craigslist – Page 9 – Things I find in the garbage

Gas masks and wind chimes

January 23, 2013January 23, 2013 garbagefinds9 Comments

The Montreal winter is now in full force. The high today was about -15 (not including the windchill) and it’s going to get real cold tonight and stay that way for the rest of the week.

I didn’t look for any trash yesterday because I didn’t feel like braving the cold. I also had a project to do – fix a laptop I found in the trash to use in day-to-day life. I found the laptop on the curb a couple of months ago (though it never put it to the blog). It’s a clean-looking Acer Extensa 5430, which is a reasonably modern machine. It was in a case and had a sticky note saying “No HD” (hard drive) on it. I brought it home, plugged it in and it seemed to work fine, outside of the lack of a hard drive of course. Yesterday I bought a new hard drive (about 68 bucks with tax), installed it, and then got an operating system going.

After trying Windows Vista (the original license is still on the bottom of the laptop) and getting frustrated with the fact that it didn’t seem to want to connect to the internet I decided to try out Ubuntu, the free open-source operating system. So far so good. I must say that I quite like Ubuntu.

Regardless, all this to say that I’m now typing on a laptop, which is kind of nice. It’s a bit quirky – it acts weird when you close the screen sometimes and I’ve had a hard time getting the wireless to work – but overall I’m happy with how it turned out. Definitely worth spending a day figuring it all out.

Today I decided to face the cold and look for some trash. Once I got out I didn’t find it too bad. I guess I’m getting used to it. I ended up walking for close to two hours! Having a beard helps a lot though.

I found the little pile of trash above came pretty early in my walk.

Inside one of the bags I found these gas masks. I’m not sure if they were ever used – the filter looks pretty white and the masks are otherwise very clean. I decided to look on Ebay to see if there’s a market for used gas masks. I found a few similar looking ones that sold for 20-30$.

More interestingly though I found out these masks were probably used by the Canadian military in recent missions (even if these specific masks may have never been issued to personnel). The closest looking one is this one, mostly because it has the same “Made in Canada” white label. I think the ad is mislabeled – it looks way to modern to be from WW2. This one also looks pretty similar, but doesn’t give a specific time frame as to when it would have been used.

I’d like to know more. Let me know if you have any information about these masks!

Also in the bags were two sports medals: one for the 1992 Quebec Games and one for a 2002 Women’s Hockey Tournament.

There were some clear recycling bags placed on the front porch next to the trash. I guessed that they were waiting for recycling day, which is tomorrow. I figured that I might as well take a quick look to see if there was anything interesting. I didn’t see much – typical house recycling mostly – and was about to move on when this caught my eye.

It’s a necklace. The necklace part is a thick rubber band, which is sort of odd. The pendant (and the parts that bound it to the rubber) is sterling silver and looks to me like a map of South America, though I admit that the design could be somewhat of a rorschach test. Something else to consider etsy-ing at least!

I found this (bamboo?) wind-chime in the farthest right box of the picture above. At first I thought it was all messed up (but fixable) but now I’m wondering if I just don’t understand how it’s all supposed to go together. It makes a pleasant, airy clonking noise.

A bunch of construction materials out on the curb in front of Parc Lafontaine.

Nighttime now. I went by this second-hand store on Gilford that often puts out lots of good stuff on trash days. You could run a pretty successful yard sale with the stuff they throw out. This time a massive stuffed horse lays on top of a bin and awaits its fate.

It was too dark to see much. I did find this puzzle with a funny picture which has some definite kitcsch value. Apparently Patof was the main character in a popular Canadian kids show back in the 1970s.

Here’s some food I dumpster-dived from the trash bins behind the Metro on Laurier. I found some good buns, a bag of apples, and some carrots and cauliflower. Not too shabby, even if the photo is really unappetizing.

That’s all for now!

Sunny sunny day

January 9, 2013January 9, 2013 garbagefinds8 Comments

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. It was above 0, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. I decided to walk around in the early afternoon to enjoy the sunlight – and look for trash, of course. I came across these bags not far from my home.

Inside were lots of cassette taps. The woman throwing them out was in and out of her house and encouraged me to take them. I took the ones that were “official.” The more I find cassettes in the trash the more I realize that music pirating isn’t anything new – just the medium has changed. I probably left 2/3 of the collection behind.

Her collection was pretty good. There were lots of big names: Peter Gabriel, Corey Hart (5 cassettes worth – maybe everything Corey Hart ever made?), Rolling Stones, MJ, Depeche Mode, and David Bowie (on his birthday, no less). I’ll add these to my rapidly expanding cassette collection.

I found a walkman too. It’s a “sport,” which I would assume means it’s a bit sturdier than a regular walkman. I tested it and it works fine. Surprisingly there’s still a market for these; on the internet they’re selling for 10-20 bucks, depending on condition.

