May 2020 – Things I find in the garbage

Spring cleaning bits & bobs

May 24, 2020 garbagefinds21 Comments

Spring has definitely sprung. That means the cat is happy, and extra garbage (quality and not) is making its way to the curb. Today I’ll share some recent finds, some of which are related to spring cleaning, and some of which are due to people moving (which also tends to happen more when it’s warm out).

This pile in St Michel was mostly trash, other than the contents of the plastic case that I pulled out from underneath that floating box.

Inside was a diverse array of metal bits & bobs. There were toy cars, random bits of copper and brass, a few kitchen utensils, and a couple old long brass door latches that I think will do well on eBay.

Perhaps most notable though was this collection of skeleton keys, some of which are quite large (the biggest being about 5″ in length). The designs on the end are pretty unusual as well, helping to make this the nicest collection of skeleton keys I’ve found in one place. My mom loves skeleton keys, so she’ll likely end up with at least a few of them…

For a few weeks one chap was tossing all kinds of barely used tools in preparation for a move. I just sold the carpet knee-kicker for 70$, and I have the carpet iron and air powered caulk gun listed on eBay as well.

Buddy also tossed a seemingly never used GraLab darkroom timer, which I sold on eBay for 85$.

That spot’s last productive garbage day featured office-related stuff and a few junk drawer doohickies, the most valuable of which was this 10k white gold MedicAlert bracelet. At 6 grams, it should net me about 170$ at current scrap prices.

An Instagram follower alerted me to a huge pile of trash in Rosemont, which I’d guess was the result of someone clearing out a storage area. Most of it wasn’t my bag, but I did pick up a couple nice (I think Chinese?) horse sculptures, a couple old toy cars, a cute vintage cat figurine, and a few other doodads.

If ever you have a hot garbage related tip, feel free to message me. Facebook & Instagram messages are probably the best way to do so, though sometimes I miss those notifications as well.

One of my best spring cleaning finds came from a pile on Victoria Avenue. (I also grew up on a Victoria Avenue, but elsewhere in Quebec). I found a lot of quality junk there, including kitchen stuff, silver plated Bombay Company accessories, and a small fur coat. Most valuable was a collection of jewelry, which I’d guess belonged to someone my age or younger. I picked all the different pieces out of the black trash bag and placed them in an old Tupperware tub for sorting.

The highlights were: a monogrammed 10k gold ring, a bulky Mexican silver bracelet, a pearl bracelet with a gold clasp, and three different pieces signed “Tiffany” (the key, the chain attached to it, and the necklace on the bottom).

I’m sure the key is a fake Tiffany piece, because it claims to be sterling silver but is not (based on an acid test). The chain is likely real, however, and I’m fairly confident the necklace on the bottom is as well. It’s funny to own both real and fake Tiffany products, but I’m sure it’s not that uncommon given how often Tiffany is faked. Anyways, assuming the “Return to Tiffany” necklace is real, it’s worth around 300-400$.

The silver bracelet second from the bottom would have been nice as well, but the woven silver thread has broken a bit in a few places, so to wear it you’d have to commit to being poked regularly. It’s still worth about 10$ for scrap.

Otherwise, I forget where I picked up this scooter. I thought it looked well made, so I brought it back to the garage where it sat for a few weeks. Then, a friend came by and mentioned how her roommate just bought a similar one on Amazon for 180$. Hearing that motivated me to get it listed on Kijiji, where it sold pretty quickly for 50$. Can’t complain about that!

Some folks in Westmount tossed this nice old rocking chair a couple weeks back. My first thought was to sell it, but once I sat down I found it to be surprisingly comfortable. We’ll see what happens, but for now it seems like a good fit at the house.

Otherwise, eBay sales have been strong of late. My biggest sales of late have been an older ophthalmology machine that sold for 600$ (we just have to figure out how to get it to Cambodia) and a set of Order of the Holy Sepulchre Medals for another 600$ (a find from last summer that never made the blog). I don’t plan on sharing my sales regularly anymore, but you can always see what I’ve sold recently on eBay by visiting my eBay listings pages and sorting by “sold” only. The only thing is that they don’t show you the “Best Offer” sold price (though I rarely use that feature, and you can find the accepted price by using watchcount.com) and an item still shows up as sold even if the transaction is cancelled (which is why I “sold” three Expos posters instead of two). However, usually once the price goes “green” the item is out the door.

