Last week was relatively quiet. Fortunately, this familiar pile produced some worthwhile finds. My friend and I got here just in time, as the rain really started coming down not long after we left.
I first stopped there two weeks prior and found this little Philips digital voice recorder in one of the bags. It receives pretty good reviews as a dictation / transcription tool, and I was surprised to find that it sells for around 120$ on eBay. It looks kind of “vintage,” but I guess it still gets the job done. (Edit: It sold for 120$ as I was writing this post).
A week later I saved this portable typewriter. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when I did some research the next day I discovered that it was fairly collectible. The Hermes 3000 is one of the most desirable typewriters of the 1960s and often sells for around 600$ in excellent condition. In this condition (pretty good, but not perfect) it’s worth around 2-300$. Mine is the older and “curvier” model, which is more collectible than the later boxy versions.
One of last week’s bags had some old metal things inside. Fortunately, I also found an old wooden carrier to put it all in. I saved a bunch of old keys, two vintage locks, something made of bone, and some other curiosities. Zoom in for a better look!
This old CNR railway lock was one of my favourite finds. I didn’t find the key to go with it, but fortunately one of my readers has one that might work. Let’s hope it does! These seem to go for around 25$ without a key, but 60$ with.
I also found an old piece of wood attached to a peg, a U-shaped piece of metal, and a set of horseshoe like objects that were apparently part of an antique bed (they were stored in a smaller bag labelled as such). Any help identifying the mystery objects would be greatly appreciated!
The bags contained an odd mixed of relatively new and fairly old items. In a different one I found the St Christopher medallion you might have noticed in a previous photo, as well as this nice Parker 51 fountain pen. It’s in good, but not perfect condition due to a small dent in the cap. Regardless, it’s worth around 60-80$.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this spot on the curb going forward.
The run wasn’t over though, and there were more pens to be found. This collection came from a recently sold house not far away. There’s a lot of good pens and pencils here, but the most valuable are probably the Parker Vacumatic fountain pen (third from right, from the 30s or 40s) and the Parker 75 on the far right.
The 75 has a ciselé or crosshatch design, which seems to be more collectible than simpler patterns. I think this pen will make me around 150-170$. Not bad! Hopefully they throw out some more pens next week.
Otherwise, this pile of junk provided some good stuff last Friday.
Inside one of the boxes was a set of silver plated cutlery. It’s not super valuable, but someone will definitely buy it at a yard sale! I’ve found nice silverware before, but never any in the original presentation box.
I found this cute mid-century lamp as well.
Pretty nice eh? I’ll have to figure out whether to sell it or keep it myself.
This vintage Zassenhaus coffee grinder was my best find, however. It seems that this model, the 532 is particularly valuable and I listed it for 250$ on eBay. I’ve already got messages about it, so I expect it’ll sell for that price. The grinder was made in Western Germany in the 60s, and is in excellent condition for its age.
That’s all for now, but I still have a backlog of things to share from earlier this year!
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Unbelievable finds. The wood box with all the cool stuff is a primitive wood silverware box, Usually they have handles, but there are some on ebay that don’t. The other old lock is worth about $10. To sell them online, you need not have the key. The old hardware is also worth listing. Thanks to reading your blog, my knowledge of what sells online has been expanded and I spent about $15 at a family run estate sale and bought a box lot of stuff I found including two old locks, a Marklin dollhouse radiator, old clockmaking parts and a book. The Marklin radiator, all two inches of it is the most valuable piece. I think some of us, just have a strong hunter gatherer gene !
You’re right, thanks for the info. It does have a handle, you just can’t see it because of the angle of the photo. I’m glad you also learn from the blog, if nothing else I think it’s a good place to learn about all these different collectibles and niche markets that you might not have known about otherwise. I’ve learned a lot writing it – back at the beginning I really didn’t know much of anything, but I liked trash picking because I enjoyed finding cool old junk.
To my secretarial eye, there is nothing wrong with your typewriter but your ribbon may be off. Definitely don’t want to have ribbon control (colored dots) on red, try green (blue?). Ribbon doesn’t look correctly placed in platen. Unless you know something, it looks just about perfect to me (with a cobweb blowout and a little oil.)
Thanks, I don’t know much about typewriters. It’s in pretty good condition and seems to write well, there’s just a couple of minor cosmetic issues and it could probably used some regular maintenance (ie: the keys stick sometimes which I think is just a lubrication issue).
Maybe Tom Hanks will buy the typewriter for his collection!
was thinking that too!!
The horseshoe shaped pieces are the hardware to connect siderails ro a bed. The siderails would be notched out in the same shape, so the horseshoes would sit flat against the sides of the rails, and the stubs on the ends would lock into corresponding receiving hardware on the bed.
Yup, hopefully they have some value on eBay.
Great bunch of stuff you found there. I love the blog (it’s so addictive), and I love the contributing comments too. Makes for a great learning curve. Keep up the great work … and i suggest you keep the lamp for yourself! 🙂
Lot of 30 Antique Vintage Hollow Barrel Skeleton Keys, Steampunk small, jewelry
Pre-Owned
$42.26
13 bids
Also, buyers may like the vintage condition, if not, a thin amount of linseed oil takes off rust, (10 minutes) then a wire brush. You must wipe everything very clean, or it will turn gummy, which is hard with small keys. I’d probably let the buyer deal with it myself.
Maybe they could do a trade, the lock for the keys. Then they’d each have what they needed, except the need would be gone.
Maybe one can settle for an O’Henry bar.
Michael
Hello! not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I am interested in the silver pen that is 6 from the right in the photo with all of the pens. Will you be selling it?
Most likely, send me an email if you’re interested. I think it’s a Lamy
Well done Martin. I could paw through that old box of metal things for hours. Why is it so fascinating? I was going to suggest Tom Hanks for that old typewriter too, it’s got a great shape. Loving that lamp – I’d keep it.
You should keep the lamp. It’s fantastic!
Love the metal junk box, in it’s uncleaned condition, it speaks volumes.I could’nt make out what the red metal lantern like thing is…a lamp finial maybe.
Yes it’s pretty cool! I’m not sure what that thing is either…
The red thing looks to me like a top.
The wood attached to the peg is a door fastener. The wood goes through door handles and then the peg into a hole to hold it there. I had something similar on a door once
How interesting!
[…] found this odd thing with those old metal bits not long ago. I don’t know if many people saw it in the picture, so here’s a close-up. […]