There were some books in recycle bags a bit further down the road. They looked like they’d been plowed under the snow, which makes me wonder if they had been there since the big snowfall. I didn’t have any need for these books – most were about computers and web design – so I left them behind.

I came across these bags on Gilford. One was already ripped open. Inside were some unopened packages of food. I scavenged two packages of organic gluten-free spaghetti and some xylitol. Xylitol is a sugar-alcohol which is apparently just as sweet as sugar but with less calories. I’ll probably give it away to someone but I’ll definitely use the spaghetti.

This dresser was a bit busted but could have been easily fixed. It looks like it used to be in a kid’s room.

I went out later in the day (with my bike) and found these new shea-butter soaps in some bags on St Hubert. Shea butter is apparently a pretty good antioxidant due to it’s high phenolic content. It’s used a lot as food in Africa but here it’s mostly used cosmetically. They’re completely sealed up so there’s no way there’s anything wrong with them.

I also found some new-looking women’s clothes. I’m guessing someone got some Christmas gifts they didn’t like.

The last item I saved was this Betamax player. It’s a bit funny that I found one because out of curiosity I had Googled the value of Betamax stuff earlier in the day. I had discovered that there was some value there so when I found this I called it a night and headed back home. It was pretty heavy – not as heavy as the 67 pound VCR I brought home a couple months back but still quite heavy (and hard to balance on my bike).

It looks good, turns on and lights up. These simple facts are enough to make it equal to one that recently sold on Ebay for 40$. Apparently this model originally sold for 1300$ (American dollars! – it would have been a lot more expensive in Canada).

I’d like to test it fully to bump up it’s value. All I need to do is find some betamax tapes in the trash and I’ll be set. Maybe on Thursday!

C’est bizarre

January 8, 2013January 8, 2013 garbagefinds8 Comments

I came across this pile of stuff in my wanderings today. There were more things from the same place behind me as well. A sign next to the pile said “come in – living room sale” but the sale was long over.

A woman walked by and noticed all the stuff on the curb. “C’est bizarre” she commented to me – “probablement un demenagement.” Rough translation: it’s strange, probably someone moved.

I thought that some students had moved out at first, mostly due to the style of the handwriting on the sign, but I found some stuff that didn’t really fit with that generation. I’d guess that an older person passed away or moved to a retirement home and their kids were helping to clean out their apartment.

Most of the things I took home came out of a plastic bag in this old piece of luggage. It’s pretty vintage and in good shape. I brought it with me and left it on the balcony so I can inspect it fully tomorrow.

There was a shopping bag full of 8-track tapes as well. Most of them look to be recorded off the radio and self-labelled. Some big artists in here: The Beatles, Garfunkel, Cheech and Chong, and Joe Cocker. I’m going to put them on Craigslist and see if there’s any takers. Also in the picture is a big resealable beer bottle which will come in handy for home-brewing.

Now for the knick-knacks and little pieces of jewelry. At the top of the screen is a keychain with three hearts that says “I have the hearts for Ed.” Pretty funny eh? Below it are two pins (left) and something to hang from a necklace. I think I’ll try to sell all this (other than the silver chains) on my Etsy store.

The pin in the center looks like the Nazi “Eagle”. The only difference is that this one is holding a bundle of sticks instead of a Swastika. I know the word “fascism” is based on the Latin word fascis which basically means “bundle” so I wonder if there’s a connection there. If anyone has any ideas let me know!

UPDATE: I just noticed that a little chunk is broken off the Eagle pin on the bottom right side. It’s possible that there could have been an axe on that side of the bundle, which would make it a fasces, an ancient symbol of the Roman Empire and Italian Fascism, among other things.

Here’s some silver and gold jewelry. On the left is a cool (and really big) sterling ring with a bird design on it. On the right is a cool 10k gold piece with a stone of some kind in the middle. Below both are silver and gold necklace chains.

On the left is a heavy Mexican sterling chain (marked 925 Mex and M028V). On the right is a silver plate spoon marked “Queen Anne Silver Plate.” In the middle is a heavy steel bracelet.

A couple of watches, a 1983 token for McDonald’s (50 cents off!), a nice old RCMP-themed pocket knife and a couple of other doodads.

UPDATE: I just cleaned some rust off the blade of the pocket knife and uncovered a mark that says “Richard’s Sheffield England.” Apparently it has a bit of collectible value.

A knife “High Carbon Steel USA” and a bunch of pins. I don’t recognize any of those guys – do you? The guy on the bottom looks a lot like Julian Assange but I really doubt it’s him.

Hopefully I’ll have some more for you tomorrow!