Things I find in the garbage

Part one of a million pt.4

March 1, 2020 garbagefinds17 Comments

On my first stop here, many months ago now, I spotted an old dollar bill in shopping bag full of junk.

I ended up saving four bills in total, as well as a pill bottle filled with coins, a few of which were silver dimes.

Finding cash in the trash is a good indicator that the people doing the tossing aren’t being too careful about it, so I made a note to keep an eye on this little part of the curb. I’ve been going back ever since.

Here’s a selection of interesting finds, in no particular chronological order. I’ve always been a fan of maps, and this A.T. Chapman Montreal road map from 1900 is a pretty great one.

It’s cool to see what parts of the city were developed back then. Montreal was growing quickly at this time: it roughly doubled in size between 1881 and 1901, and then doubled in size again by 1921. I like picking in neighbourhoods with some history to them, so I look at the map and see a lot of fun trash-related destinations. I’m not sure what it’s worth, but I might just keep it for myself. I wasn’t able to find any others like it online, so it’s likely pretty uncommon.

This spot has produced lots of great paper ephemera. Here we have 12 segments of a 1917-1918 calendar (for some reason there’s two December 1917s). The images are great, featuring drawings of young ladies in the fashions of the day holding their favourite flower.

They were made to promote Glass Garden Builders Limited, a greenhouse construction company based in Toronto. I have them listed on eBay for 100$. Maybe that’s too high for a quick sale, but I don’t mind if they sit around for a while.

Here’s a National Food Shops flyer, which I’d guess is from the early 60s. It seems like this place is still open, though it looks like they moved a little further up the street at some point. Either way, this flyer would look great in a frame!

Here’s a few more antique ring boxes. This purple example, with a mother of pearl button, recently sold for 55$. It was made for a jeweller on St. Catherine’s Street.

These Victorian-era ring boxes are very small and cute. I think the one with the writing could sell for around 100$, and the other a bit less.

This silver comb had seen better days. The comb itself degraded with time, but the silver handle was fine, and was still worth about 10$ for scrap.

This vintage LL Bean fanny pack is in great condition for its age. It’s hard to find comparables online, but vintage LL Bean stuff does fairly well on eBay. It was made in Freeport, Maine.

Here’s the contents of an aged plastic shopping bag I found back in November. Those embroidered red mitts were a hit on Instagram. I expect they were made in eastern Europe, but I’m not 100% sure. That brush at top left is marked “Genuine Ebony.” I think the little pokey thing at top right is probably a hair pin, and made from some kind of horn. That blue piece at the bottom looks quite old. It has a handle, and inside was a collection of handkerchiefs. For people who like vintage & antique clothing and textiles, there’s a lot more of that to come in future posts.

Maybe a month ago I saved a big collection of vintage razors, some of which were in their original boxes. I decided to go the auction route with the lot, and they’re doing quite well. The bid is currently at 75$, which I’m personally very happy with. If you want in on that action the auction ends tonight.

I didn’t find anything particularly exciting last week, but overall it’s been a good month or so. Friday’s weather situation was pretty bad once again. It’s been a while since I’ve gone out on a Friday (I usually do runs Monday through Friday, whenever there’s trash days around the city), but I don’t mind taking a bit of extra time off in the winter. I’ve made some pretty good sales lately, but I’ll save that information for an upcoming post…

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

Part one of a million pt.3

February 21, 2020 garbagefinds13 Comments

This was one of my better hauls from this spot. There were only two bags out, but they contained a well tousled collection of jewellery. I assume some pieces were kept, but there was still lots left for me.

Here’s the collection after my first round of sorting. It was quite the mass of stuff! At front right is a vintage Gubelin watch box that I sold quickly for 80$.

This jewelry box is very old – there’s some writing on the bottom indicating that it was gifted way back in 1881. It’s in pretty good condition for its age!

Many pieces were touristy, made from shells, stones, or other materials from their area of origin.

A lot of these are made from different kinds of shell. I don’t think any of it is particularly valuable, but it’s still quality costume jewelry.

I saved a bunch of those colourful, nature themed brooches/pendants. None are marked, but I suspect they were made in Japan. That scarab pendant is nice, I think it’s made from silver & turquoise.

I think those pink necklaces are made from some kind of stone. The one on the bottom is made from wood, and I think the black and white one is plastic. Those beads in the box are either glass or stone.

There’s a few nice necklaces here, including ones made from amber, pearl, and coral. I’d guess that the coral one up top was made in a French colony, because the round part of the pendant was made using a French coin.

We have a little silver here, including that Catholic charm, the Mayan calendar set, and the Bluenose pendant. I don’t think the pendant attached to that top piece is silver, but the necklace might be. It’s hallmarked with a picture of what looks to be a cow. Those white earrings at top right were made in India, and are probably ivory.

Most of the stuff up top is silver, including that RCAF sweetheart bracelet. On the back is an engraving dating to 1943.

On the right is a piece of scrimshaw, and a blue flower pendant that I’m told is probably made from anodized titanium. The rock on the left looks to be a hunk of turquoise.

I realized relatively recently that old ring boxes sell for pretty good money.

Both of these were made by Birks, which gives them a little extra pedigree. I recently sold the one on the right for 65$, and have the one of the left listed for 125$. That might be a bit of an ask, but not by much. It’s in great condition and probably about 100 years old. The exterior is covered with a thin layer of blue leather with gold accents. Hidden inside was a winder key of some kind.

This, I suppose is the cream of the crop. At top left are three sterling silver & mother of pearl pocket knives. They should sell for between 50-100$ each. That bird brooch is Mexican silver, and quite large at 9.5cm tall. The watch to the right of it is marked “Apex 18k”. It needs some work, but the case is very pretty. The watch below is a Langendorf, which seems to have been a decent brand in its day, while the other is an “M&O’s.” Otherwise, we have another Scottish silver & agate brooch (I’ve found a few of these now), a Marcel Boucher ribbon brooch, a neat pill box made using an Indian coin, and a cool (but unfortunately unsigned) brutalist style pendant.

