history – Things I find in the garbage

Rien n’est beau que le vrai

January 10, 2024 garbagefinds5 Comments

I’ll finish the organizational post another time. This post I’d like to dedicate to Nick Huston, a friend who passed away recently after a fire. We were closest between 5-10 years ago, but I hadn’t seen him in a while, largely because I’m bad at staying in touch (for a variety of reasons). On November 23rd he messaged me about wanting to look through my trash hoard. We chatted a bit, but didn’t make plans, and on December 15th he was gone. He was an unpretentious, goofy, generous guy, and was taken from the world far too soon. He wanted to see my garbage, so here it is bud. This junk’s for you.

This was one of a few intriguing spots I had on rue St-Denis this year. These guys rarely threw out much at once, but there was enough to keep me checking back week after week. My best day was when I opened a bag that was mostly full of food (both wet and dry, so kind of gross), but also contained a box of little treasures.

I like to take pictures of things as I found them. In this case, the box of treasures came with a bunch of sliced almonds. The many joys of trash!

Thankfully, this kind of stuff cleans up pretty easily, and nothing was ruined.

The most unusual object was the “sexographe.” I can’t find any others online, but a few articles discuss it. Apparently it was a tool used to sex chicks, though some people writing about it were very dubious of its functioning, describing Capron as a “charlatan.” It sources an article that sounds like it would have been a lot more in depth, but unfortunately appears to have disappeared from the internet. Based on the font, I’m guessing it was made in the 1900s or 1910s.

The medals were pretty neat. The colourful enameled badge was purportedly made for the 50th anniversary of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, though the only source for that claim is an eBay listing trying to sell it for 299.99 USD. I decided to list mine for 200$ CAD, which I think is probably too high still, but I can always lower the price later.

The 2nd Congress for the French Language in Canada (1937) bronze medal is also impressive. Very art deco. It was designed by Marius Plamondon, who was more well-known for his work in stained glass. They seem fairly uncommon, but I found another one on a coin/exonumia site listed for 150$, so I listed mine at that price as well.

That little pendant is a wax seal. Sterling I think, though I can’t read the hallmarks and haven’t tested it. I don’t know what that emblem is. The boat reminded me of the New Brunswick flag, but then there’s also some fleur-de-lys, a sun, and a castle.

I still have to research the long, flat thing, though it appears to honour those who fought against the government in the 1837-1838 rebellions.

Photos of the relevant reverse sides are below, plus a closer pic of this funny alpaca card holder (?) made using a 1907 silver coin from Peru. If you have any info about this junk that might be of interest, please share your insights in the comments!

One of my final finds at this spot was a reverse glass painting of the Montreal Historical Society emblem. It was pretty dusty, but it cleaned up nicely and I’m leaning towards keeping it myself. It kind of reminds me of something you’d see in a church basement that hasn’t been renovated since 1960 or so.

Anyways, whoever owned this stuff was clearly into local history. It’s a shame it was tossed, but thankfully I was there to save it!

Otherwise, I haven’t figured out what’s wrong with that Paypal donate widget yet. I think they might have changed their system or something. I’ll try to figure it out before my next post, but in the meantime you can send donations via e-transfer or Paypal directly to my normal email – martin.gregory@gmail.com.

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! –Widget currently unavailable–

The summer lull

July 28, 2023July 28, 2023 garbagefinds6 Comments

The trash was flowing pretty consistently for a while, with lots of interesting and valuable finds, though not much in the way of gold and silver. The past few weeks have been relatively slow, with old spots drying up and no one stepping up to replace them. I’ve noticed a reduced flow around this time of year before; I figure it’s because it’s the time of year when people are most likely to go on vacation.

Fortunately, I could probably find nothing for a year and still have enough to get by. I spent a full workweek just in my garage not long ago, just organizing and researching, and after all that work it barely looked like I had done anything at all. I keep picking though obviously, because it’s fun and because it’s good to go out in hopes of finding that major score.

This spot in NDG was a regular stop for a little while. My best haul came this day, when the tossers unloaded a large collection of vintage sports memorabilia.

I saved a big haul of 1950s/1960s Sports Illustrated magazines. These are now listed on Facebook Marketplace, which I’m using a bit more these days. The “is this still available” people are annoying, but my strategy is not to chase them. Usually they’re not serious buyers anyways, so I wait for people who express a real interest in the item, and then I’ll make more of an effort.

FB Marketplace is now the best way to locally sell stuff like furniture, and also other items with mainstream demand. eBay is still my go-to for more niche items, especially when they’re easy to ship.

I found a few of the early Montreal Expos yearbooks, including the one from their first season in 1969. I sold one on eBay previously, I think for 40$. My plan this time is to sell the three as a lot. There doesn’t seem to be huge interest in Montreal Manic stuff, but I’m sure someone at a yard sale will like it.

