Tag: junk

The decluttering continues

garbagefinds8 Comments

With only mild success on the picking front, I’ve continued to focus more on the decluttering arena. I sold the 14 boxes of books for my asking price (plus an extra 20$, the buyer was very happy), I held a very successful Labour Day yard sale which helped clear out some yard sale stock (although I still have too much), and I’ve been pulling more garbage deadstock off the shelves and documenting it.

This box is relatively fresh compared to some of the other ones up there. It contained all the copper and brass items from that “all-nighter” spot, which I happened upon a little over a year ago.

I see this kind of stuff often enough. These are the kinds of things that tourists buy when they’re in Middle East. But the quality of these items was a little nicer, and these folks also had roots in Iraq, so I figured I’d post them here first before throwing them in the yard sale (or scrap metal) pile.

Sometimes I also wonder if I might overlook a real antique, especially when it comes to these copper things. Would I be able to tell if one of these was made in the 1850s, versus the 1950s? I think the giveaways are probably in the details, like the little loop on the back of a decorative plate and whatnot. This samovar was easy to recognize, given that it was made using a piece of a tin can that probably dates to the 1950s, plus or minus 20 years. It’s missing pieces as well, so it’s destiny is the scrap bin. Who knows, maybe it’ll be recycled into another samovar.

Here’s a few more things from the box. I really doubt I have anything mind-blowing here, but if you know anything about selling this kind of stuff let me know in the comments!

Oh, and I also fished a bunch of Red Rose figurines from the bottom of a recycling bin there. These are always good for a buck or two a piece (sometimes more, for rarer ones like the Gingerbread Man).

Here’s some things from some Gen Xer’s childhood junk purge. I took these pictures inside, before I set up my photo lights, so they aren’t that good. But I still made the effort to take the pictures, so I figured I might as well share them in the gallery format. Most of these items aren’t all that valuable, but they’re fun and good for yard sales or Instagram. The Seiko watch might be the most valuable piece (100-200$ if I recall correctly), if it works.

And finally, here’s the remains of a fun Villeray score from a few years back. There was more, but over the years I whittled the collection down to just these small things (most pens and pencils) to save space. I haven’t done much research yet, but I’m confident that some of the writing instruments (in particular, the gold-filled pendant fountain pen and the wood grain Waterman mechanical pencil) have value. Other items of note include the cow bone rosary ft. Stanhope viewer, and a silver pendant doohickey (which I’m guessing held a little sewing kit).

I took these photos using my lights, and you can really see the difference in quality. The next step might be to get my old camera up and running again. As good as the iPhone is for photography, a nice camera is better with contrast, colour saturation, and so on, even if it’s a little more work getting the “perfect shot.”

Anyways that’s all for now. I am planning another sale for the 4100 Coloniale spot tomorrow, even though the temperature is going to be a relatively chilly 14 degrees. Foot traffic was really good last week, and the McGill kids are back in the neighbourhood (and are hungry for junk). If you came to the last one, there might be a bit of fresh stuff, although maybe not enough to make a special trip for. I plan on being out from about 1-7pm.

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. Help support the blog, or just buy me a coffee! PayPal link below.



Brand new junk

garbagefinds15 Comments

The weather hasn’t really been conducive to trash picking lately. On the night I happened across this stuff there was heavy, icy pellet like snow. Since then, there’s been two separate 30-some centimeter dumps, each of which made driving (and parking anywhere) in the city a major pain until they were cleared, and finally another 10cm or so just to top things off.

(Now, as I write this, it’s about -40c out with windchill).

When there’s that much snow, I only go out when I have some interesting spots to check, and I don’t really have any of those right now (other than the book tossers, who will probably be featured in my new post). So, I haven’t been doing much hunting recently, and when I have gone out, I haven’t found much of anything. Well, anything besides the aforementioned books and this haul, which was mostly Alibaba quality vape / marijuana paraphernalia (it’s legal here in Canada, for what it’s worth), which I’m guessing it was once someone’s side hustle.

There were several big boxes stuffed with disposable vapes on the curb. I took three boxes filled with product that was still sealed – the rest looked new, but on closer inspection they had been opened. I figured the unopened product was probably “too good to be true,” but I decided to give them a chance. Indeed, they were all garbage; old and leaky and low-quality from the day they were made (probably why the other ones had been opened, and then thrown out). Back to the curb they went, which is probably for the best because I’m not sure the legality of selling vapes with nicotine anyways.

(It’s hard to think of a product less environmentally friendly than a disposable vape).