I think the auction house is set to open again in a week or so, which will help me clear out my garage and make some cash. I’m still not sure when yard sales will happen again, or what they’ll look like once they do.

I saw a bit of good news as it relates to Covid-19 and trash picking. Apparently most transmission is person to person, and the virus in most circumstances won’t survive very long on random surfaces. It’s still a good idea to keep the hand sanitizer close by when looking through trash, but this is still good news nonetheless, especially since social distancing is baked in to garbage picking already.

Anyways I’m pretty far behind when it comes to sharing my quality finds here. I’ve been too easily distracted by the news, so I got a friend to put parental controls on my phone so that I can’t check the most addictive websites so frequently. Hopefully this leads me to be more productive / feel more at peace going forward.

Links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay, Search for something you want / research something you have (I’m a member of the eBay Partner Network so I make a bit of money if you buy things [even if they’re not mine] or sign up for an account via these links)
3. Help me pay off student loan debt / Contribute to the blog
4. Follow me on Instagram
5. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com – note that it might take me some time to reply, and that I am unlikely to be able to fulfill requests for items

A cornucopia of quality vintage junk pt.2

May 15, 2020 garbagefinds13 Comments

Let’s finish with the QVJ from that TMR apartment. I passed by there again last week and saw nothing on the curb, so I fully expect this to be a “one hit-wonder.”

Besides the silver-plated cutlery, I also saved a whole bunch of silver-plated tableware. This stuff is rarely of much value, but it does well enough at the auction house when you bring in a big lot of it.

I found about as many clocks as I did radios. None of these alarm clocks are super valuable, but they’re fun to have at yard sales. I could make an auction lot of them as well.

I’m sure someone will appreciate that horoscope wall clock on the right. Astrology has seen a bit of a resurgence in popularity of late, even if I personally still don’t know much about it. That clock is probably from the early-mid 80s, based on that beautiful faux wood finish.

That bottle of Labatt 50 is still full. It must be getting close to 50 years old itself, and wouldn’t be at all fun to drink. I’d guess that bottle of Crush is about the same age, but it was probably consumed decades ago. The electric kettle (perhaps a percolator, I forget right now) is pretty nice, and probably dates to the 1950s. I haven’t tested it yet, but most of those old electric things never die.

Here we have a vintage toaster, a Polaroid camera, an old aluminum kettle, and a copper & brass pot adorned with the Aztec calendar, which was likely a souvenir from Mexico.

I saved several nice vintage tins, one of which I traded to a friend for some homemade hand sanitizer (middle right).

I found three of those Schick “drying sticks,” all of which look to have never been used. The Hankscraft humidifier also looks unused. Maybe I can sell these via an auction lot of vintage products in their original boxes.

I found a whole bunch of matchbooks. Lots were stored in this Vapomaster jar (or canister of some kind). The rest, which filled up a shoebox, were loose in one of the bags. Matchbooks are always fun to look at, and are great yard sale fodder.

Coca-cola collectibles are a consistently hot market. This mirrored tray is a reproduction made in the 70s or 80s, but it’s still a nice piece that should sell for around 30$ at the auction house.

Let’s finish with some wall art. Here’s a W.E. Degarthe print that appears to be signed by the artist. It got a little water damage because it rained a bit the night I found it, but it looked better than I was expecting it would once it dried out. It’d probably be worth about 100$ in excellent condition, maybe 50$ in this condition.

Lastly, I saved a couple of vintage Formula 1 prints mounted on particle board. This one features the McLaren MP4/6, which was driven by Ayrton Senna during his highly successful 1991 campaign. The other showed a Williams car from the same era. Senna is a legend in the racing world, and these are in excellent condition so I’m hoping they’ll accept them at the auction house. If not, they’ll be easy to sell at a yard sale.

Otherwise, the quality finds keep on coming. My garage is pretty full right now because the auction house is closed and I can’t do yard sales. Thankfully a friend gave me some plastic shelving, which should at least help me get some stuff off the floor.

