ephemera – Things I find in the garbage

Blessings pt. 1

September 28, 2017September 28, 2017 garbagefinds10 Comments

Before we start, let me just say that I’m planning on having what will mostly likely be my last yard sale of the year this Sunday. It’ll be at my garage near the corner of Mentana and St Gregoire in the Plateau, probably from around 11am-5pm. I’ll have the usual collection of quality junk, as well as some decent furniture and lots of clothes, a section my friend Sarah will manage (as I personally suck at dealing with clothes). I actually found some great fall fashions recently which I hope to share here tomorrow. Anyways, hope to see you there!

I have lots of photos on my computer to share, and I hope to get the older ones posted relatively soon. Like I said in a recent comment, my most recent finds are the ones that excite me the most, and I find it harder to write about stuff I found a long time ago.

I found this stuff in the Plateau around two months back. I probably wouldn’t have happened upon the spot if not for it being close to my new garage space. I met one of the neighbours while looking through some old papers, and she said that someone was clearing out their mother’s apartment. I found lots of cool stuff there, but unfortunately the spot has since dried up.

This posts features an impressive collection of old diplomas and certificates, as well as some nice framed items. The next post will feature the random bits of old but cool junk.

I’ve seen a few different Institut Stenographique Perrault (stenography) diplomas in my trash picking career, but this one was in the best condition of the bunch. The institute definitely had a flair for graphic design. This one, like most of the others, is from the 1940s.

The graphic design on this one is pretty sweet too! For the record, I edited out the name of the person from all these diplomas for privacy’s sake. Below are more certificates (and one report card), click on them if you want a closer look. I’ve never seen such a large collection in one place, and it’s interesting to see what kind of certificates one might have collected back in the day.

I also saved a lot of nice old framed images. This one features the Acadian memorial in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia.

This print of Jacques Cartier seems to date back to 1934.

I found a few different papal blessings. At the time I hadn’t really seen any before, but since then I’ve found a few more. This one is from Pope Pius XII, and was signed in 1949. Most of these blessings weren’t actually signed by the pope, but by other Vatican officials. I think they were largely a way to raise money for the church.

This one is also from Pius XII. His blessings are cool but fairly common.

This blessing is the most intriguing of the bunch. It’s from Pope Benedict XV, who was Pope for around eight years (1914-1922), four of which were during WWI. Apparently it’s relatively hard to find Pope Benedict related items, in part because of his short tenure and probably the wars, so these things can have some value. How much, I’m not sure. If someone has a Worthpoint account they could help by telling me what this similar piece sold for…

The blessing was given to a Rimouski-based Catholic organization with a very long name. Zoom in for a better look. The handwriting is very beautiful, as is the illumination which I believe was printed beforehand.

I’ve looked at a lot of Benedict’s handwriting and I doubt this was actually signed by him, though I’d welcome any input you might have! It would be great if it was, as items signed by Benedict XV seem to sell for many hundreds of dollars, if not more.

Regardless, it’s a pretty neat piece. I just remembered there was this one other really cool framed thing I found at this spot, but it’ll have to wait until the next blog post.

Relevant links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.

Scotland – 1908?

May 9, 2017May 9, 2017 garbagefinds30 Comments

I found a great box of photos last week, and I decided after looking through them that they were worthy of a separate post. If old photos aren’t your thing, I’d suggest skipping it!

For the scrapbooks I often tried to capture a full page at once, mainly to save time on my end. Unfortunately though it’s hard to take pictures like that without having some of the photos disappear in the glare. Next time I might do things differently, like take pictures of individual photos and then make them all into a gallery, though I’m not a big fan of WordPress’ gallery format (it’s not very intuitive for people who might want to zoom in for a close look). Still, it might be the easiest way to share a bunch of photos at once, and I think the editing would be easier as well.

Of course scanning is the best way to capture an image, but it’s also the most time consuming. Maybe at some point I, or someone else will take the time to carefully scan these images.

