Month: July 2017

Canadair pt. 2

garbagefinds31 Comments

Link to part one

I haven’t seen anything at this spot for quite some time, as such this will almost certainly be the last post of this series. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted! I saved lots of neat little tidbits here.

One noteworthy find was a large collection of what I believe are old fax jokes from the early 1980s. Maybe you could call them a sort of proto-meme. Anyways, most of the jokes are terrible (largely sexist, occasionally racist, and often rated R) and I don’t want to share them here. However, here’s a couple of PG13 jokes to give you an idea what they look like. This one makes fun of former Quebec Premier René Levesque.

René folds out and turns into four pigs. The fold-out thing is a common trick in the faxes, but most of them result in awful sex jokes. Levesque was last Premier in 1985, which makes me think that they date from a bit before that.

This one was kind of funny, a bit of office humor never hurt anyone. The rest of the collection is currently with a local archivist though I don’t think he has any specific plans for them. I’m sure someone would be interested in the studying them somehow.

This pic didn’t turn out so well, but it’s good enough. The pen next to the Yak Bak is an old Parker 51 with a silver cap. It was pretty beat up, but still sold pretty quickly for 30$. I’m always happy to find a 51 because they’re fairly collectible, and are worth money even if just for parts. Otherwise, the rest is yard sale stuff. The Canadair pin will end up in the Canadair lot I mentioned in my last post. The miniature garbage bin is a fun find for me!

More yard sale stuff. The miniature vintage spy camera is kind of neat. The box on the left contains another dumb sex joke, seems like the previous owner couldn’t get enough of those.

That old coffee tin is a neat find. Otherwise, the promotional cigarette pack holders are interesting – I’ve never seen anything quite like them before. There’s a spot for a huge pack of cigarettes as well as a matchbook.

More yard sale stuff. Some of it is actual junk that no one will ever buy, but I like to have a bit of crap at my sales to make things more interesting. People seem to appreciate seeing things they wouldn’t see otherwise! The vintage Vita hypodermic needles won’t make it to the yard sale though, for obvious safety reasons. Not that I think they’ve been used anytime in the last 40 years but they’re still quite sharp and the box is fragile. Believe it or not there’s a market for that kind of thing on eBay, I’m not sure why.

One night I scavenged some better junk than usual. The best piece is probably the 10k gold Canadair pin, which I’ll include in the Canadair lot. I also had a sterling silver Canadair 5 or 10 year pin but I’m not sure where I put it – I’m sure it’ll turn up though. Here’s hoping that segment of chain on the right is gold as well. The Wade Red Rose tea figurine will look nice once cleaned up. The Quebec pin is sterling silver, but too worn out to be of much value. The Chauffeur safety badge is neat and quite old, probably dating back to the 30s or 40s.

Perhaps the most unusual, and also valuable find here was this collection of 13 vintage hermetically sealed packs of MacDonald’s cigarettes. The packaging probably dates back to the 50s or 60s but it’s hard to pin it down exactly. The fact that they’re hermetically sealed, and also 5-packs (which I think would have been an unusual size) is a bit odd. I suspect they were either part of military rations or given out on airplanes back when smoking on them was legal. The latter might be more likely, if only because it seems like whoever lived here worked for an airline.

Vintage cigarettes stuff is pretty collectible, and sure enough these stale old packs have some value. I decided to list them all for 35$ each plus shipping. Thus far 10 have sold (5 to one person at a bit of a discount) for a total of around 300$. Not bad, and by the time they’re all gone I should make around 400$!

In a lot of homes this kind of stuff would have been thrown out years ago. Thankfully, some people hold onto their old things for a long time and as a trash picker I’m kind of grateful for that. Sometimes it results in some really interesting garbage that I wouldn’t find anywhere else. I wish there was a way for me to know exactly where to find this kind of stuff at any given time, but unfortunately the only way is to bike or drive around randomly and hope you end up in the right place at the right time (and then, go back again and again until it’s clear that there’s no more garbage to be tossed out).

Relevant links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.

But you were doing so well!

garbagefinds22 Comments

I had a great run last Monday in large part because of stuff I found at this pile of trash. The odd thing is that in previous weeks these guys (who were moving, the house was recently sold) had been pretty good about leaving free junk on the curb for people to take. One week there was a bottle of ant killer with “free” written on it, and another time there was a larger pile of free stuff including clothes and kitchenware. Nothing too exciting really, but the gesture was nice.