The “part x of a million” tosser recently rented a dumpster and filled it full of junk, both quality and not. I picked several bins worth of stuff just from that one container, and I’m still storing several other bins of their trash from months (some, almost a year) past that I haven’t yet had time to document. Due to the sheer volume I’m dealing with, I’m going to try using video to make it easier for me to share it all here. It takes longer to set up a photo, because you have to think about how it’ll all look from a certain perspective, while a video allows me to switch perspectives when necessary. Anyways, expect to see some videos in an upcoming post. No, I don’t plan on being in them in any meaningful way, ha ha. I still don’t have interest in becoming a Youtube star at this time.

A cornucopia of quality vintage junk pt.1

May 9, 2020May 10, 2020 garbagefinds17 Comments

I was having a pretty average run a couple weeks back before happening upon a collection of around 20 trash bags in front of a fourplex in TMR. That’s a fair bit more garbage than you typically see coming from four households, so I checked it out and ended up saving quite the variety of quality vintage junk (QVJ). I pretty well filled up the car, taking maybe 1/3 of the total volume from the bags when all was said and done. While there were no “omg” finds, I found a few things for eBay, some auction worthy items, and a lot of great yard sale stuff.

That box of records came from another house, FYI. It was actually a pretty good collection, including a lot of classic rock that’s typically pretty easy to sell.

One of the first things I found was a large stash of silverware. I enjoy finding these collections, as there’s sometimes a bit of sterling mixed in with the plated stuff (and the plated stuff is still nice, good for the yard sales).

On the right is the cutlery I saved for a future yard sale, and on the left is the more common stuff I left on the curb for others to pick through.

I did find my bit of sterling, a small spoon made by Birks. It’s always a bit of a thrill to find solid silver, even if it’s only worth about 10$. You can see how dirty my finds got picking through all that tarnish!

I saved a whole bunch of nice vintage scissors here. These are always a hit at my yard sales.

(PS: my camera is working fine again after I bought a new battery for it. This is the only picture from this post I shot using the camera, as opposed to my iPhone).

This spot was noteworthy for providing notable quantities of certain vintage items, in this case rotary phones. Finding four in one night, let alone one spot, is likely my all-time record. These old rotaries tend to do well at the auction-house, so I’ll likely bring them there when they open again.

Here we have a collection of radios. I haven’t done much research yet. but I’d guess that Hitachi transistor in the middle is worth a bit of money. People like their transistor radios, and they tend to like them even more when they come in different colours. Also, it’s in very good cosmetic condition. The radio at back right, a portable RCA Victor from the 40s, is probably valuable as well.

Here’s another portable radio, as well as five different combination alarm clock / radios. For some reason these folks had two of the exact same, very boxy model of Detson flip clock. I like the boxy look (I once owned a Volvo 240), and I’m sure others will appreciate them as well.

Vintage lamps are always a good find. This one’s a pendant lamp, meant to be attached and hung maybe 1.5′ from the wall. Another easy sale, unless I decide to keep it for myself.

My most unusual find was probably this framed photo of a 1930 medical exhibition featuring a wide variety of prosthetic limbs, including the Carnes arm. The price tag indicates that the previous owner either bought it at a sale, or tried to sell it at a sale. A friend who fancies old medical stuff showed an interest in it, and I agreed to sell it to them for 20$.

Lastly, I found two large Expos 1984 team photo posters. The 80s were one of the best times to be an Expos fan – this team features three Hall of Famers (Tim Raines, Andre Dawson & Gary Carter) and Pete Rose, by then a washed up future Hall of Famer (it wasn’t til later that he was caught betting on games), not to mention lots of players worthy of the “Hall of Very Good”. The strike in ’94, terrible / cheap ownership, and constant firesales destroyed enthusiasm for the Expos, ultimately resulting in their relocation after the 2004 season, but there’s hope that they’ll return someday soon (though, for what it’s worth, I think the idea of splitting games between Montreal and Tampa Bay is ridiculous).

I sold one of these posters very quickly for 50$ on eBay. The other, which is in slightly worse condition (a bit of foxing on the right side), is listed at 43$.

There’s yet more stuff from this spot to share, but I’ll save it for my next post. I didn’t see anything but rolled up linoleum there last week, and I’m guessing this spot will end up being a “one-hit wonder.”