Tag: gold

The finds I crave

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This haul was from the summer of 2020 (my “bumper crop” year), so these pictures have been collecting virtual dust for some time now. Better to post them late than never though, right?

I’d really love to happen upon a pile like this right about now. I’m still picking up loads and loads of books, but there haven’t been many finds of note in the precious metals / jewelry department for some time now.

I remember finding a bunch of coins the first time I stopped here. That was a good omen. In the box were more coins, including some already rolled pennies. Literal easy money.

Otherwise, I picked up some of the usual quality junk …

… and some bits of paper ephemera. My favourite piece here is the letter written to Eaton’s in 1960 complaining about a defective dishwasher. That bridge joke is… let’s go with “dated.”

What made this place notable though was the jewelry and the precious metals. I don’t remember all these pieces after two plus years, but that mechanical pencil was silver for sure.

There were a few bits of silver and gold in here too, most of which also appear in the next pic.

That watch was gold for sure, though it was busted up and not good for much but scrap. That religious pendant next to it was also gold, as were the two earrings to its upper right. There are several silver pieces here, including a little enameled Order Of The Holy Sepulchre medal which might still be kicking around in one of my drawers.

These were my best finds though. The rings boxes alone are decent. The one on the left was sterling, and the Birks one was quite beautiful as well, all done up in deep blue leather with gold accents. I forget what they sold for, but I’d guess they went for around 75-100$ each. The stainless steel one was probably worth around 40$ as well.

The rings inside weren’t much good, but that doesn’t matter when they’re gold. The two in the middle were 14k and made by Birks, but the stones had been forcibly removed making the rings worth nothing outside of their weight in gold. Fortunately, that was still a few hundred dollars. The one in the box on the left was sterling I think (and missing a stone). The earrings, which were stored in that little yellow pouch along with a note, were my best individual find. They were solid 18k gold, and I recently (finally) sold them for a bit above their scrap value (650$).

Looking at this reminds me how great 2020 was for finds. 2021 and 2022 weren’t much good, but here’s hoping 2023 is better, and that I happen upon another nice gold haul soon! There’s nothing quite like finding gold.

I do feel like the trash has been a bit better recently. The books are still flowing, but I also have a few other spots I’m keeping an eye on now. Spring is definitely in the air, though I don’t feel like people are doing much cleaning yet. It’s still a bit chilly, and a fair amount of snow remains.

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!

Just up the street

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This was one of my more exciting spots last fall. They started tossing right around when someone living just up the street stopped.

On one of my best days here I found a bunch of loose jewelry in a bin. There was a bit more inside some black trash bags.

Overall I saved about 3.25 pounds of jewelry. A small portion of that was silver and gold.

I thought that ring in the gold pile might be white gold, but it turns out that stainless steels holds up well against the testing acid. Regardless, I can’t complain about this haul. The bottom right piece was designer costume jewelry, I forget by who.

Don’t worry, that’s just an air gun. It sold for good money at auction though. Otherwise, I found a couple camcorders, cell phones, a Blackberry tablet, two iPods, and a bit more silver & gold jewelry (I wish I took a close-up photo of that bunch). On the right is a David Yurman sterling silver money clip that I sold on eBay for just north of 200$.

The suitcases in the first picture emerged on one of the last productive trash days. A couple of them produced quality finds.

That little wooden box held a set of old weights, as well as two golden nuggets.

They’re heavy, and test as high purity gold, so I think that’s what they are! It seemed that there was at least a couple generations of dentists in this family, so I’m assuming these would have been used in dental fillings. With a combined weight of about 18 grams, and assuming they’re 20k or above, these little pebbles are worth about a grand in scrap.

Other notables include a marcasite and silver bracelet, a silver “US Air Force Strategic Air Command” ring, and a Jaeger le Coultre travel alarm watch. It didn’t work at all, but being a nice brand I was still able to sell it for a bit over 200$. All in all this was certainly one of my best spots of the year.

I had some luck Tuesday in NDG last week, but car troubles set me back Wednesday thru Friday. Hopefully this week I’ll end my cold spell, which has been going for around three months now. Fortunately, preceding that was a roughly six month long hot streak, so the lull isn’t bothering me too much (besides being boring).

Rich people moving – Exhibit A

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Garbage picking can run hot or cold, but I feel like I’ve been on a non-stop hot streak since early July. There’s so many great finds to show you, including at least two “find of the year” candidates.

For now let’s go back to mid-summer, when this recently sold house was a spot of interest. They threw out lots of great stuff that I didn’t get pictures of, like nice kitchenwares and a whole bunch of camping gear because I was so busy with junk from elsewhere On this day I picked up a couple of rugs, which I think sold for around 60-80$ each at the auction house if I remember right.

