Questionable judgment pt.3

Posted on by garbagefinds

I’ve been sitting on these pictures for about six months now… it’s time to post them or get off the pot! As explained in previous posts these folks had legendarily poor garbage-related judgment, especially in regards to tossing precious metals. Anyways, I found a collection of cufflinks and other jewelry bits one evening.

A number of them were stored in this jewelry box.

Luckily for me a bunch of them turned out to be gold! I could have made more money selling them as they were, but at one point I needed some cash to fix my car and had to sell them for scrap. So it goes – that would have been more of a hassle anyways. The cufflinks ended up netting me several hundred dollars (how much exactly I forget), enough to pay for most of the repair.

You might be wondering what this thing is (as it’s definitely not a cufflink). It’s a custom kinetic ring of some kind – the stone ball on top has the ability to rotate. There’s an 18k hallmark on the inside but no other impressions that would help identify the maker. Just so you know, I didn’t melt this piece because it was so unusual, and the rest of the gold covered the cost of my car repair anyways.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it, so please let me know if you have! Regardless, it’s worth a fair bit of money for the gold alone. The piece weighs about 25g, and if we assume that about half of that is gold it’d be worth around 500$ just for scrap.

There were plenty of other cufflinks. A couple of these turned out to be gold as well, though most were gold-filled or made of some other type of metal. Quality yard sale stuff anyways.

These ones were silver. Unfortunately, they were either in poor condition or missing their match.

This Danish modernist cufflink was worth selling on its own, however. It was designed by Rey Urban and should go for around 40-50$.

Otherwise, I found another nice piece of art. This one has a couple of dings in the middle but is in nice condition otherwise.

It’s signed but I can’t make out what it says. Any ideas? Zoom in for a closer look!

Here’s another piece with a signature that’s hard to decipher. This little sculpture measures only around two inches long and seems to be made of brass or another golden metal. It quite well done, if only from my amateur perspective.

Here’s the signature. It looks like it ends in “rth” but beyond that I have no idea.

The stone bear on the left is part of a 90s charity golf tournament trophy. It also “bears” an unknown signature which you can see below. The elephant is made of stone, but is unfortunately missing its tusks.

DSC02749

I found plenty of other quality junk here but I think it’s time to move on to more recent trash. There will be a part four however, featuring a couple of pieces I only recently discovered were valuable.

You might have noticed that I changed the look of the blog. I liked the old theme, but apparently this one is more mobile friendly. I think it looks good as well, but what do you think?

Links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Help pay off my student loan / Contribute to the blog
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. Staying on top of emails is not my best quality, so please be patient (but feel free to nag).

18 thoughts on “Questionable judgment pt.3”

  1. Dihn Van made some similar rings for Cartier and others in the 1970s. Worth some more research; what a great find!

    1. Thanks, I do see some very similar rings! I doubt it’s him because of the lack of a signature, but maybe some local artist was commissioned to make something of that style. Who knows…

  2. The first signature looks to me, (and probably no one else😄) looks like Hieskok?

    The small brass stature, if you have access to any clay or playdoh, press it firmly across the signature and slowly peel away, might be easier to read that way. Good Luck!

  3. How much would you ask for the bear? I collect bears and this one looks great!

    1. Send me an email and maybe we can work something out. I’ll want to do a bit more research on it before selling it though.

  5. Love the painting and the little metal sculpture. I hope you find out who created them.
    That kinetic ring is certainly a curious thing. You could never wear a glove over it, that’s for sure! 😀

    1. You’re right, thanks for the info! He doesn’t seem to be super well known or anything, but it does seem like his paintings sell in the 100-250$ range. Mine would be less than that of course due to the hole, but it’s still nice.

  8. Nice piece of jade in first photo. The 18k ring looks to be Italian circa 1970s to me. The stone could be lapis lazuli.

  9. I agree that the ring’s stone is Lapis. Hiensch’s large oil paintings that are complex scenes like yours sell for $750 in Europe. I think the tears just need a minor professional stabilization of the tears. It does not appear any paint was lost.

  10. I think the EUC marking on the green bear is not the marker’s mark, but an Innuit trade assoc. or authenticity marking

  11. Hey Marty, I know you were waiting for available cash to repair the abstract painting by the Canadian artist. You might consider trading the Hiensch to the restorer for the repair. I think Hiensch sells better in Europe and the restorer probably has access to European auction houses or can trade to someone who does.. Just a thought

    1. Thanks for the info. Maybe I can suss out the restorers willingness to barter when the time comes.

  12. The sculpture is interesting and reminds me of a painting by Gustav Klimt called “The Kiss”. Perhaps an artist was trying to recreate the painting in metal. BTW, Love your blog. I often garbage pick on my walks in a well-to-do suburb of Detroit and find all sorts of great stuff, although I don’t have the guts to dig through or take home bags like you do. Keep up the good work!

Comments are closed.