Given that information I didn’t expect to see much here, maybe some pantry remains or garage junk. But I ended up saving some decent stuff from those black garbage bags, some of which was better than anything at the free pile. Maybe they just ran out of time, or maybe one person in the household was more generous than the others.

None of the watches are very exciting but they’ll make me a few bucks at future yard sales. That watch in the middle, below the camera is interesting mainly because there’s a couple silver charms on the band, including an old silver dime. The iPod works great and is actually loaded with some pretty good tracks. The Walkman is a nice vintage one, perhaps one of the earlier models – I expect it to go for around 40-50$.

Otherwise, there’s some pretty solid costume jewelry here. Those earrings at top right look really 90s and are made of metal; I think they would do well on Etsy. Otherwise, the gold-toned costume jewelry is pretty nice. A couple pieces are signed but I can’t remember who by. The earrings on the left are signed Fernella’s Jools.

I saved a whole bunch of makeup. I thought a lot of this was new, but it seems whoever owned it just had the habit of putting the bottle back in its original box after they used it. Still, the brands are good and there’s a lot of life left in some of the bottles. I’ll sell them at a yard sale, but I’ll wait until I have a helper to put them out – I don’t really know anything about makeup, and feel awkward selling it to people. The Chanel rechargeable perfume bottle is a nice get, it’s around 35% full and worth around 30$.

The iPhone 4S seems to work just fine. That 20$ card came in that Chanel sleeve and I’m guessing it was part of some customer appreciation event. The card is still in plastic, so maybe it’s still got the 20$ on it. Otherwise, I saved a bunch of coins, a portable phone without the base, and a nice costume jewelry necklace (though I have no idea how it’s supposed to work).

What really made by day though was the finer bits of jewelry. I saved three pieces of 10k gold jewelry weighing 6.45g as well as some silver. The gold altogether weighs 6.45g and is worth about 135$ for scrap alone. However, they’re nice pieces in good condition and if anyone is interested send me an email – I’d ask a bit over the spot price for each.

Otherwise, I saved the usual miscellaneous random junk including a couple power bars, an old (ancient, perhaps) iBook laptop, some incense, a few figural candles, a sock full of baseballs…

Oddly, each ball seems to have been signed by Dusty Baker in 2011, when he was managing the Cincinnati Reds. I have no way of knowing if the balls are legit, though the signatures do look like his. Regardless, it’s not like Babe Ruth signed them, and the value is pretty limited regardless – maybe 10$ a ball without a certificate of authentication, which wouldn’t be worth getting for low-value items like these. Regardless, they’re kind of neat.

My night was further buoyed by a couple other finds not far away. Another sold house produced a bit more jewelry, including a few more gold pieces. It’s uncommon that I find gold once in a night, let alone twice. The items I know to be gold here (the pinkish earrings on the left could be rose gold, but I can’t see any hallmarks so I won’t count them) weigh 4.4g and thus are worth around 90$ for scrap. But again, if anyone has a particular interest in one of these pieces let me know (unfortunately, the earrings at top right are missing stones and thus best suited for scrap). I also saved some silver, including a pair of earrings signed Ti Sento which seems to be a well known brand.

Last but not least, I found a collection of vintage colognes in front of yet another house. I think the owners were preparing to do some renovations as I saw a little pile of wood out front last week. Anyways, most aren’t too exciting. However, the Ralph Lauren colognes are fairly old – the spray is original formula (dated 1978), while the other is either original or not far from it. I bet I could get around 60-70$ for the splash and 40-50$ for the spray. However, I could elect to keep one of them – it actually smells very good, kind of like pine. Very distinct.

Otherwise, the finds have been pretty good lately. Some guy got really mad at me for trash picking today, in fact he might have been one of my top three angry gooms (get out of my stuff!) of all time. But oh well, that’s just something that happens from time to time. It’s too bad though because he’s been throwing out interesting vintage stuff for weeks, and now it might be hard to go back if he tosses anything else. We’ll see what happens I guess.

