Tag: dumpster diving

The all-nighter

garbagefinds14 Comments

Things are picking up again. Tuesday nights have been really productive the past two weeks, and Wednesdays have provided some smaller but notable hauls as well. The other days have been hit and miss, though Thursday/Friday came through last night when I came across a massive pile of trash behind an apartment building and spent eight hours looking through it. I think that’s a record for me – I got there at 10:30 at night and left as the sun rose around 6:30 in the morning, with only a Timmie’s tea and muffin break in between to give me the strength to keep going. Someone dumped what looked like much of an apartment, and obviously didn’t put much care into the process. Anyways, I made a few notable scores (and still have a lot in the van to sort through), but that’ll have to wait for another post.

I finally got Covid a few weeks ago. It wasn’t too bad, but still slowed me down for nearly a week. I went on a few garbage runs during, later at night so I wouldn’t see anyone and with a mask on, so I was able to hit up my usual spots and make a few finds.

Otherwise, the university students (particularly the McGill kids) are back in town, so I plan on doing a couple yard sales this weekend hoping to sell them stuff for their new apartments. I should be out at 4100 Coloniale from 12-7 both days if anyone is interested!

Anyways, here’s some more of my Park Ex finds from earlier this year. One of my favourite finds was stored in a dingy ziplock bag, which maybe led to the tossers not noticing it.

It’s a cute 10k gold alarm clock pendant. This thing is smaller than a dime, but it’s fairly thick and hefty, and at nearly 5 grams it’s worth roughly 175$ CAD just for scrap.

These folks owned some cool leather stuff, and were definitely into guns. At one point they threw out a bunch of old bullets and shotgun shells, which seems like a dumb thing to do. There’s a few holsters here, and a couple of ammo holders. The holder on the bottom looks pretty old. I think the leather pieces on the left are used somehow in shaving, maybe someone can explain how they work in the comments.

Another batch of quality junk. That clock on the bottom left is kind of cool and unusual. The sterling comb is obviously busted, but at least the silver is worth 10$ or so. A lot of this stuff will probably end up on my Instagram selling page.

I liked this old clipboard, which was patented in 1893. I’m tempted to keep this, but I never actually use clipboards so I probably shouldn’t.

More quality junk. I love the embroidered “darning bag.” Below is a Mexican silver chain, and a silver cigarette holder that was made in Israel (with an end piece that doesn’t quite match).

This Aiwa Walkman feels like an outlier here. I’m pretty good at identifying the more collectible models at this point, and I was able to sell this for 135$ on eBay even though it doesn’t work. It’s a pretty compact model, which tend to be well-made and less common (and thus more valuable). Walkman values have climbed a lot in the last five years or so.

Finally, we have a couple big silverplate candlesticks, a couple little depression glass (I think) pieces, an a kitschy Charlton glass bottle with stopper. Stuff for Instagram or maybe the yard sale.

I had a couple of great weeks at this spot, but unfortunately I’d bet that I missed out on some great stuff before I found it. Oh well, so it goes. Anyways, hope to see you at a yard sale this weekend!

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.
5. Donate to the blog. It costs close to 500$ a year to maintain (no ads, domain name, storage space, etc) which ain’t cheap. Otherwise, it’s nice to get a few bucks for coffee, food, or gas!

The summer lull

garbagefinds6 Comments

The trash was flowing pretty consistently for a while, with lots of interesting and valuable finds, though not much in the way of gold and silver. The past few weeks have been relatively slow, with old spots drying up and no one stepping up to replace them. I’ve noticed a reduced flow around this time of year before; I figure it’s because it’s the time of year when people are most likely to go on vacation.

Fortunately, I could probably find nothing for a year and still have enough to get by. I spent a full workweek just in my garage not long ago, just organizing and researching, and after all that work it barely looked like I had done anything at all. I keep picking though obviously, because it’s fun and because it’s good to go out in hopes of finding that major score.

This spot in NDG was a regular stop for a little while. My best haul came this day, when the tossers unloaded a large collection of vintage sports memorabilia.

I saved a big haul of 1950s/1960s Sports Illustrated magazines. These are now listed on Facebook Marketplace, which I’m using a bit more these days. The “is this still available” people are annoying, but my strategy is not to chase them. Usually they’re not serious buyers anyways, so I wait for people who express a real interest in the item, and then I’ll make more of an effort.

FB Marketplace is now the best way to locally sell stuff like furniture, and also other items with mainstream demand. eBay is still my go-to for more niche items, especially when they’re easy to ship.

I found a few of the early Montreal Expos yearbooks, including the one from their first season in 1969. I sold one on eBay previously, I think for 40$. My plan this time is to sell the three as a lot. There doesn’t seem to be huge interest in Montreal Manic stuff, but I’m sure someone at a yard sale will like it.

These two Canadiens magazines have signatures on them. The signature on the left looks kind of like Jean Beliveau’s, though not one he put a lot of effort into. If true it would bump of the value of the magazine a bit that’s for sure. The one on the right looks to be signed as well, though all those scratches look like gibberish to me. There’s more on the back, which I forgot to get a photo of. If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments! Click on the picture to zoom in for a better look.

These old schedules can be worth money sometimes. It seems like anything made in the 80s or later is yard sale material, but before that they can have some real value, especially stuff from the 60s or earlier. None of these ones are particularly valuable, though the 1970s Expos and NHL schedules are worth around 10-20$ each.