When you’re rich I guess you can afford to buy 40+ dollar wi-fi light bulbs and then throw them out when you move. These three were sealed in their original plastic, and sold for 20-some bucks at the auction. So the buyer got a pretty good deal, but I got them for free so I can’t complain (plus, there’s fancier models out these days – I think these were made “way back” in 2015). Those lightweight Silhouette rimless frames are always a good find, they’re generally easy to sell on eBay in the 60-100$ range. The Hugo Boss titanium frames should also be easy to sell. There were lots of other eyeglasses, but these were the ones that were most worth sharing.

Not super exciting, but I picked up a whole bunch of nice cleaning supplies as well. I basically don’t have to buy any cleaning products anymore, other than dish soap and laundry detergent. I find those sometimes too, but not often enough to never have to buy them again.

This bag held tourist tchotchkes (ranging in quality from nice to busted), brass doodads, miscellaneous electronics, and the art below, which was made in Greece. They didn’t sell for much at auction, but I thought they were kinda cool.

But as is somewhat common with my summer hauls, the highlight for me was a bunch of jewelry. This collection came in a white shopping bag, which was then placed in a black garbage bag.

As you can see it was tangled up pretty good when I found it. As usual, a good portion wasn’t too exciting, but I was able to pick some pretty nice pieces out of the mess.

In the silver department we have three hefty bangles with black stones (onyx?). Together they weigh around 115 grams, making them worth about an easy 75$ at current scrap prices, though in my opinion they’re too nice to scrap. I’m guessing they were made in Central America, along with that pretty necklace with the green stones which is hallmarked “0925.”  The necklace made from many little rings is also silver. For gold, we have a hefty 14k ring missing its stones (but still worth 3-400$ for scrap given its bulk), one section of a gold clasp, a single 14k earrings with diamonds and a green stone (jade?), and a nice 14k ring with some kind of green stones and a larger one with green and pink speckles.

As for costume stuff, we have a cool rhinestone cat brooch, a brooch that looks to a be a section broken off a larger piece of antique jewelry, a Ben Amun signed necklace, and a Sheffield pendant watch. The latter is a little more fun than the usual pendant watch because it actually has a working pendulum on the bottom. Zoom in for a closer look!

(Not the best pics but still a little better look at a couple of pieces that were less visible in the group shot)

Anyways, this was just one of a few to several rich people moving piles that produced quality finds and jewelry in the past six months or so. I’ll try to share more soon.

Otherwise, I find myself overwhelmed with the amount of stuff to deal with, and it no longer seems feasible to sell it all myself. Even with the help of the auction house, there’s a lot of stuff that will only sell well if the effort is put in. For example, I’m not even sure they’d accept a single pair of Silhouette eyeglasses as a lot, and even if they did I doubt they’d go for more than, say 20$, and then the fees are higher as well. Like I said earlier, they’re pretty easy to sell on eBay, but when you have hundreds if not thousands of items packed away that would be easy to sell on eBay, the prospect of doing getting started is less enticing and the end goal feels a little murky. I want my life to be about more than work, and as things are I probably work harder than I should already.

Thankfully the business has continued to evolve. My picking skills continue to improve, and my eye for quality junk has become more refined in the “auction-house era.” My finances are now pretty stable, in large part thanks to the auction house, and it seems like I might actually be able to pay off my student loans one day. Also, my recent forays into the stock market have been reasonably successful thus far. My lack of emotional attachment to money serves me well there, and not being greedy helps too. (It seems to be that those are the pitfalls of a lot of “retail” investors).

(On a side note, for an intriguing Canadian garbage-related company you can check out Cielo Waste Solutions [CMC.V], a business based in Alberta that has developed a way to turn garbage & junk (anything not metal, apparently) into renewable diesel. It seems like a few other companies are working on similar technology, but there should be room for all of them in the end as the supply for garbage is basically limitless and the need for fuel isn’t going away anytime soon. Anyways, dyodd as they say (do your own due diligence), and don’t blame me if you lose money. However, feel free to praise me if you do).

Anyways, all that to say I’m not so reliant on maximizing the value of every single item anymore. So I’ve recently started outsourcing some of my selling duties to a few different people in exchange for a good cut of the profit. It’s working out pretty well so far – my finds get sold at good prices with little effort or thought on my part, and that is very refreshing. It almost feels too easy. Regardless, it’s a good way to keep things moving out the door, and reduce the mental burden associated with thinking about & looking at the masses of items I’d otherwise have to deal with.

On a related note, in the New Year I want to focus on decluttering my space a bit, better separate my work life from my home life, etc. As things stand, I find I’m pretty easily distracted and have a hard time relaxing, which I think is partly due to always having cool stuff around to look at, but also stress about what to do with. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on going full-on Marie Kondo or anything, but some rearranging couldn’t hurt.

Look at that, the day turned to Christmas while I was writing that screed, so I’ll end on that note. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and etc! Also. let’s hope 2021 is better than this one.