Tag: garbage picking

The 5 million dollar house

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One of my most recent spots was a big house in a nice neighbourhood. It had been put on the market, and I guessed it was going for 5 million. I checked online and it turns out I was just about right, although I would have lost by Price is Right rules – 4.995m. It was a nice, if bland house with a sweet swimming pool. When I’m picking the trash of people this well off, I’m hoping they go “full privilege.” In my financial position, I can spend 1-10$ and not really regret it at all. I assume that some of the people that make 100x what I do, probably feel the same way about 100-1000$ transactions.

These guys never went full privilege, to their credit. No gold, not much jewelry. A lot of empty Hermes boxes, but only a couple of Hermes products (perfumes). I saved a bunch of clothes, but most were really boring so I donated them. Same with the household and kitchen stuff.

Of course I did save a few notable things, otherwise I wouldn’t be posting about it. One day a bunch of picture frames got tossed; I took some yard sale quality ones and left some junkier ones. This one looks pretty plain, but was easily the most valuable of that bunch. It’s a solid silver Tiffany frame, and given that it weighs over 100 grams, it’s worth about 400$ for scrap. Given the dents, scratches, and other defects, I think that’s all it is, but obviously a find like that makes my trash run worthwhile.

I also made a decent amount of money from these iPhones. It’s very rare that I find an iPhone that isn’t locked to iCloud (and therefore essentially a brick), but I usually give them a charge just in case. It turned out that two of the three were reset prior to being tossed. They both had a couple issues, one with the camera and one with a cracked back screen, but they were relatively modern (iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max), and I was able to easily sell them to a local business for 150$ and 195$ respectively. In the past I would have sold them on eBay, but this way saved me a lot of hassle and I think the price was very fair. The 3rd one is doomed to the e-waste pile unfortunately.

Other decent if unexciting finds include a couple small pieces of silver, a nice pewter wine funnel, and some new-in-box Wifi doohickies I was able to sell pretty easily on eBay for 80$ a pop. These folks have since moved, but this spot was nice while it lasted.

I decided to quit Instagram the other day. I just don’t like what the app has become. I first joined in 2015 when it was a fun, casual space. Now it’s all about reels, AI slop, and promoting addictive (and often fake) information. Funny enough though, after I quit I started having the temptation to post again. However, I think I can just post the same type of content here, where there are no ads and no BS. So, maybe I’ll do a new type of post soon, once I get enough random pictures to make it worthwhile.

I’ve been fairly lucky recently. Last week I had a couple nice gold hauls, from spots that were easy to pick. This week, I’ve come across two hoarder type piles, which were a lot of work to sort through and provided no easy money. However, there’s no way to know what you’re going to find, and who knows, maybe the easy money is coming next week. Also, the hoarder piles tend to produce more interesting yard sale quality junk.

Stuff and things

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It’s been one of the harshest winters in recent memory, but enough decent trash has been trickling out to make my picking expeditions worthwhile. I went for a walk around my old neighbourhood in early January, and came across these bags.

Inside was mostly kid’s toys and junk, but for some reason a couple of doctor’s tools were mixed in. Maybe a retired doctor gave their grandkids their old devices to play with, who knows. Regardless, they were in pretty good cosmetic condition, and weren’t all that old either. The otoscope (above) battery was shot, but it held power for long enough to test the lights on the components. These things retail for over 1k new, and I was able to sell this one pretty quickly for 200$.

I also found and listed this sphygmomanometer. It’s not worth as much, but should fetch 50-100$.

I found another little jewelry stash that probably belonged to someone’s teenage years. Mostly junk, but there was one nice 14k gold butterfly necklace that made my trip worthwhile.

I mentioned one particular spot being notable for one other thing in my last post. That one thing was a big collection of perfume. Pretty nice stuff, and mostly fairly recent and fresh. I gave first dibs to someone who helps me sell things on Facebook, 2nd to a regular perfume buyer, and sold one on eBay for a total profit of around 400$. But I’ve still got a bunch left – selling used perfume on eBay is a pain after recent policy changes. If anyone knows any alternative selling platforms for perfume, let me know! Apparently Marketplace isn’t all that great for perfumes either, with lots of companies using algorithms to flag anyone trying to sell their used product. (To be fair, if they didn’t MP would be filled with fake Chanel #5 and whatnot).