I didn’t put a lot of effort into photographing this stuff, because a lot of it was pure crap.  Cheap, cheap, cheap… but there is a market for that clearly, such as first year University students with bad taste. Some was alright, like a bunch of light up weed trays with Rick and Morty on them (or whoever, in the white boxes in the third pic). The Nintendo emulator looked new, so that’s a nice find if it works. I also found lots of regular vapes and electronic lighters with dragon motifs and so on, all of which would need to be tested.

More decent stuff here, like a bunch of brand new corn cob pipes, a dozen or so run-of-the-mill glass pipes, and the “glass hookahs” in those little boxes. The pendant grinders are stupid novelty products, but someone will buy them.

One of my better finds was a huge load of grinders, a lot of which were still wrapped in their original plastic with price tags attached. Most came out of the black rolling trash bin.

I saved well over a hundred. Most were decent quality, just the plastic topped ones were notably cheap.

I also found eight unopened packs of rolling papers. These 50-packs appear to sell for around 60 USD new, so that’s a nice get.

Come yard sale season this haul should make me good money. It’s a lot of work organizing this, but thankfully I have someone who can help me with that (and selling as well). I’m happy to give them a good cut of the profits, because I don’t have the time or the interest to do it myself.

So, not my favourite haul obviously, but it’s something different and money is money. I prefer the historical finds though, and I’ll share some of those in my next post.

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.

A cornucopia of quality vintage junk pt.2

garbagefinds13 Comments

Let’s finish with the QVJ from that TMR apartment. I passed by there again last week and saw nothing on the curb, so I fully expect this to be a “one hit-wonder.”

Besides the silver-plated cutlery, I also saved a whole bunch of silver-plated tableware. This stuff is rarely of much value, but it does well enough at the auction house when you bring in a big lot of it.

I found about as many clocks as I did radios. None of these alarm clocks are super valuable, but they’re fun to have at yard sales. I could make an auction lot of them as well.

I’m sure someone will appreciate that horoscope wall clock on the right. Astrology has seen a bit of a resurgence in popularity of late, even if I personally still don’t know much about it. That clock is probably from the early-mid 80s, based on that beautiful faux wood finish.

That bottle of Labatt 50 is still full. It must be getting close to 50 years old itself, and wouldn’t be at all fun to drink. I’d guess that bottle of Crush is about the same age, but it was probably consumed decades ago. The electric kettle (perhaps a percolator, I forget right now) is pretty nice, and probably dates to the 1950s. I haven’t tested it yet, but most of those old electric things never die.

 

Here we have a vintage toaster, a Polaroid camera, an old aluminum kettle, and a copper & brass pot adorned with the Aztec calendar, which was likely a souvenir from Mexico.

I saved several nice vintage tins, one of which I traded to a friend for some homemade hand sanitizer (middle right).

I found three of those Schick “drying sticks,” all of which look to have never been used. The Hankscraft humidifier also looks unused. Maybe I can sell these via an auction lot of vintage products in their original boxes.

I found a whole bunch of matchbooks. Lots were stored in this Vapomaster jar (or canister of some kind). The rest, which filled up a shoebox, were loose in one of the bags. Matchbooks are always fun to look at, and are great yard sale fodder.

Coca-cola collectibles are a consistently hot market. This mirrored tray is a reproduction made in the 70s or 80s, but it’s still a nice piece that should sell for around 30$ at the auction house.

Let’s finish with some wall art. Here’s a W.E. Degarthe print that appears to be signed by the artist. It got a little water damage because it rained a bit the night I found it, but it looked better than I was expecting it would once it dried out. It’d probably be worth about 100$ in excellent condition, maybe 50$ in this condition.

Lastly, I saved a couple of vintage Formula 1 prints mounted on particle board. This one features the McLaren MP4/6, which was driven by Ayrton Senna during his highly successful 1991 campaign. The other showed a Williams car from the same era. Senna is a legend in the racing world, and these are in excellent condition so I’m hoping they’ll accept them at the auction house. If not, they’ll be easy to sell at a yard sale.

Otherwise, the quality finds keep on coming. My garage is pretty full right now because the auction house is closed and I can’t do yard sales. Thankfully a friend gave me some plastic shelving, which should at least help me get some stuff off the floor.

The “part x of a million” tosser recently rented a dumpster and filled it full of junk, both quality and not. I picked several bins worth of stuff just from that one container, and I’m still storing several other bins of their trash from months (some, almost a year) past that I haven’t yet had time to document. Due to the sheer volume I’m dealing with, I’m going to try using video to make it easier for me to share it all here. It takes longer to set up a photo, because you have to think about how it’ll all look from a certain perspective, while a video allows me to switch perspectives when necessary. Anyways, expect to see some videos in an upcoming post. No, I don’t plan on being in them in any meaningful way, ha ha. I still don’t have interest in becoming a Youtube star at this time.