The all-nighter pt. 2

Sorry for another long delayed post. I spent a lot of January and February distracted by a video game I got for Christmas. I’ve worked pretty hard over the last decade or so, with no real vacation, and this was about as close to one as I’m going to get as long as I’m dealing with this.

I’m now 37 (as of today, happy birthday to me!). I think I’m at the point where I’m willing to punt those months on a regular basis. Hunting for interesting piles isn’t as fun when it’s super cold out, and it’s not usually as productive either. And it’s not like I have a shortage of junk!

More recently, there has been another deluge of trash that has kept me very busy. When I load my van almost to the brim with junk, it’s a good days work just to sort it all out, let alone do anything with it. Honestly, I don’t really know how I managed to devote time to taking nice group photos like I used to. Maybe there was just less trash then, maybe I’m just a better picker now, or maybe I’m just less willing or able to work myself to ruination than I used to be. Most likely, a combination of two and three.

The reality is that the old ways don’t really work anymore. I need to change my operations somehow. I may need a bigger space, maybe even a part time employee. There is just too much stuff for one person to effectively deal with, let alone give these items the attention they deserve (ie: my nice photos from the past).

Anyways, for now we’re going to time warp back to last August, when I pulled my first ever all-nighter digging through trash. This is how things looked when I quit at around 6:33am.

This was a memorable pile for a variety of reasons. For one, my first all-nighter due to sheer size (and also difficulty – a lot of stuff was in the dumpsters, so I had to actually do some diving for a change). This was something close to an entire apartment on the curb. I spent about 8 hours just scrounging, and honestly those hours are very taxing. Even a couple hours of intensive picking can be exhausting, so I had to dig deep to make it through eight.

For two, at one point someone else comes out of the building and starts picking, and as it turns out they were familiar with my blog, although not a regular follower. We talked a fair bit. He was obsessed with finding stashes of cash, and was laser focused on looking through the many envelopes in hopes of finding some bills. I found this very specific fixation kind of hilarious. I find cash sometimes, most notably in 2018 when I found four separate cash stashes (plus a bunch of unused gift cards) in what was an outlier year, but otherwise cash finds are pretty rare and I never really think about them. They happen when they happen, and you don’t make them happen by thinking about them more.

We agreed to split any cash hauls. But he left as the clock approached 2am, like a somewhat normal person, and I stayed picking until the sun came up like an insane (let’s go with “devoted”) person.

Then at around 5:03am, after around 7 hours of digging, I was looking through some linens when this wad popped out from inside some sheets. The top bill was a hundred, which got me really excited.

(That was exact time within a minute or so by the way. I always try to take a time-stamped picture of my good finds in situ, for blog purposes but also as evidence in case someone wants to claim that I’m actually a cat burglar and not a trash picker).

It was the only 100$ unfortunately, but who’s complaining? The bills were all dated from the mid 1970s, and the grand total was 534$, which made it my best cash haul of my trash picking career (beating out the 307 USD haul from a few years back by over 100$ once converted). Many are crisp and barely used, so they are likely worth above face value to a collector.

Then at 5:39am, I opened up a document box and spotted a watch. It was a Rolex, and I think it’s real.

The next day, I had a thought. The garbage was likely picked up, but maybe not the recycling – that’s a different day in this neighbourhood. The recycling bins were full of junk too, and I hadn’t had time to look through them. So I went back the next day, and the recycling was indeed still there – as well as the same guy who was picking the day before. I told him about the cash, which I probably shouldn’t have because it made him more excited about picking (and motivating other people to try harder doesn’t help me make money).

Anyways, at one point we were talking, and he casually pulls this old blazer out of a recycling bin without paying much attention. I noticed something go flying out of one of the pockets, and picked it up quietly. It’s another Rolex.

Later that night, I was digging deep into these recycling bins and found a random 50$ bill and a Tag Heuer at the bottom of one of them. If I recall correctly, the pocket watch was in the same box as the Rolex.

Unfortunately, neither Rolex works, but if they’re real they are still worth decent money regardless. Probably several hundred to low 1000s. I don’t have the tool required to take the back off, which would definitely help confirm, but the details look pretty good under the jewelers loop. If you know much about watches, let me know what you think! Either way, even if they’re fake, I still have the 584$, and the roughly two van loads of stuff (some of which is very cool and valuable) that I saved here.

I couldn’t finish even the recycling bins that 2nd night, so I went back a third night and found even more stuff. All in all, I put in around 16 hours picking there. A lot of it went to the yard sales, or Instagram, or eBay, but over half a year later, and I still have a box or two of this stuff at my garage. Things that I want to research more, or things I’d want to take pictures of, if I ever had the time. Alas, even the wad of cash and the Rolexes have been collecting dust since then.

One of my mottos is “there’s always more garbage.” It’s a statement of fact, and an explanation for why one specific find rarely keeps my attention for any length of time. It’s why it’s hard if not impossible to buy things from me, because by the time I post a picture of something here or on Instagram, I’ve already kind of moved on. I do this out of necessity. Not even a week after my all-nighter, and the subsequent part-nighters in the recycling bins, I filled my car with another load of junk, from a totally different neighbourhood, including this awesome dog lamp that somehow survived 60-some years and a trip to the curb. And the cycle continued.

Too much garbage is a good problem to have, at least from the point of view of my self-interest. But I do need to figure out a new way to do things, because the old ways are simply no longer sustainable with this kind of inflow.

Anyways, let’s hope it’s not another three months or so before I get the itch to post again!

Links

1. My eBay listings. Sign up for eBay (Canada, US). Search for something you want / research something you have (Canada, US). — These are Ebay Partner Network links. If you create an account or buy something after getting to eBay from here, I get a small cut of the profit!  —
2. “Things I find in the garbage” on Facebook
3. Follow @garbagefinds and @garbagefindssells. Note that someone else runs the latter.
4. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. Note that I really suck at keeping up with my email.
5. Donate to the blog. It costs close to 500$ a year to maintain (no ads, domain name, storage space, etc) which ain’t cheap. Otherwise, it’s nice to get a few bucks for coffee, food, or gas! –Widget still unavailable–