These two Canadiens magazines have signatures on them. The signature on the left looks kind of like Jean Beliveau’s, though not one he put a lot of effort into. If true it would bump of the value of the magazine a bit that’s for sure. The one on the right looks to be signed as well, though all those scratches look like gibberish to me. There’s more on the back, which I forgot to get a photo of. If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments! Click on the picture to zoom in for a better look.

These old schedules can be worth money sometimes. It seems like anything made in the 80s or later is yard sale material, but before that they can have some real value, especially stuff from the 60s or earlier. None of these ones are particularly valuable, though the 1970s Expos and NHL schedules are worth around 10-20$ each.

Tickets can be worth good money as well. Older ones, and ones from notable games command a premium. It can be worth the effort to Google the date of the game to see if anything special happened. One of my Canadiens tickets (not pictured), for example, turned out to be from a game that was Guy LaFleur’s last at the Forum (as a Nordique). So that one is listed for 100$ on eBay, and has garnered some interest though I’ll likely have to come down on the price a bit. These other tickets don’t seem to be too special, I may group them by team and sell them via auction on eBay at some point once it starts getting colder.

That’s all for now, but here’s hoping I don’t take so long to get to the new post… for real this time!

Legends of Vancouver

December 11, 2022December 12, 2022 garbagefinds19 Comments

As part of my effort to do more self-care, I’ve been trying to walk every day. I set a goal of 7500 steps a day. The default on the app is 10000, because it’s a round number I guess, but apparently there’s no scientific basis for that number. Also, I can walk for an hour and get like 6000 steps, so it doesn’t feel like an achievable goal. Anyways, I’ve gotten those steps in 41 of the past 42 days, and the one missed day was because I went to a board game night.

Sometimes I coordinate these walks with the various trash days, but other times I just walk aimlessly. Even in those times, though, I sometimes find trash. I spotted this little pile of junk wood in an alley, not super exciting other than the…

… big ol’ chunk of copper lying on top! This thing is hefty and probably worth like 15$ at the scrap yard. Not the find of the year, I know, but sometimes it’s the little things right? And maybe it feels a little more special when you find these things when you’re not even really trying.

I only started thinking about scrap metals (besides silver and gold) maybe 3-4 years ago. I definitely left a lot of money on the table by not knowing about it sooner… just another lesson I had to learn the hard way. Copper and brass in particular are easy money.

Otherwise, one of my better finds this year came from this recycling bin. I’ve been keeping an eye on this spot since late 2021, but there was a good multi-month stretch in the middle where these folks didn’t throw out anything at all. The recycling bin has often been loaded with books. Clearly they belonged to a collector, because many were quite old and the names sketched on the insides of the covers were always different.

One night in late September or early October I picked this book out of the bin. It was definitely old, and the cover had an unusual embossed look to it. It had the look of something not mass produced (the name of the book is also written on the spine, in pen), and I set it aside for further research.

I had never heard of E. Pauline Johnson before, but she sounds like a pretty interesting figure. I don’t really think I could do justice to her life story here, but the short version was that she was a writer and performer who was fairly well known in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her father was a hereditary Mohawk chief, and her mother an English immigrant. She never married, despite apparently having a dozen proposals, and is generally viewed as a “New Woman.” She moved to Vancouver late in life, and upon her death her ashes were spread in Stanley Park near Siwash Rock, which is mentioned in this book (you can see the passage here). For a quick modern take, here’s an article by someone who argues that Johnson should be on our 100$ bill.

So, the book is interesting enough on its own. It was published in 1911, and is the 4th edition (though these embossed cover editions seem to be pretty uncommon in any edition). But what makes it really special is the inscription on the 2nd page.

So, apparently this was former Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s copy of this book? Seems a little crazy, but it’s certainly plausible – apparently the two were friendly, and I found a letter where Laurier “[begs] the honour of introducing” Johnson to Lord Brassey. As for the handwriting, it looks like a match to me (see the signature on the second page of that letter).

Also noteworthy is that Johnson died just a little over a month after signing this book, on March 7, 1913. Laurier died six years later, in 1919. My guess is that this book was purchased at a few different estates sales, before finding its way into that recycling bin over 100 years after both Johnson and Laurier passed on. Perhaps someone, or a few different someones didn’t notice the signature along the way – the pages do open in a way where you can easily skip over that first page.

Anyways, it’s mine (for) now. For pricing, it’s hard to find a comparison. This is the only signed copy I found online… it’s going for around 700 USD, but is that a realistic price, or an ask? On the other hand, my copy is in better (though not perfect) condition, and also belonged to the guy on our 5$ bill. I’m thinking that this is the kind of sale that’s best left to a high-end auction house, like Waddington’s in Toronto.

Any other ideas, comments, etc? Please share them below!

Links

1. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay (Canada, US), Search for something you want / research something you have (Canada, US) – FYI these are Ebay Partner Network links, so I make a few bucks if you sign up for an account or buy something after getting to eBay using these links
2. Facebook page
3. Follow @garbagefinds and @garbagefindssells (selling account, operated by someone else) on Instagram
4. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com – note that I can’t fulfill most requests for items, many are already gone by the time they are posted here.