I’m thinking of doing a sale tomorrow on Bernard / Waverly near that school if anyone wants to come. I’d probably be out from around noon til five, perhaps a bit earlier or later depending. Edit: I’m actually going to take the day off instead. Maybe next week!

Relevant links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.

Nice weather = extra garbage runs

garbagefinds34 Comments

We’ve been blessed with mostly good weather this past week so I went on a bunch of extra trash runs. Garbage picking is a lot more fun when it’s not raining, and this post features some finds I made while putting in extra time.

It also helps that I’ve been on a bit of a hot streak lately. It seems that I’m finding something cool every time I go out! It’s hard to keep up with the extra accumulation, and my new garage is already loaded with (quality) junk. Still, I’m happy to be finding lots of neat stuff.

I think I’ll do a yard sale tomorrow in hopes of opening up some space for new garbage. It’ll be at my old storage (4096 Coloniale near Duluth), around 12-5pm if you want to come by. If there’s anything specific you want to see let me know in the comments or by facebook / email and I can tell you if the thing is still around or if I can bring it.

I was pretty busy on Tuesday. I went on a trash run the night before and then I did another one in the morning with a friend. We went to Villeray, which is the closest and most convenient Tuesday morning destination, though it’s pretty hit and miss in regards to actually finding anything. Thankfully, a place on Lajeunesse produced some quality stuff including this sweet vintage “Spartan” sled. I’m surprised no one grabbed this before I did! It’s a great decor item, but could be good to use as well.

We also found a box full of vintage metal bits, a lot of which date to the early 1900s. I’m not sure what most of them are supposed to do, I’m guessing they’re decorative pieces. There’s a bunch of nice vintage clothes hooks, as well as some fence post toppers / finials (like the ones at top right and top left – I have several more that aren’t pictured). The fleur-de-lys is well represented here. I expect this stuff can make me a bit of money, I just have to figure out how to describe it. If you can think of any relevant keywords let me know!

Sorry this picture turned out a bit weird, I’m still learning how to take good photos at my new garage space.

That pile provided some more hardware, including some vintage switches, old-school water faucets, and drawer pulls. I have to figure out if there’s a market for any of this stuff. The wooden thing looks to be a handmade noisemaker toy.

We also saved some furniture from that spot, but I’ll save that for a future post.

I learned while looking up garbage schedules in the morning that there was a Tuesday evening pickup in Rosemont. I decided to check that out as well, though I had some regrets as soon as I got there. I do love trash picking, but it loses its luster if you do it too often. At that point I’d already gone on two roughly 3-4 hour runs in the last 20 hours or so. Regardless, I kept going because I was already there, and I was interested in exploring this area I hadn’t traveled to in a while. Thankfully, some trash in front of a sold house made the trip worthwhile.

Inside the bags was a collection of beauty products, most notably some quality perfumes. Most were barely used and all the bottles were in very nice condition. The Paloma Picasso and Cartier have already been reserved, but if you have interest in any of the others let me know.

A different Rosemont run (Rosemont is quite large) produced an old Elgin self-winding watch. It had been stored inside an old pill bottle and seems to run very well, though the watch band is in pieces. Regardless, it’s a quality watch done in rolled gold and it should net me around 70-80$. We also found a neat enamel-top table that should fix up nicely – I’ll show you pics of that later.

Otherwise, I happened upon another great pile of trash thanks to the location of my new garage. I probably wouldn’t have been in the area if not for that. Anyways, the first time around it produced some neat old junk including some old and sometimes offensive Made in Japan figurines. One of the old colonial pieces is stamped “Made in Occupied Japan,” meaning that it was made sometime between 1947 and 1952. The others were probably made not long after.

I saved a lot more great stuff at this spot last garbage day. I haven’t even really had time to look through it all, but I’ll share it with you as soon as humanly possible.

Let’s finish up with some e-waste. I’ve been collecting it as usual, and last week I deposited a collection (mostly old cell phones, portable phones without their bases, and decrepit digital cameras) weighing 3.185kg. I’ve diverted 4.3kg of e-waste from the landfill since I started recording this data in the spring.

I bring it all (except the loose batteries, which go to container at the pharmacy) to a box run by Electrobac. It’s conveniently located at a grocery store just down the road. These boxes are thankfully becoming more common (at least in Montreal), and I encourage you to use them to recycle your small e-waste!

Relevant links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.