Cold Turkey

I’ve been spending a lot of time getting my garage organized in recent weeks. I’m not getting paid to endorse this, but the Cold Turkey blocker has helped my productivity greatly. I set it to block distracting websites from my computer for most of the day, and after a brief adjustment period I found that I don’t even miss them. It helps that I enjoy my work, and am now actually excited to go and rearrange the deck chairs of my personal Titanic (aka, my various storage spaces). Sometimes I struggle with work-life balance when I get in these productive mindsets, but “getting things done” is definitely a step in the right direction.

I tidied up this corner/disaster nicely. The storage unit was a mess. The bottom two drawers had eBay listed stuff inside, which is fine. The drawer that doesn’t close was stuffed with extra wires (for when I find something without cables), which needed to be put in a bigger drawer. The others were largely filled with miscellaneous junk, including one that was just golf balls.

One of the drawers was full of stuff from one particular spot. The non-book finds from the book tossers. So I figured I’d clear that one out by finally taking photos of what was inside.

The most valuable thing in this batch is probably that painting. It appears to be by Margaret Heath, who is notable enough to garner estimates in the hundreds of pounds for her artwork. I thought that metal mop head tin was kind of funny. Today a thing like that would be packaged in the lowest grade plastic available. Times have changed.

A small box held a bunch of vintage & antique postcards and other small paper ephemera.

Here’s a selection of my favourites. These people were definitely collectors, and probably hoarders considering they owned up to four copies of the same book. All that to say that I doubt they had a personal connection to any of these photos. I suspect a lot of this stuff came from estate sales.

Here we have a couple nice pens and some old war stuff, including a WWII-era leaflet that appears make fun of Hitler. I found a similar one online that had an auction estimate of 80-150 Euros. That seems high to me, but maybe they know better.

Edit: apparently it sold for 440 Euros. I guess I’ll have to find where I stashed it… I need to get this on eBay!

And here’s some last bits and bobs. Maybe these folks were among the 2140 who voted for the Dollar Cinema guy in the 2017 Montreal mayoral election.

A lot has changed since I took this picture. The plastic storage unit is now somewhere else, and much better organized. I put my lounge/work chair in its place. The stuff that was on top (mostly pre-packaged eBay items) is now on the big shelf in place of the books, which looks much tidier. (Re: the books, I’m still trying to sell them. I wasted time with one flake who said they’d show up today before ghosting, and now I’ve moved on to someone who seems pretty serious – fingers crossed). Most notably, where my chair (and more books) was before, I set up my photo lights again. I don’t remember why I took them down, but I haven’t had a real photo setup for over a year now. So, my next photos should look better than these ones, which I’m not all that happy with… but they are “good enough.”

I was hoping to do a yard sale this weekend, but the weather is looking pretty iffy. Saturday is a write-off, and Sunday is looking sketchy (windy and potentially rainy). It’s a long weekend though, and Monday looks nice… but my gut is telling me that holiday Mondays usually aren’t good for sales. What do you think?

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.
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