Month: April 2025

Lucky Monday

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I’ve been pretty lucky so far this year. I’ll have to save some of my stories for the book I hope to one day get my head into writing, but I’ll definitely tell you about my lucky Monday from a few weeks ago. I had plans on going out in the morning, but I had a tough time getting moving that day. The clock struck 11am, which is usually a bit too late to go out hunting during a morning pickup, but on this particular route the trash often gets picked up a little later, so I decided to go out anyways.

My first stop was a recently sold house with a fair sized trash pile out front, which from my experience tend to be good spots for finds. One bag from the bin contained two old jewelry boxes, and a couple of other bags held a bit more.

As is most often the case, the boxes had been pillaged before being tossed. However, as is also often the case, there were some treasures left behind for the local trash picker.

For example, this tangled clump of jewelry contained one nice 14k gold chain, and a couple of decent costume pieces.

All in all I saved nearly 12 grams of gold jewelry, which at current melt prices is worth a bit over a grand. That 18k gold tie clip was probably the most valuable piece. I also saved some silver, a few decent watches, and some coins.

Those two silver bracelets were both pretty busted, but they were quite large and hefty, so they were worth about 100$ in scrap. That Swatch is kind of cool, as is the mechanical YSL watch which still runs. Unfortunately, the vintage Timex Snow White watch does not.

It was a nice day, so I decided to go on a downtown adjacent route that tends to get picked up pretty late. I stopped at this unassuming pile, and found just one interesting bag. It held some … personal accessories (I’ll let you use your imagination), as well as a few bits of jewelry.

The highlight there was that top chain, which was branded “Fibo” and hallmarked as 14k gold. The little heart was also 10k gold. The rest, was either silver or gold filled. All in all, the roughly 9.5 grams of gold was worth about 800$.

So, that was a nice morning run! If I could find upwards of 2k worth of trash every day, I’d be a rich man. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy most of the time.

Spring is finally here, and I’m looking forward to university move-out day shenanigans which should keep me busy next week. Here’s hoping the weather cooperates. It would be nice to find another gold score, like the 18k Roberto Coin necklace I found during the festivities two years ago.

The all-nighter pt. 5

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Looking back on my posts about this spot, I think I undersold it a bit. I remember being so busy with other trash, that it kind of got lost in the shuffle. But it was truly a unique experience. I spent about 8 hours that first night digging through the dumpster, and when that was gone, I spent maybe 3-4 hours a night for three nights meticulously digging through the recycling (which was mostly just more of the same garbage), in addition to doing my regular runs.

I remember that some of these bins were home to rats. I’m not scared of rodents, but they did surprise me a couple of times. Occasionally I’d set a whole bin horizontally to encourage a resident rat to leave, so I could dig through the rest without its company. I was slightly paranoid about that disease you can get from rats, but I lived to tell the tale.

Also, in the middle of all that, I had a yard sale planned. Here’s how the van looked after that all-nighter. I sorted through a bunch of it during the sale, setting aside the blog-worthy, the eBay worthy, and the research worthy to bring back to my garage/office.

Here’s a table I made just of yard sale type stuff. There was a lot more of course, but there’s only so much I can do when it comes to documenting my finds.

Case in point. A lot of those suitcases were stuffed with clothes. Nothing mind blowing (ie: Chanel), but nice vintage stuff like this colourful Korean silk shirt that caught my eye. I find it hard to take good pictures of clothing though, so I rarely try. But clothing (especially vintage clothing) has been a solid money-maker for me in recent years, one I mostly ignored early in my career. Complete ballpark guess, but I probably made over a grand on the clothes alone. And of course I found that 534$ wrapped up in a blanket.

I also saved a whole bunch of books here. The old guy was an engineer, and there was lots of urban planning stuff, but also some interesting philosophical works. Elsewhere, these kinds of books might not sell very well, but I’m near the university so these genres are fairly popular. Here are just a couple of the books I saved.

Lastly, I saved a whole bunch of stamps. Lots of big blocks, which apparently aren’t worth all that much most of the time. I sold a box largely full of old Iraqi stamps for 100$ at my yard sale though, so that was good. A friend sold some of the others, and I still have some kicking around (the bottom three). I doubt there’s anything incredible, but they are cool. I used to collect stamps when I was a kid, but now I’m more into kitschy animal figurines.

I have a few more things for the final part of this series, and also I’ll give you an update from some of the best finds from previous posts.

The all-nighter pt. 4

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I’m almost done processing this stuff from the “all-nighter” spot of August 2023. I have all the pictures done, so that’s another box of junk off the shelf. I found a lot of jewelry that day, the most notable of which I share here today (save one piece, which I’ll share in my next post), along with some other small finds. Most of this is costume stuff, save for a couple of silver pieces. The necklace with the red stones is Monet, which is a nice costume jewelry brand.

That little pin in the plastic case is silver, as well as the pendant below it. The Saddam Hussein and Khomeini pins are an… uncommon find? These folks seem to have collected a wide range of stuff, so I doubt they had any real affection for either of them.

Nothing too fancy in the pen department, though two were eBay worthy (by my determination) and one just sold for 40$. That Solingen hoof knife is pretty cool, and I found a couple of possibly ancient coins. I’ve found a few over the years, but they are tough to research and you need to make sure they aren’t reproductions. Most aren’t worth that much anyways, so I just stash them in a little ceramic dish.

Most of this stuff is silver, some of it unmarked like that pretty millefiori ring at top left. The gold ring on the right looks to be unmarked 14k gold.

I found a lot of unmarked metal here. These people had roots in Iraq, so I wonder if silversmiths there just didn’t mark their works as religiously as silversmiths did elsewhere.

The most interesting piece to me is that ring in the middle front. It has an unusual design, and if I’m reading the hallmarks right, it was made in Edinburgh in the year 1846.

I had a pretty good run to start the week. Things have cooled down since, but one run like that makes up for a bunch of mediocre ones. I hope to share those finds here soon enough!

Links

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