garbage gold – Things I find in the garbage

The bags in the distance pt.2

October 27, 2024October 27, 2024 garbagefinds6 Comments

I’m didn’t do a sale this weekend, for the first time in about two months. I did 13 in that period, and I’m feeling a bit burnt out as you might expect.

Unfortunately I never kept a yard sale journal until this year, so I’m not sure what my normal schedule is. I feel like this year was particularly backloaded, with few productive sales at the beginning (largely due to construction ruining one of my spots – again) forcing me to hustle more in the late summer and fall to unload as much junk as possible, and all at the one spot because of the construction.

I would still like to do one last sale, but at this point in the year weather is a bit sketchy to say the least. It’s supposed to be 20 degrees on Wednesday, so that’s tempting. But a Wednesday sale? It’s unorthodox for sure, but I doubt anyone would mind.

Anyways, here’s the jewelry I found in the bag with the gold coin.

There wasn’t much crap (ie: the cheap stuff you get at the dollar store or wherever, where the plating wears off or the “rhinestones” fall out after wearing it for like a week). Here’s a few standout costume pieces. A lot was signed – D’Orlan, Monet, and etc. The watches, a Butex and a Mortima, aren’t super fancy, but are probably still eBay worthy.

The translucent green bead necklace on the left is made of Bakelite. I’ve never seen that colour before, it’s quite striking. That might make it more valuable that the more common tones, but I haven’t done much research yet. I’m not sure what those other beads are made of. I’m guessing milk glass.

And here’s the precious metals. The pendant with the Arabic script (I think it says something about Allah) is 14k gold, and the lone earring is also gold. Together, they’re worth around 250$ for scrap. The rest is silver, besides that doohickey on the top right. I’m not sure what that is, so I’ll give it to my jeweler to test.

So, that one bag ended up containing over one grand of easily liquidatable junk. Not bad!

I had some luck here and there since, and maybe I’ll post some of those things soon. Still craving a big haul … a van load of junk would be nice!

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 these links, I get a small cut of the profit!
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The bags in the distance

October 11, 2024 garbagefinds9 Comments

I haven’t been all that lucky lately. I’ve been craving a really big haul, or just a spot that provides quality junk regularly for months (not uncommon from bigger suburban homes). Besides that dumpster that I mentioned a few posts back, I think I might have had one other good spot all summer. When I don’t get new things to think about, organize, etc., I start getting a little bored. Maybe even stir crazy.

Thankfully, these “bags in the distance” provided a respite from the drudgery that is touring around and finding nothing.

Sometimes I’ll peer down a road instead of driving down it, to save time and effort. On that night, I spotted this pile of bags maybe 70-80 meters away. Something about it sparked my interest, and I drove down to take a closer look.

(As an aside, sometimes people have wondered why I insist on beginning many of my blog posts with a boring picture of garbage. I do it because I want to reinforce the fact that sometimes the best finds some from the most banal looking trash!)

I opened the bag on the back left and saw a bunch of jewelry. My favourite kind of bag! I didn’t do any on the spot sorting, I just threw the whole thing in the car and went home. I was just about done the route anyways.

I sorted it all that night. My cat insisted on “helping.”

I took all the good stuff and sorted it into a small Tupperware bin (the one from the dumpster, actually). I didn’t notice when I first picked it up, but that bag also contained a lot of coins, most of which were sorted into labelled ziplocks.

The majority of the coins weren’t all that special. Most dated from between the 50s and the 80s. There was about 7-8$ in American coins that I can spend, and a bunch of old bills that aren’t worth much.

However, there was a little treasure in a bag marked “monnaie diverse” (various coins).

It’s a 1926 gold sovereign that was made in South Africa. It looks right, weighs the right amount, and is the correct diameter, so I have no doubts that it’s real. Apparently these were made at a few different mints, and the South African one is the most common, so this coin isn’t worth much more than its weight in gold. That said, with the price of gold where it’s at right now (near all-time highs), this little 7.99 gram, 22k gold coin is worth nearly 850$.

So that’s fun! I found a gold coin in a necklace before, but never a gold coin by itself. Here’s hoping there’s more to come!

The other two coins are the only silver ones from the ziplocks. They are 1970 25 & 50 piastre coins from Egypt which feature the head of Nasser. Those ones are worth closer to 10$ each. I’m happy anytime I save precious metals from the dump.

Some of the jewellery was nice too. I’ll share that in my next post. I’m still craving a big haul of junk, but this will tide me over in the meantime.

Otherwise, I have a feeling it’s not going to go well because it’s the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, but I’m planning on doing a sale tomorrow at the 4100 Coloniale spot. I don’t really have anything to do anyways, and nice weather is hard to come by this time of year. I won’t lie, if you went to my last sale, there probably won’t be much more new stuff to look at this time. I’m mostly looking to clear out stock, and maybe gather together some things (especially paper ephemera) for a bulk sale. It could be the last normal yard sale of the year, as we are at the mercy of the weather at this point. Next weekend is looking pretty nice (knock on wood), but I’m planning on doing a clothing sale with my Instagram seller then.

Ridiculousness

November 28, 2021 garbagefinds14 Comments

This year has been a bust, but last year was fantastic. This spot provided some of my best finds of 2020, and just a few days before the New Year.

I feel pretty confident that this stuff was tossed when a kid came home for the holidays and cleaned out their old room. There wasn’t a lot on the curb, but the things that made it there were pretty top quality. I found two Macbook Pros, one from 2010 and one from 2015 (I’m guessing they got a new one in 2020). I finally got around to listing both on eBay recently, and they should earn me around 125 & 275$ respectively. The newer one has a cracked screen, but is still usable. I also had to wipe the hard drives before listing them, but that’s not too hard to do.

Most notable though were the vanity items, particularly the jewellery.

There’s a fair bit of silver in this picture. The most valuable piece was the Tiffany heart tag necklace, which was real and sold for close to 400$. I’ve found a couple of those now, so maybe they’re more popular with gift givers than they are with gift receivers.

I also found a pair of Tiffany earrings, which I think sold for 100-150$ (this is a little while ago now, so I forget exactly). And we’re not even at the best part yet.

Silver is great, but gold is better (at least going by dollars per gram). This person tossed out two solid 14k/18k gold necklaces. The one on the right was made by Quadri, but I spotted some wear and tear and decided to take the easy way out and sell it to my jeweler for its weight in gold.

I still have the one on the left. It’s Italian 14k, and I’ll have to go on a mission to determine who made it based on the hallmarks. I doubt it’s a super well-known designer, but either way it’s very pretty, featuring graduated pieces of yellow, rose, and white gold.

Here’s a couple other gold bits. That ring is 14k (but the stone is just a bead that happened to fit well in that space), and the chain is white 14k gold with a roughly 1/4 carat diamond at the end. If I remember right, that smaller ring didn’t turn out to be solid gold after all.