The all-nighter

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!

Week of the iPods pt.2

Later that week I happened upon a small pile in Outremont which contained a bit of older tech stuff. I saved several PS2 controllers, an old Apple Airport Extreme, an Apple keyboard and four iPods.

The four iPods brought my total for the week to eight, which is definitely my all-time record. While I think the first ones were thrown out because of a move, I’m not really sure why these were tossed. Maybe Marie Kondo had something to do with it! As for value, these 4th & 5th generation iPod Classics still have some value despite being over a decade old. They all have 60gb of storage, a relatively high capacity, and should sell for between 40-60$ each.

That spot also provided a bunch of sports games for PS3 & XBox 360, a few of which were never even opened. Sports games depreciate a lot quicker than other games, but this collection still netted about 30$ after fees at the auction house. Easy money!

That week was also good for jewellery boxes. The first came from this pile in Nouveau Bordeaux.

It was a nice box in its own right, a Japanese import probably from the 60s. Inside was a music box and a magnetic ballerina that would rotate on the glass. It sold for 20-some dollars at auction.

The contents were clearly pillaged, but there were still a few bits left for me.

Most of my profit came from the three broken bits of 14k gold in the middle, which if I remember right earned me about 80$ (I recently did a scrap gold run). Otherwise, I saved a religious medallion, a miniature Cretan dagger that’s probably a hairpin, a pair of Japanese earrings, and a key fob from Thursday’s restaurant on Crescent.

Better yet was this busted box I found the next day in a richer part of town. The contents were much less picked through, and I salvaged a few great items.

There’s two gold pieces here, including a 10k gold and pearl ring by Birks and a 14k cameo brooch. To the left of that is a nice turquoise brooch – it looks like this one purportedly made by the Zuni of the southwestern United States. It’s probably unmarked silver, and I’d bet that the donkey pendant is unmarked silver as well. I think the pocket watch is 800 or 925 (sterling) silver, though I haven’t yet figured out its hallmarks.

Here’s some closeups of the finer pieces. Overall, they should earn me several hundred dollars. This was definitely one of my best jewelry hauls in some time, but hopefully there’s more coming in the near future!

Otherwise, I brought my first big collection of e-waste to the recycling box recently. I lost track of how much e-waste I salvaged last year, but this year I should be less busy and more able to keep a running tally. In this picture is 4.68kg of electronics, most of which were broken, missing pieces, or not worth selling. I also recycled about 1.1kg of batteries, with most of that weight coming a MacBook Pro battery.

I’m curious to see how much I can recycle over a full year! I can only do so much, so I prefer to focus on cell phones and other small electronics. Laptops too, when they turn up.

That one week was pretty good, but I haven’t had nearly as much luck recently. I did make a good sale though, which I’ll tell you about in an upcoming post.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty much done with winter at this point. Here’s hoping the warmer weather is coming soon! Garbage picking is a lot more fun in the spring and summer.

Links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay, Search for something you want / research something you have (I’m a member of the eBay Partner Network so I make a bit of money if you buy things [even if they’re not mine] or sign up for an account via these links)
3. Help me pay off student loan debt / Contribute to the blog
4. Follow me on Instagram

Recent sales: August & September

eBay

August: 15 sales, 824$ before fees.
September: 12 sales, 685$ before fees.
Total: 1509$.

eBay sales were slow, as they usually are (at least for me) in the late summer. Fortunately, I sold a whole bunch of stuff at auction to help even things out.

Notable sales:

Carl Poul Petersen sterling silver tie clip: 64$. I probably would have scrapped this if not for the input of reader who recognized the signature below as that of Poul Petersen, a noted Canadian silversmith and apprentice of Georg Jensen. Monograms generally reduce the value of an item, but M.D. has obvious appeal to those with medical degrees. Part of a great haul from early 2016 – it took a long time to sell because I didn’t know where to price it.

1959-1960 Toronto Maple Leafs pocket schedule: 100$. I seem to have a knack for finding these old schedules. I couldn’t find any others like it online, much like the 1940s Canadiens schedule I saved last year. The Pepsi vending machine catalogue from the same pile also sold for a great price (75$).

Gio de Armani Eau de Parfum (50ml): 95$. There’s a solid market for this scent, which was discontinued however many years ago. This was part of a nice perfume haul I found in Hampstead earlier this year.

1921 Pope Benedict XV blessing: 240$. Pope Benedict XV stuff is relatively hard to find, so this was worth a bit of money even though it was likely signed by one of his assistants. I found it last year in the Plateau.

Montblanc “Hommage to Mozart” small-size ballpoint pen: 200$. This was a relatively recent find, tossed by some especially dumb rich people. It was in its original box (along with a complementary Mozart CD) and looked to have barely been used. Some other finds from this spot will make the blog soon.

Local Auction

August: 1309.25$ after fees
September: 1722.25 after fees
Total: 3031.50$

It was around this time that I dedicated myself to downsizing my unintentional collection of junk. As a result, the auction folk and I both made a bunch of money.

Notable sales:

Wine pump: 230$ (before fees). This ended up selling for a lot more than I expected! I guess it helped that the auction happened to end right around wine-making season. Found in Ville St Laurent.

Anti-explosion lights + misc junk: 85$. Found in the east Plateau.

Architectural element: 32$. I’m sure this piece will get turned into something nice! Found in Westmount.

Dried puffer fish & pike head: 32$. These were among my most unusual finds of the summer. Both will probably be turned into lamps. Found in Ville St Laurent.

Vintage Ford V8 hubcap: 32$. Found on the outer edge of Cote-des-Neiges.

Miniature perfume lot: 80$. Included in this collection was a lot that went unsold for some time on eBay and several others I found while digging through my junk (which I apparently forgot about). I’m happy with this total – miniatures aren’t really worth enough to list individually (at least for me), and it’s also hard to get people to pay reasonable money for them at yard sales.

Jo Malone sample lot: 55$. I spotted a huge number of these samples at the bottom of one of a bags. At first I thought they’d be more of a hassle than they were worth, but then I figured that I’d probably be able to get 20$ for them at auction. It turned out they sold for more than that!

Jo Malone is a quality brand and these samples were still fresh. My guess is that the previous owner worked somewhere in the retail industry. Regardless, this is a great example of how the auction house allows me to make easy money on things that would have previously been a hassle.

Antique domed glass frames + photos: 60$. I pulled these out of a dumpster in St Michel. Amazingly they didn’t break, though I did have to clean some garbage juice off one of them.

Yard sales

1220$ over four sales. To be honest I kind of lost track of my yard sale income, but I think this is a pretty good guess. This year I’ve often hired friends to help me with the sales, which cuts into my bottom line but really helps reduce my workload.

Total

5760.50$, 20265.75$ so far in 2018. A pretty good couple of months! It’s unlikely that I’ll get to 30k this year but I’ll probably get pretty close.