montreal – Page 70 – Things I find in the garbage

Kiss-proof

October 24, 2013October 24, 2013 garbagefinds10 Comments

I braved the cold and the steep hills of Outremont this morning but didn’t come away with much. After going home and relaxing a bit I went to my friends’ on a mission to sort out some of the stuff I have stored in their shed, especially the stuff I found on Tuesday. I focused mostly on the bits, bobs and jewelry.

These are the things that I wanted to keep for myself. The beads in the top box are pretty cool, they look to be made of hand painted dry beans. I took those silver polish mostly for their cool tins. Many of the little boxes and medicine containers are filled with jewelry or beads. There’s also a few different rosaries. I still have some stuff to sort through but here are a few of my favourite finds.

This Narcissus face powder and razor were packed in a little clear bag. The face powder is pretty old, from the 1920s-1930s if what I read is to be believed. It also appears to be unopened. The box is quite beautiful and might be worth a bit, especially with the powder inside. The razor is a “Made in Canada” Gillette marked as being made in 1920. It looks to be in fine shape.

This is a tiny container that once held a free sample of “kiss-proof” lipstick. It was made by Delica Labs Inc of Chicago. The tin is about the diameter of the nickel.

This is a medal from the Congregation Sainte-Anne, a religious institute (or nunnery) up in Vandreuil, now a city off the West Island of Montreal. One of the books I posted about on Tuesday had a note inside about a “Mumsie” who studied at a convent, maybe this was hers. I don’t know much about this medal, so if you happen to have any information about it let us know!

Here’s a few old Bulova watches. Two (the bottom and the left) are wind-ups that seem to work fine. The other is a quartz that needs a new battery, for now I can’t tell if it works. Regardless, the wind-ups should make me a nice chunk of change.

This little jar had a piece of tape glued to it on which was written “Water from Well Nazareth.” It smells like perfume. Either water from Nazareth smells like perfume, someone used an empty perfume bottle to take a water sample but some of the smell stayed, or Water from Well Nazareth is a perfume scent.

Another book with a note telling of its significance. This one reads: “Grandpa’s prize received at the end of the school yr.” The inscription (below) is dated 1890.

Miscellaneous old tins, a couple of cute sewing scissors and some “Made in USA” nail clippers. I like the old tins, the tiny ones are my favourite. The box on the top right is made of stone.

A bit of the jewelry I thought to be notable. The beads seem to be made of carved glass (crystal). The orange-y pendant, according to a pamphlet I found with it, is made of amber resin. The metal on it is silver. The earrings in the middle are sterling silver and made by Bond-Boyd, probably worth around 20-25$. The top earrings have gold clasps. The little white balls attached don’t look special, but they also look like they’ve been hand painted. I scraped a bit of paint off and the metal underneath looks like it could be gold as well. I’m going to try to get the rest of the paint off, maybe using the same technique I used on a holy water font back in the day. If they’re gold it would definitely bump up their value.

These necklaces seemed unique to be and I wondered whether or not they could be made of Bakelite, a collectible vintage plastic that emerged in the early 1900s. I did the hot water test – apparently Bakelite smells like formaldehyde when put under hot water. While the orange necklace on the left smelled fairly normal, the yellow one on the right definitely had a unique funk to it. If it’s indeed Bakelite it would be worth good money, similar looking necklaces on Etsy sell for 80-100$. I’ll need to do more research before I label it as being Bakelite, however.

A few old pins. The one on the top right is sterling silver, made for the Association des Dactylographes (Typographers) du Canada. The one on the bottom is for the “Societe du bon parler francais” (Society of good French speakers), featuring the slogan “parlons mieux” (we talk better) in the middle. I’m not sure what the CIC stands for.

My favourite find though might be these little sewing scissors shaped in the form of a long beaked bird. These are fairly old and also beautifully designed. They have a makers mark on them but I can’t make it out without my magnifying glass handy. I have a bit of thing for bird stuff so I’ll likely keep these for myself!

I’m not sure where I’m going tomorrow morning. If I find something I’ll let you know. Regardless, I’ll probably do a bit more sorting.

The old dusty trail

October 23, 2013October 23, 2013 garbagefinds17 Comments

I went out to the Town of Mount Royal this morning and came back with a massive load. I left around 730 and got back totally exhausted by noon, breaking only to drop off some of my haul at my friends’ house. My first finds came from this garbage can.