Tickets can be worth good money as well. Older ones, and ones from notable games command a premium. It can be worth the effort to Google the date of the game to see if anything special happened. One of my Canadiens tickets (not pictured), for example, turned out to be from a game that was Guy LaFleur’s last at the Forum (as a Nordique).  So that one is listed for 100$ on eBay, and has garnered some interest though I’ll likely have to come down on the price a bit. These other tickets don’t seem to be too special, I may group them by team and sell them via auction on eBay at some point once it starts getting colder.

That’s all for now, but here’s hoping I don’t take so long to get to the new post… for real this time!

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.
5. Donate to the blog. It costs close to 500$ a year to maintain (no ads, domain name, storage space, etc) which ain’t cheap. Otherwise, it’s nice to get a few bucks for coffee, food, or gas!

It’s a good time for a yard sale

garbagefinds21 Comments

The finds have been plentiful lately, which is great though it lays bare the fact that no one human can possibly deal with this much stuff. My garage looks like a hoarder’s den right now, which means that it’s a good time to have a yard sale! I plan to be out from roughly 12-6pm (and probably a bit later) at 920 St Gregoire on Saturday. There will be a lot more books than usual, but also plenty of other quality junk. I hope to see you there!

I also hope to have a sale on Sunday too, but details on that are still tbd. My current theory is that May is the best month for yard sales, because a) people are happy to be outside after a long winter and b) people rarely schedule trips or vacations this early in the year, so locals are more likely to be in town. I’ve had plenty of randomly bad yard sales on otherwise beautiful days in the summer months, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad sale in May. Anyways, the next few weeks will probably be pretty busy for me between picking and selling.

These days I find it hard to choose which items to showcase for the blog, especially when there’s a lot to choose from (“can’t see the forest for the trees” is an expression that comes to mind). I also don’t have the time to take the big elaborate group shots like I used to. So, today I’m just going to share a few of my favourite or more interesting recent scores.

The tossers at this spot are the kind of people who don’t know how to recycle, or just don’t care. For them, the “recycling” bin is basically just a 2nd trash receptacle. Anyways, last week I opened up the recycling bin and saw this nice antique clock. I doubt it works, but maybe someone would want it as a project given that the wood and glass are in nice condition. I think it dates to the 1880s based on the patent info on the loose piece below.

It’s very pretty. The wood is a bit dinged where that green tape is but it would be an easy fix.

The week before that they tried to recycle a shoebox filled with Warhammer figurines. These definitely aren’t my expertise, but some individual vintage metal pieces seem to sell for 5-20$ each on eBay. I just listed my collection for 400$ with best offer, and we’ll see if anyone bites.

Elsewhere, someone is throwing out the wares of a once prodigious arrangement enthusiast. There have been bags filled with pinecones, twigs, grasses, dry flowers, and of course different types of vessels to put the arrangements in or on. Many were filled with that green or white foam stuff that you can stick flowers into. The foam was often glued into place, which unfortunately made some pieces not worth the effort of saving, but others were foam-free or had foam that was easily removed.

Here’s three nice examples that are still kicking around in my garage, which will probably end up on the Instagram selling page. Below are a couple of Naaman (Israel) pieces I gave to a friend to try to sell on Marketplace.

More lucratively, they’ve also tossed some old jewelry.

It’s been mostly bits and pieces, but a few of those bits and pieces have been gold. The single earrings and broken chains on the right earned me close to 300$ for scrap. The nicest intact pieces have been that silver prayer bracelet, the Omega watch buckle, and the pendant, which isn’t gold but looks antique. I hope they toss more of this stuff in the future, because it’s always fun to look through.

Here’s a painting I picked up not far from Vendome metro. It’s got a tear, but is in decent condition otherwise and is pretty well executed (at least according to my untrained eye). I’m also a sucker for the street scenes, so there’s that. It’s signed “H. Kimmelman 1940” (I think) but unfortunately I don’t see much under that name on Google. If anyone has any info about this painting, including where the subject of the painting might be, let us know in the comments!

One of my favourite recent spots was in Park Ex. Unfortunately, I think I discovered it kind of late and probably missed out on a lot of great finds. So it goes. Here are a couple things I did save. This chalkware rabbi is pretty cool, and thankfully survived his trip to the curb in good condition. It’s a bit over a foot tall according to the eyeball test.

This “mammy” cookie jar was made by McCoy in the late 30s or early 40s. It’s apparently pretty rare, appearing on this list at #14 with a value of 600-1000$. Based on my research, “cauliflower mammy” (or cabbage mammy, depending who you ask) probably isn’t worth quite that much, but it does appear to be relatively rare and should sell for a few hundred bucks.

I haven’t found anything new at the book spot for close to two months now, though you wouldn’t know it by looking in my garage (which is filled with books). Sorting through that will be a monumental task, and I’m not sure how exactly it will get done. For now I’m content to avoid them and deal with other things.

There are probably more notable books in that collection, but for this shot I just took some pictures of ones with pretty covers.

Finally, the “bedbug Jadeite” I mentioned in my last post got a thorough cleaning after about a month and a half in quarantine. As you can see it was quite the haul. The pieces are lightly used, and the colour is very bright. Unfortunately a few were broken in the act of curbing, but there’s still a good set here.

A friend helped me clean them and is now trying to sell them on Marketplace and Kijiji, though there haven’t been any takers yet. They’ll sell eventually, but it might take a little while given that we’re limited to the local market. I’d rather take less money than try to ship this anywhere.

Anyways, I’m going to go out and see if I can find any more trash. As if I need any more stuff for the yard sale pile, ha ha.

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.
5. Donate to the blog. It costs close to 500$ a year to maintain (no ads, domain name, storage space, etc) which ain’t cheap. Otherwise, it’s nice to get a few bucks for coffee, food, or gas!