Tag: ephemera

Cold Turkey

garbagefinds12 Comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time getting my garage organized in recent weeks. I’m not getting paid to endorse this, but the Cold Turkey blocker has helped my productivity greatly. I set it to block distracting websites from my computer for most of the day, and after a brief adjustment period I found that I don’t even miss them. It helps that I enjoy my work, and am now actually excited to go and rearrange the deck chairs of my personal Titanic (aka, my various storage spaces). Sometimes I struggle with work-life balance when I get in these productive mindsets, but “getting things done” is definitely a step in the right direction.

I tidied up this corner/disaster nicely. The storage unit was a mess. The bottom two drawers had eBay listed stuff inside, which is fine. The drawer that doesn’t close was stuffed with extra wires (for when I find something without cables), which needed to be put in a bigger drawer. The others were largely filled with miscellaneous junk, including one that was just golf balls.

One of the drawers was full of stuff from one particular spot. The non-book finds from the book tossers. So I figured I’d clear that one out by finally taking photos of what was inside.

The most valuable thing in this batch is probably that painting. It appears to be by Margaret Heath, who is notable enough to garner estimates in the hundreds of pounds for her artwork. I thought that metal mop head tin was kind of funny. Today a thing like that would be packaged in the lowest grade plastic available. Times have changed.

A small box held a bunch of vintage & antique postcards and other small paper ephemera.

Here’s a selection of my favourites. These people were definitely collectors, and probably hoarders considering they owned up to four copies of the same book. All that to say that I doubt they had a personal connection to any of these photos. I suspect a lot of this stuff came from estate sales.

Here we have a couple nice pens and some old war stuff, including a WWII-era leaflet that appears make fun of Hitler. I found a similar one online that had an auction estimate of 80-150 Euros. That seems high to me, but maybe they know better.

Edit: apparently it sold for 440 Euros. I guess I’ll have to find where I stashed it… I need to get this on eBay!

And here’s some last bits and bobs. Maybe these folks were among the 2140 who voted for the Dollar Cinema guy in the 2017 Montreal mayoral election.

A lot has changed since I took this picture. The plastic storage unit is now somewhere else, and much better organized. I put my lounge/work chair in its place. The stuff that was on top (mostly pre-packaged eBay items) is now on the big shelf in place of the books, which looks much tidier. (Re: the books, I’m still trying to sell them. I wasted time with one flake who said they’d show up today before ghosting, and now I’ve moved on to someone who seems pretty serious – fingers crossed). Most notably, where my chair (and more books) was before, I set up my photo lights again. I don’t remember why I took them down, but I haven’t had a real photo setup for over a year now. So, my next photos should look better than these ones, which I’m not all that happy with… but they are “good enough.”

I was hoping to do a yard sale this weekend, but the weather is looking pretty iffy. Saturday is a write-off, and Sunday is looking sketchy (windy and potentially rainy). It’s a long weekend though, and Monday looks nice… but my gut is telling me that holiday Mondays usually aren’t good for sales. What do you think?

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.
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Blessings pt. 1

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!

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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?

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.