Tag: garbage

Summer pt.1

garbagefinds8 Comments

Hello all. It’s been a busy month. My mom moved to the city in early July, and the family has been helping her settle in. I’ve also spent some more time in that hole, maybe I’ll post a few more finds from that next time. Moving day wasn’t all that exciting, but at least I got some exercise from biking and walking around the neighbourhood. I did find a few change dumps, and a mixer thingy I have to find a cable for.

 

In the spring, precious metals were near all-time high prices and seemed to be popping up pretty much everywhere. Now that the prices are lower, I’m not finding as much, which I think goes to show that there’s not much logic to what ends up in the trash. I still found a bit though, including a Tiffany baby rattle and a flimsy 10k gold bracelet at one spot, a tiny Tiffany heart and a couple other bits at another, and then a little bag filled with someone’s scrap silver elsewhere.

My favourite spot might have been this dumpster. It’s always a bit of a struggle to dig around in these things, but this one wasn’t too bad. I picked up a bunch of dishes, old jars, and miscellaneous junk.

I enjoyed saving this, which I think is a variety of a “God in a bottle.” Apparently these were popular in the Irish community, and this person did indeed appear to have Irish roots. Apparently it was made in Montreal in December 1938, and the images are covered in celluloid. It might have been made to hold holy water, but there isn’t any evidence anyone ever put water inside. I’d be afraid to now, since the celluloid appears to be peeling up in places (also, the cap doesn’t seem to open). Regardless, it’s a neat artifact, one I might keep for my own collection.

I also scrounged up some smaller treasures. There is a bit of silver and a tiny amount of gold in the middle box on the right. I was hoping that mesh bag was sterling, but it was not. Inside the plastic rosary case was an old Blarney pin.

Otherwise I have a few spots I’m currently keeping an eye on – I’ll save finds from those for another post. A friend was able to quickly flip a brand new Amazon quality espresso machine for 100$, and three of those Amisco stools for 200$. I was excited about the spot that produced those near-mint Christian Dior sunglasses, but I haven’t seen anything there since. The pottery is from that dumpster, just a bit of what I saved but the only pieces I had time to photograph.

Spring pt.1

garbagefinds5 Comments

I’m going to switch from a monthly format to a seasonal one, because the former requires a bit too much micromanagement (of photos, exact dates I found things, etc). When people are clearing out a house, sometimes I’ll find things at the same place for months on end, so this offers me a bit more flexibility in that regard.

One house (still producing finds!) has tossed a seemingly endless supply of old kid’s junk. The vast majority isn’t salvageable but I’m able to pick some fun things from the detritus, most notably (so far) a Comical Clara wind-up tin toy that seems to be fairly collectible.

Otherwise there’s been a bit of very random stuff, such as a bunch of old Italian communist posters and a 1976 Montreal Olympics flag that just sold at auction for 67$. Hopefully the finds here continue into the summer.

I decided to experiment with a different route a few weeks back, and was rewarded nearly instantly by a recently sold house. Most of the trash is picked up the next morning in this one area, but a little section is picked up in the late afternoon, so often people won’t put out the trash until the next day. However, some put it out at night, and those piles seem to be disproportionately good. Anyways, I found an old yellow organizer with its content, which was mostly sewing stuff but also including some coins, medals, buttons and other quality junk. Probably the most valuable items are a 1965 French silver coin, and a silver medal commemorating the 1935 silver jubilee of George V.

The next week I saved a bucket filled with mostly pennies. I didn’t see anything last week though, so maybe this spot has been exhausted (and maybe I missed some even better finds in the weeks prior).

And for miscellaneous finds, I saved four little sterling silver forks at a one-off spot, and a bag of French Euro coins just down the street. The latter was given out when France was converting to the Euro back in 2002, and contains a little over 15 Euros. I sold them to my neighbour for the face value in CAD. Otherwise, here’s two fun books, one in English and one in Czech.

The Habs game is starting soon, and then I’m going out for trash again. Go Habs Go!

April pt.1

garbagefinds4 Comments

It’s been a busy month. Spring is here, the trash has been bountiful, and I’ve done three sales in the past two weeks (with another planned for tomorrow). There were so many good finds that it’ll take a couple posts to share them, and that’s not including the stuff I’m holding for potential individual posts.

One spot produced boxes full of brand new pottery from China. Over two weeks, I accumulated about 3x what you see above, all of it wrapped nicely in foam and bubble wrap. Some had price tags in yuan on them; the ones that did were priced equivalent to 15-20 CAD each. I’m pretty picky about my pottery, but I thought these were pretty good quality. Nonetheless I was worried that they wouldn’t sell well at my yard sale, as dishes aren’t usually a hot commodity, but I’ve already sold about 2 boxes worth. I also picked up some packaged food which was either not expired or lightly expired, some of which I’ve been eating. I haven’t seen anything here in the last couple weeks, but I’d be willing to take more free food and pottery if it’s offered.

Screenshot
Screenshot

It was a big month for Lego as well. This spot especially – most of the bags were packing material, but a few were stuffed with Lego. All in all I saved about 15kg (33lbs) along with some instruction books, all of which sold for a bit over 200$. At another house, I saved another 8kg or so, which sold for like 182$.

I recently rediscovered the local auction house, the type that focuses on pretty mundane stuff like this. So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the prices realized. I’ll get into that more in a future post, but this strategy turns Lego into “easy money.”

Here’s some of the more miscellaneous finds of the month. That bent mirror was sterling, and contributed somewhere between 100-150 grams (who can remember?) to my scrap pile.

As for treasures, I’ve found a bunch. The second batch was actually from March, but who’s keeping track? The first batch is mostly silver and a little bit of white gold, a reduction from a larger collection, while the second were three pieces inside a slightly busted glass-topped box, all of which were gold.

I guess I’ve also been busy watching Canadiens playoff hockey (or listening on TSN 690 if I want to go out for a trash run). It’s been a fun run so far, here’s hoping for a good game tonight against Buffalo! The city is a lot more fun when the team is contending … and it also helps me sell my Canadiens stuff at yard sales. Anyways, I’m planning to do one tomorrow, and will post the deets soon on my garbage.news announcement page.