Things I find in the garbage

In finishing up with this spot, I’ll do a “where are they now” type post for the biggest finds from previous posts. These non-working Rolexes ended up being authentic, which is what my gut told me from the beginning. I spent a long time (as in, over a year) wondering how to authenticate them, before realizing that I’m at the point where I can do that myself. It’s not hard to spot a fake when you know what to look for. No point paying Rolex to do that, or showing it to someone who can’t really produce any documents that online buyers would take seriously.

With the Rolex on the left, I was able to open the back with one of those rubber ball watch case openers. I figured if I was listing it on eBay, the buyer would want to see the inside. It was tough to come up with an exact valuation, so I decided to do a Buy it Now with best offer, starting at 2250$. I got a bunch of offers, and almost took one at 1250$. But then I got sidetracked, and someone ended up buying it for the full price. So it was kind of a reverse of what happened with that fountain pen a few months back. I think they probably overpaid, but these are the kind of things that people are more likely to overpay for. It sounds like he plans on fixing it himself, which might have impacted his valuation of the watch. From the sounds of things, a professional repair would have cost more than I got for the watch.

With the Rolex on the right, I was not able to open the back with the rubber ball thing, no matter how hard I tried. So I brought it to a local shop, hoping that they could open it for me for a small fee. But the guy said that he would be interested in buying it, after having his Rolex guy look at it to determine what exactly was wrong. A few days later, he says to repair it would cost a few grand, and that he’d give me 1000$ for it. I thought this was a pretty fair price, so I accepted.

Maybe you’re wondering why I thought 1000$ was fair, after getting 2250$ for the other. For one, the more expensive watch had the original bracelet, which seems to add several hundred dollars on its own. For two, I do think the buyer of the first one overpaid by a bit. Before he bought it, all my offers were in the low 1000s. There was no guarantee I’d be able to find someone to overpay again. And three, it saved me the hassle and probably 150$ or so in eBay fees.

All in all, that’s a pretty good result! I’m glad I finally dealt with these, and that it was well worth the effort. Now, on to new projects.

As for my cash haul, I ended up selling it all to a follower for a bit over face value. I probably undersold this for a bit, but it was a hassle-free transaction and I ascribe a lot of value to that.

And here’s one last thing that I haven’t shared yet. It’s an interesting object, and I haven’t been able to find anything quite like it online. Those side bits fold up, and I think it was probably made to hold cups. What’s curious to me is that it holds up oddly to the silver test. It definitely doesn’t test like a high purity (.800+) piece, but the reaction definitely looks different than a plated piece. I tested it side by side with a .500 1967 dime, and the reaction looks fairly similar to that. So, I’m thinking that this is another unmarked silver piece, with a low purity somewhere in the .500 range. Given that a lot of this stuff came from the Middle East, I wonder if it’s another Egyptian piece. For a period in the late 1800s and early 1900s, .450 and .600 were apparently silver standards that could be used, and for some time silver hallmarking was not compulsory. But it could also be from somewhere else – information about silver standards and hallmarking is hard to find past a certain date, especially in certain parts of the world. However, it does have a British (and old) look to it, making me think it’s from a place where Britain ruled for some time, which includes Egypt and Iraq. If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments! Who knows, I could be totally out to lunch on all this, but it’s a cool object regardless.

While on the topic of watches, I figured it was time to give an update on these guys. The last news was that they were slightly radioactive, thanks to radium paint on the dials. Then, one of the buyers messaged me, saying he thought my watches were not mid-century, as I had originally assumed, but in fact more WWII era. He showed me pictures of similar watches from that time, some of which had the exact same face but different branding. It was pretty obvious once I thought about it more – the design really is a lot more 1940s than it is 1950s or 1960s.

Anyways, with this information, I decided to take down the listing and re-brand. A WWII-era new old stock watch is more uncommon than a mid-century one. So, I re-took the pictures, increased the price from 24.99 to 60$, and emphasized that anyone buying these watches would need to put around 80-100$ into getting them serviced (another useful bit of info from that helpful buyer), because after 80 years all the lubricant had pretty much dried up.

Since then, I’ve sold a whole bunch of these with no issues. I did a bulk deal with one buyer, who paid around 40$ each for 14 of the watches. I also sold another 14 at the full price. So, all in all this watch haul is becoming a very nice find. I’m not sure exactly how many I have left, but it’s well over a hundred, although some are in better condition than others.

Will this be the last update about these watches? We’ll see!