Here we have a few helmets, a pair of diving flippers, and a pair of rollerblades. I’m most happy about the “Bell” brand red bike helmet in the middle. My bike helmet disappeared a while back, this one fits me great and looks mostly unused.

Later on I came across this familiar pile in front of a recently sold house. It’s the same place where I found the tourist-y slides and medicine pot last week.

One of the bags contained a collection of fancy little envelopes and papers along with some crafting supplies. The gift bag on the right holds a bunch of little plastic flowers attached to metal wires. One of the tins holds a number of miniature plastic top hats, for what reason god only knows. I’d guess most of this stuff would have been used for invitations of some sort. I threw the whole bag in my trailer.

Inside another bag were these cute salt and peppers shakers (made in Japan) and a pair of Chrys Dion “Diamond” Sunglasses. They fold up and go into that little pouch in the background. They’re pretty unique and are generally pretty fabulous. I looked them up online and saw people trying to the same pair for 45 and 52 dollars.

I also saved this Japanese wall art. The fabric it’s painted on is a bit bent up but I doubt it’d be that hard to straighten it out again. My guess is that someone probably bought this while vacationing in Japan back in the 70s or 80s.

Somewhere in the middle I came across these hockey sticks sticking out of a bin. I’m not much of a hockey fan but I still think it’s pretty silly to throw out good hockey sticks. A hockey stick from Canadian Tire generally goes for around 20-30$ with goalie sticks like the one in the back going for a little bit more. That’s not a lot of money in TMR but it’s a fair bit to someone on a fixed budget.

I might sell the sticks for a nice discount at a yard sale. I’m thinking about having one more before it gets too cold. I’ve found a lot of stuff recently and it’d be good to clear house a bit. It really depends on the weather, however.

I’m not really bothered most days by the waste I come across. I understand that not everyone knows how much things are worth, just how interesting their stuff is, and so on. Today, however, I felt frustration. The hockey sticks were one thing but this pile was another thing altogether. When I arrived there was a moving truck loading up the furniture from the house – whoever left this trash was moving away. The juxtaposition of these manual labourers, who from my experience in the trade were probably recent immigrants coming here for school, with the trash bags containing lots of useful stuff (and some nice sterling silver jewelry to boot) made me fairly annoyed. My fantasy of the owners giving their “trash” directly to the movers as gifts might be a bit unrealistic (especially since there were four workers to divide this stuff between, and they might not even have wanted it anyways) but it’s this kind of thing that makes me think about how much wealth is simply wasted on a day to day basis.

I found a really ballin’ cutting board, a wooden box filled with still-good oil paints, two like-new badminton racquets, some mostly-full cleaners, and what appears to be a mini desktop easel. I took this stuff mostly for my friends, though I might keep the badminton racquets.

Here’s a couple of edge grinders, both of which work.

A beautiful original piece of Native American art. The artist’s name is on the back, though I forget what it is at this moment.

This is a white wine aroma kit. It’s made to train the nose of the aspiring connoisseur to recognize the different scents of wine and comes with a couple of booklets to ease the learning process. Believe it or not these are selling for around 140-150$ new online. I think mine would sell for around 75$ on Ebay, maybe more if I hadn’t of accidentally dropped it, adding a little ding to the front cover.

I also found a small cache of jewelry. The pink watch looks completely unused.

These are probably the nicest pieces, all being made of silver or having a silver base. The necklace on the left was originally in the Swarovski box. It was likely fairly expensive, though you can never sell anything for quite as much as they do in the store. It’s tangled up but should come loose with a bit of work. The green stones look like they could be jade. (Just to clarify, the green stone in the middle is part of a pendant that isn’t attached to the other necklace, though it looks like it in the picture). I like the pendant on the far right that features some sort of mythical charioteer.

After that pile I was packing a lot of weight and decided to hit the old dusty trail. Still, I explored a few new roads on my way home and came across a box full of lampshades and a nice pink rocking chair. I wasn’t far from my friends’ place so I decided to throw the box into my trailer and carry the rocking chair up front. This is by far the most ridiculously full this trailer has ever been. The last couple of kilometres were a real pain as a result. Still, I made it back safe and sound.

All in all I’m pretty exhausted. It’s times like this when I remember how much work “the trash hunt” really is, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

I don’t want to think about moving right now, but tomorrow morning I’ll probably hit the road again and explore the trash days in Outremont or Rosemont.