Anyways, below is a small sample (~10%) of the photos included. Most of my favourites are here, but there’s a lot of great photos that aren’t shown as well.

I found the box in one of Montreal’s wealthier neighbourhoods, and based on the photos I’d guess that this specific family has had money for quite some time. It was sitting next to a bunch of stuff that probably came from a basement.

The box also contained some old recipe books, some of which (like the 1949 Scouts cookbook) were pretty cool. You’ll be able to see them if you come to my next yard sale.

A lot of my favourite photos were in the black albums – most of them are around 100 years old. This one’s titled “Scotland – 1908?”

This is one of my favourite pages from that album. I’ve never seen a collection of portraits quite like it!

It’d be a great skill (superpower?) to be able to recognize where any photo was taken. At the very least it’d be a lot easier to market specific photographs on eBay! Maybe technology will be able to do achieve something like that someday, but in the meantime let us know in the comments if you have any information about these photos.

My favourite album was titled “[Guy’s name] 1917-1935”.

Most of the early photos look to have been taken at the Royal Military College in Kingston ON.

Click on the photos and zoom in if you want a better look!

I don’t think there was any lack of activities at the college.

I like the photos of the obstacle courses, mainly because of how makeshift they appear.

These photos (I presume of training facilities) were taken around the end of WWI. I’d guess that none of the people showcased in these albums ever made it to an actual battle. Regardless, it’s interesting to see that horses were still being used by the military at the time.

These photos are from the end of that album, presumably taken at least a few years after the war. They were shot at a photo studio in Dominion Park, an amusement park that existed up until the mid-1930s in Montreal’s east end. Here’s a great web page if you want to learn more about Dominion Park.

There were a couple of photo albums from the 50s and 60s, but most of my other favourites were found loose in small boxes or inside envelopes. I found two tintypes (bottom left), my coolest of which is the portrait with the bikes. On the right is a photo of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip that was probably taken around the time of her coronation (it’s also worth noting that someone doctored the photo to remove a lot of the background).

The photo at top left is interesting; I can’t claim to know much about the many different types of Native dress, but certain elements (particularly the pants, and some of the floral designs) bear some resemblance to what Nipo Strongheart (picture) used to wear. He was an early Hollywood actor, lecturer, and advocate of Native issues. However this is certainly not my field of expertise, please post any insights you may have in the comments!

A couple of these photos feature women in uniform, something I don’t think would have been seen before WWII. The photo with the dog is cute, and the postcard photo was taken in Nice.

I also saved some very old portraits that date back to the late 1800s. The names of a lot of these people are written on the back, which is good for a variety of reasons. The guy on the left looks straight out of the American Civil War.

These are maybe my favourite photos of the bunch. They’re all a bit larger, measuring around 8.5 x 6.25″. They’re signed “Notman and Son”, likely referring to the studio owned by well-known Canadian photographer William Notman. These date to sometime around the turn of the century, when exactly I can’t be sure. Perhaps someone familiar with the fashions of the time could help date it a little more specifically. Regardless, they’re very cool photos that I think would look great framed together. I would bet that, of all the photos in the box these will end up being the most valuable.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed all that! It’s been a good few weeks for found photos, that’s for sure.

I hope to have another yard sale this weekend but as of right now the weather is looking pretty iffy. If the forecast improves I’ll post an announcement telling you where to go.

Relevant links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to Garbagefinds.com

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.

News, notes, and old photos

August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 garbagefinds18 Comments

Good finds have been pretty hard to come by lately. I’m wondering if this is just a normal late summer lull. I was looking at my posts from this time last year and it doesn’t seem like I found much then either.

My working theory is that people are busy vacationing, visiting friends and family, or enjoying time with the kids before they go back to school. Quebec’s construction holiday ran from July 22 to August 6, and apparently lots of other Quebeckers not in the industry take time off around that time as well.