And here’s some fresh garbage from this week, just so I have something new to share. I did a lot of trash picking this week, to take advantage of the sunny weather (which has been rare recently). This involved going on an afternoon route I do only occasionally. The traffic around this area is annoying, but sometimes there’s great stuff. Anyways, the route was looking like a dud before happening across these bags. Take a guess at what’s inside…

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Two of those black bags were filled with Lego. About 30 pounds worth. I put it all in a big Le Creuset cardboard box, and added some other Lego I found recently, bringing the total to about 34 pounds. My preliminary research says that 10$/pound seems to be a common price for bulk Lego these days, so I’ll try to get something around that on Facebook marketplace.

The other black bag held a bunch of cosmetics and personal care products, and also a little bit of jewelry. Here’s the nicest from that bunch. Everything is silver, except that little heart necklace which is 10k gold. I think the ring might be gold too, but the hallmarks are worn off or illegible. Neither of those pieces weighs much, but it continues a streak where I’ve found some quantity of solid gold for several consecutive weeks (for the exact number, I’d have to go back and look). That’s the kind of streak that makes me want to go out and pick more trash!

Otherwise, an Instagram follower tipped me off to a big pile of trash yesterday. I went there late last night, and found some pretty cool stuff. That will likely be the subject of a blog post to come!

In a little over a month I’ll be moving to a new place. For the first time ever, I’ll live alone, although my landlords will be my friends who lives downstairs which should cut down on any feelings of isolation. Regardless, I have a lot of work to do over the next little bit. Fortunately, I’ve been planning for my own personal “move-out day” for some time. I purged a bunch of old high school and college era junk over the winter, and moved a lot of non-essential junk from my personal collection to the yard sale pile. I think my move will be relatively easy, knock on wood.

A lot of the things I find come from people moving. I’ll be tossing some stuff for sure, but I’ll be doing it in a way most likely to reach the people who might want it. For example, I put an old carpet on the curb last night, and left a note: “no bugs, but probably 10 years of dust.” It was gone within a few hours. In a few days, I’ll be putting boxes of free crap on the curb. Having lived here for nine years, and gone through countless roommates in that time, a lot of this stuff is not even mine. It’s not worth donating (I’ve seen what thrift stores throw out), but maybe someone who passes by will want some pencils, some random candles, or bits of fabric.

I’m hoping that I’ll feel a bit more creative living on my own. Maybe I’ll finally start writing that book I’ve been thinking about for years!

Anyways, here’s the 2nd to last part of this series.

I saved a lot of photos here, which I reduced to some favourites for blog purposes. Some of these are quite old. The one with the car is probably from c.1970, and I just find the perspective kind of unique. There’s also an old 100 Armenian Rubles note from 1919, which seems to be worth about 20$.

Some miscellaneous items. I sold that little chess board through Instagram. The photo frame could be unmarked silver, but I find the test results confusing. I’ll show it to my scrap guy next time I’m in.

I found a book which was a compilation of all the Baghdad College yearbooks from 1951-1955 (if I recall correctly). I’ve tried selling vintage yearbooks in the past, with modest success. A few sold for around 50$ each, but most sat on eBay for years before I finally threw them in with the yard sale stuff. However, this has five different years in it, and Baghdad College seems to have been an interesting school. At this time, it was run by American Jesuits, and apparently a lot of the students were from the Iraqi elite. There are some notable alumni, but I don’t think any of them are recognizable to the average Westerner.

At top right is Loris Chobanian, an American-Iraqi-Armenian composer. I’m not sure people are running out to buy yearbooks with him in them, but who knows. I think I’ll give eBay a try here.

The guy who lived here was an engineer who seemed to be pretty skeptical of nuclear energy. I found an old “Nuclear Waste,” as well as some letters to the editor on the topic. My stepdad was a anti-nuclear proliferation activist around this time period, so I probably find this more interesting than most. I also found a “Today” magazine (I think it was an insert to the Gazette) which had my stepdad on the cover, but I’m not sure where I put it!

I saved this interesting piece, which looks to have been a necklace. It’s made from silver, as well as silver coins that look to have been hammered flat. It’s hard to make out where they come from, but I think they are probably c.1950 Iranian rials. In this condition, it’s probably not worth much more than scrap, but it’s still a hundred and some dollars of scrap.

Finally, the extra piece of jewelry I forgot to add to my last post. This has no hallmarks, but it tests as 18k gold. My bet it that it was custom made, maybe back in Iraq or Armenia. The beads appear to be bakelite. Unfortunately, the links were getting a little fragile in places and a couple broke as I was handling it. So, its destination is the scrap pile. However, at 32 grams, it’s a very good haul. Even assuming each bead weighs about 1 gram, it’s a nice haul. You can do the math on my preferred gold value calculator.