.

Our old racist friend also threw out more stuff last week. I now have a lot more far-right ephemera, including some from Belgium (Parti des Nouvelles Forces and Agir) as well as many more issues of Le Flambeau.

I’ll leave much of it to the imagination, though I will share this flyer printed by a guy named José Steppe (a candidate for Agir) in the mid 90s. It’s not particularly effective from a graphic design standpoint, and the huge block of text (see below) seriously affects my will to read it. However, from what I gather Steppe was no fan of the mafia or freemasonry.

Curiously, when I researched (ie: googled) Steppe I mostly found people positing that he and many others was killed because they knew too much about Marc Dutroux, the notorious Belgian serial killer. Apparently the case was a big deal over there and many thought there was some kind of cover up involved. I had never heard this Dutroux guy previously, which is probably a good thing.

If you feel like reading more of Steppe’s ramblings check out the other side of the flyer below. Also, if you happen to have any expertise in Belgian politics maybe you can tell me who the strange little Hitler in the drawing above is supposed to be.

That place also provided more UFO literature and an issue of La Nation from 1966. The latter was printed by the Ralliement National, a right wing Quebec Separatist party that existed from 1966 to 1968. It later merged with René Lévesque’s Mouvement Souveraineté-Association to form the Parti Quebecois.

Otherwise, my bike rides were again reasonably productive. I found two more working iPods on the curb in the Plateau, including one 80gb iPod Classic that should sell for around 80$. That makes five iPods in the last few months! It’s worth noting that I found every one of those five in the Plateau or Mile End. It’s probably somewhat of a coincidence, though I imagine the younger demographic living here has something to do with it.

I had a productive pretty run last night and you’ll hear about it sometime next week. However, I think for the next little while I’m going to make eBay a priority. I want to make sure I get as much as possible listed in time for the holiday season! That doesn’t mean I won’t post, I just probably won’t be quite as thorough.

Month: October 2016

Recent sales (September 12 – October 10)

Footprints