I hope to someday again find something exciting in the trash. On the plus side, at least I’ve had more time to do organizational stuff. My room for example is pretty much set up. I have a working area divided from my living area with a curtain, which ensures that I can separate my work from my life. I have much more room for storage (thanks in part to this nice old filing cabinet I found a couple weeks ago), and the things I need to access are usually easily found. I’m happy about that.

I also just bought a little photography light box, which should make taking photos of small items a lot easier. I’ll have to find a place for it somewhere.

Sometimes I find things and don’t know what to do with them. The huge box of photos I found in April of last year is a great example. Since then the box has sat largely untouched in my storage. I brought it home recently because my storage isn’t climate controlled and isn’t an ideal place for old papers. Also, I realize that at some point I need to figure out a plan for their future.

The box is the one that contained that cool cow photo that became subject of a newspaper article. For those who missed out, the journalist was able to locate the house, which looks different but still rests at 8112 Henri Julien in Villeray. If you can read French, the article discusses the history of cows in the city, among other things.

There are a lot of other photos that might interest Quebec historians as well, such as the shot of the O’Brien Mines in Abitibi at bottom right. Others feature lumber camps, sugar shacks and random Quebec small towns.

The great thing about these photos is that a lot of the names of the people are written on the back. If not for that it would be more or less impossible to track down who they are.

Also of note are these large hand-drawn portraits, which I think were common in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There’s a similar drawing of my grandpa’s dad up at my grandparents house.

At some point I’ll have to do something with this box. I certainly don’t want to hold onto it forever. Part of the reason it sat around so long though is because I’m not sure exactly what to do with it. I’d like the collection to stay intact and go to an archive, someone with an interest in history, or the family itself. However, most archives won’t give them much attention, and family members are hard to find and quite possibly totally disinterested.

I’m also not rich enough to just give the box away. I owe lots and lots of money in student loans, and probably will need a root canal at some point in the near future. As a result, it’s impossible not to have self-interest in mind when considering what to do. I’m pretty confident I could sell the lot for at least 100$, and probably more.

My best idea right now is to put it all up for auction on eBay when traffic picks up again in the fall. Mention the most common last names found written on the photos in hopes that a family member or someone interested in genealogy sees them. If not, so it goes! At least the names are written on the back, and that they were saved from the trash in the first place.

However, if you have any other ideas feel free to mention them in the comments! I actually have a couple of other ephemera stashes too, including a bunch of WWII-era letters I found in NDG and some photos I found with that Nazi passport back in 2014. I’d like to deal with those at some point as well.

On a related note, I found this postcard while digging through the box. It’s not from the same collection, but I stashed it there at some point with some other photos I found last April. The image is that of a house, and the postcard is probably from the 1920s. It’s not too exciting, but the fact that the address is written on the back makes it somewhat interesting. The house still stands today, and in fact looks very similar to how it did back then. If you want to check it out, the address is 377 Westchester Ave, Crestwood, Yonkers NY – you can see it using Google Maps.

I had the idea of mailing it to the owners of the new house. I’m pretty sure I want to do it, but I have to figure out how best to do so. The safest way in theory is to mail it in an envelope. However, might the new owner just throw out a letter addressed to their house (not them) from someone they don’t know? I’m thinking the best way to do it is just to mail it as is, since most postcards seem to make it through the mail okay. It would require putting a new stamp on an nearly antique postcard, but I’m not too worried about that.

On the off chance that these people are your neighbours, please ask them if they want this photo.

Potential postal strike?

In other news, Canada Post is talking strike again. As you might expect this is a serious pain in the ass for me given that most of my money comes from eBay sales. Other couriers are not only more expensive but also charge customs fees on every package going to the States which is very annoying for my customers. I prefer to put my store on vacation mode rather than bother with all that. My hope here is that they strike sooner rather than later, because I’ll be screwed if this lasts into the holiday season.