Otherwise, I’ve done well this winter re-organizing and decluttering my garage. That includes listing some items that had been sitting around for years, and also processing some new arrivals quickly. The Breitling watch box and knife sharpener were recent finds that sold quickly (80 & 100$ respectively). The same applies to the otoscope above, which quickly listed then sold. Of the things that had been collecting dust for at least a year, my relatively quick sales included optometry paraphernalia, a stamp collection featuring a lot of vintage big blocks from Iraq, Pokemon-themed “Mighty Beanz”, an emergency beacon thing for avalanche safety, and an old projector lens. The lens felt like the dustiest of the bunch, but sold within an hour or so of listing for 100$. I still have some work to do, but am more organized than I’ve been in a very long time.

There was a death in my family recently. It wasn’t a surprise really, but regardless it sucks when that time comes. My next post will be dedicated to him.

 

Silver out the wazoo

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Here’s the jewelry finds from back when I mentioned having “one particularly good run each of the last two weeks” (December 5th post). This is all the silver, plus the charm chain which is marked 925 but appears to be not, a Coach watch, and the necklace/pendant on the right which is 14k white gold. My favorites from this batch are the charms, which are pretty hefty and feature marcasite stones, as well as the matching bracelets in the back. Those are marked as T&C – not Tiffany and Co, but Town and Country. They’re very pretty regardless and seem to sell for around 150$ each on eBay.

This spot was notable for one other thing, which maybe I’ll mention in my next post.

I’m not super happy with this photo, but it’s the only one I have of the jewelry I found the week before that (or after, I forget). Again, this is all the silver separated from the costume stuff, with the only gold being that bracelet on the left. It’s 10k and quite small, it was probably made for a kid. I went back to this spot this week and found another 20 grams or so of silver, this time in the form of a chunky pendant. The house is sold, so if I’m lucky I might get some more treasures in the coming weeks or months.

I saved this batch more recently, a couple weeks ago in NDG. A few nice Italian pieces here, and another recently sold house that I’ll be keeping my eye on.

And then last week, some former teenager put their old junk on the curb, including some jewelry bits. A lot of it was the usual crap that kids end up with, but I managed to fish out close to 27 grams of silver.

A few years ago this would have been worth 20-some dollars. At current prices, it’s worth closer to 100$. Even if the rapidly increasing gold prices make people a little more careful about throwing it away, I expect people will continue to be careless about their silver. And sometimes, I’ll be there to find it.

Otherwise, I’m thinking about my old stash of silver. I’ve been stashing some of my silver finds for years, the stuff that seems nicer than scrap but not special enough to stand out on eBay or get a friend to list on Marketplace. I was thinking I might try to sell these pieces at some kind of relatively fancy market, but I don’t think I’ll ever actually get around to doing that. I’m getting older and I realize I don’t like selling all that much. I like yard sales because I’m not that worried about any of the prices, and eBay because I don’t have to do much in the way of customer service. But the whole thing where you organize all your junk, bring it somewhere, display it nicely and then have to ask a price that justifies all that effort (which will disappoint most people) … it’s not for me.

Anyways, my plan is to divest myself of this silver. I have about a pound of it, maybe a bit more. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, but over the last year I’ve been trying to get rid of as much stale crap as possible. I was thinking of doing an eBay listing, but I could also just say to hell with it and bring it to the scrap man. If you have any ideas, let me know in the comments. I’m not sure if people will pay much of a premium for this kind of stuff at the current metal price.

One last thing. I found this photo in a collection of damp, sometimes moldy photos that had clearly spent too long in a basement. This one wasn’t too bad though, a little smelly but that seems to have dissipated, and appears to be signed by Jean Beliveau. I doubt it’s super valuable, but I figure if one of those kids ended up being in the NHL, it could increase the value. I’m guessing I have some followers who know a lot more about hockey history than I do, so let me know if you have any ideas. For some reason I think the team might be from Dorval, but I don’t know if that’s based on some actual info I saw while sorting through the pictures, or something I just guessed. Anyways, I would be happy to figure this out, as it’s been bothering me for a while and I’d like to pass on this photo to someone who loves it.