Overall, it was a pretty good haul! I’ve found some other nice jewelry here, but never this much at one time.

I still have tonnes of stuff to share from this spot. It hasn’t produced anything too exciting the past couple of weeks, but the trash is still coming out. I was pretty lucky with bigger items this week, including a couple of quality electronic pieces. I’ll post about it all here at some point.

I took today (Friday) off for weather related reasons again. This time it was really cold, and I didn’t feel like going out in it. Last week it was snow, and the week before that it was the huge dump of snow. Fortunately, being my own boss means I can make my own schedule. Also, the weather should improve soon enough…

The home office

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 garbagefinds23 Comments

I thought it might be nice to show you where my work gets done. Today I’ll give you a tour of my home office, which is really just a section of my room, in an apartment I share with 3-4 others at any given time.

I do a lot of photography here, particularly for eBay but also for the blog (mainly collections of small items, because the box isn’t too big). Now that I have photo lights in my garage I take a lot of blog photos there as well. I do most of my researching, eBay listing and blogging here, though sometimes I wonder if I should get out of the house more often (ie: by going to a café to work). I use that laser printer (which I found, and still haven’t had to buy ink for) to print off my eBay shipping labels.

(Notable former garbage in this picture: the map, the cat embroidery, the blue cabinet thingy the photo lights sit on, lots of bits and bobs).

Working at home is comfortable, of course, in large part because of Girl Kitty. She was a foster cat along with her brother (Boy Kitty), and both were inherited by my former roommate. Boy Kitty went with someone else, which is fine by me because he was kind of a jerk, and eventually Girl Kitty came to be mine. Anyways, she’s a fun cat with a lot of personality. She’ll rarely sit right next to you, but if there’s a box there she’ll often jump inside. So, some of my best working from home moments involve me sitting on my little couch with a cat in a box beside me.

(Notable former garbage: cat’s box. I got the couch at an estate sale for 40$).

I store a lot of stuff at home. This china cabinet (which I got at the auction house for about 50$) contains a bunch of different junk, including: a tub (the green one) for found e-waste & batteries; small boxes for shipping; business cards for my new business card project; cleaning products (ie: for silver); and miscellaneous finds to be photographed or otherwise dealt with. The drawers below are often in flux, but right now they’re mostly focused on items I’d like to try to sell at a flea market.

The filing cabinet (trash find) contains things that I could / should list on eBay (top drawer), packing supplies (middle drawers), and stuff that could go into future auction lots or flea markets (bottom shelf). I don’t think having the packing materials in there really make much sense, so I’ll probably store them elsewhere at some point.

On top of my filing cabinet were boxes full of sorted Pokemon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and other playing cards. Stashed under my bed were three big boxes containing many more unsorted, unloved cards. After looking at this photo, I realized that I didn’t really want to see these cards ever again, and decided to bring them to the auction house “as is” in their unsorted state. It’s been almost a year since I found the card hoard, and the upcoming anniversary made it clear in my mind that it was time to move on. I’m still likely to make some decent money from these cards, just not as much as I would have if I had put the many hours into organizing them. Though, upon saying that, that might not even be true. No way to know, I guess.

Otherwise, this spot is often a resting place for miscellaneous trash, items of interest, or packing materials. Now that those Pokemon cards are gone, the potential is limitless.

I found that embroidered serenity prayer in Ville Emard many years ago. I’m not religious or a member of AA, but I think it’s a good message regardless.

Here’s a look inside one the drawers in my blue cabinet. This one’s reserved for small items, most of which could be listed on eBay, or at least require further research. I try to keep all my pens in here, and as you can tell I’m a bit behind in getting them listed. That’s okay though, as they take up next to no space. This is just one of the many drawers & cubby-holes filled with junk at “the office.”

The home office isn’t always this organized, for the record, but sometimes it is. I found that purple chair in TMR this past fall, and the painting is the Edmund Alleyn I found a couple years back. At some point I want to get it restored, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet. On the chair is a Gutenberg word processor manual (trying to figure out what to do with it), and some packages ready to be mailed.

This part is just for decoration. I found that mid-century yellow lamp years ago in NDG. My friend saw a similar one by Douglas Ball and John Berezowski at the Fine Arts Museum in Quebec City last year, and through that I was able to track down one that looks the same via Google (though the link won’t open for whatever reason). So, it’s probably worth a bit of money, but I plan on keeping it. I found that radio around six years ago, and it’s still a favourite of mine. I also really like the preserved (I’m not sure how) piranha, and the four-legged alien looking Beauce plant pot. I enjoy the other things as well, but I’m not as committed to them, and might switch them out at some point.

While on the topic of lamps, I really like this green capiz shell chandelier I found years ago. It needed some fixing up, but I think it was worth the few hours I put into it. I hung it from an old light fixture that probably hasn’t worked in decades anyways.

I try to not collect too much stuff, lest I let the junk take control of my life, but I do like little bottles & tins. Here’s are the ones I have on display in the corner, next to the door.

Well that’s a pretty good look at the home office. At some point, maybe in the spring I’ll show you the state of my garage, which is where I try to leave most of the mess. It’s kind of chaotic, but it’s an ordered chaos that makes sense in my head.

It’s very cold today, so this is the second Friday in a row that I’ve skipped due to weather. I would have gone out if I have an interesting spot to check on, but I haven’t had much luck on my Friday runs recently anyways. Most of my good fortune this week came from Pointe St-Charles of all places – I’ll show you those finds at some point soon.