The undiscovered country

October 22, 2013October 22, 2013 garbagefinds17 Comments

I recently decided to explore some new neighbourhoods before it gets too cold, with a specific focus on more wealthy areas. On Thursday I got up super early, leaving around 6:45 in order to check out Cote-des-neiges and Outremont. I was specifically drawn to this little area near the oratory. I remember finding a couple of old computers (286s if I remember correctly) here a couple of years ago. I stashed them in the woods thinking that I’d come back later with my car. My car at that time was on its last legs, however, and in the end I reckoned it wasn’t worth the risk. I saw them again when I checked a year later. I wonder if they’re still there?

Unfortunately, outside of that story and a pretty picture I have nothing to show you from that trip. The area is very hilly and biking around with my trailer in tow was pretty exhausting. There’s a few areas that have some trash potential but overall not enough to be worth the energy of going back again.

More worth my while was my Monday morning trip to Sault-au-Récollet. Sault-au-Récollet is one of the oldest areas in Montreal, located at the far east of Ahuntsic next to Rivière des Prairies. The oldest church in Montreal, l’Église de la Visitation was built in this area – you can see a bit of it on the right side of the picture. The homes, especially those along the river are much different than the rest of Montreal, reminding me more of older small town communities in Quebec such as Chambly. It’s a really beautiful area. I noticed a lot of nice bike paths, I’ll have to come back sometime when not on garbage-duty.

I brought along a bike trailer and a curious friend. We focused mostly on rues Gouin and Prieur and some side streets along the way. I took this picture from the bridge to Ile-de-la-Visitation.

We came across this pile not too long after we began. It seemed like someone was clearing out a house for one reason or another. There was lots of clothing and kitchen stuff. The man on the left was looking for scrap metal.

My friend, who just moved into a new place, came away with some nice kitchen stuff, including a couple of working food processors, a cake dish and a big cooking pot.

We also saved this cast iron pan. It’s in fine shape and with a little love should last at least 400 years.

I got a nice teapot that looks to be made of silver plated copper. It could use a polishing but it’s in pretty nice condition still.

I also found a camera tripod, the fifth since I began the “summer of garbage.” I think this one is pretty nice, it’s by Polaroid and comes with air-bubble levels and its own bag. It also has its original tags. It costs about 25$ + shipping on Amazon, I’d guess I could find a buyer locally for around that price.

Later on we came across a little pile somewhere off Prieur. Inside were some new, in plastic kitchen scrubs (and other miscellaneous cleaning products) and a bag containing pictures, picture frames and some old letters. I took the letters (my friend took the frames) thinking they might be worth poking through later. At some point a woman came out of her house with a camera, presumably to take a picture of us, telling us “vous n’avez pas le droit” (you don’t have the right) or something along those lines.

We were pretty much done anyways so we moved on, wondering if she called the cops but not being too worried about it. I figure she was worried mostly about identity thieves. Any cops investigating us would notice the bike trailer full of miscellaneous junk and know that we weren’t biking around on the hunt for personal information. As an aside, I’m starting to wonder if these identity thieves looking through trash even exist. I’m sure there’s a few out there, but overall the idea seems to me like the product of sensationalized media. I’ve certainly never seen anyone “on the curb” looking for anything other than cans, metal, or in my case, history and treasure.

I still have yet to look through the letters, if there’s anything particularly interesting (and not too personal) I’ll let you know. They didn’t seem like particularly personal letters, however.

When heading home we went through another part of Ahuntsic just south of the Highway 40 which was also scheduled for trash pickup. This pile contained a lot of kitchen stuff, knick knacks, and miscellaneous rubbish.

From it I saved this set of dishes. I thought they were pretty cute.

Here’s me with a trailer full of treasure. It was a lot of work taking this heavy load back home I tell you what. Even small hills were challenging to climb with all the extra weight. By the time I got back I was pretty much done with biking for the day. I think we spent around 2.5 to 3 hours on the road with maybe an hour spent pickin’.

I had plans to check out Hampstead this morning but after all that biking I felt like taking a more “normal” route. Hampstead is far, probably 30 minutes by bike just to get there and would have involved me biking over a big hill.

I originally planned on going to Villeray. However, I had forgotten my backpack and camera in Park Ex the day before – this necessitated my going there first. Without this twist of fate I never would have come across this massive pile on Bloomfield south of Jarry. Inside these bags were tonnes of vintage women’s clothing, costume jewelry, books, ephemera, and old photographs. There was far too much for one person to properly look through, at least in the span of time and the circumstances given, so I texted some friends who lived nearby to come and check it out. One, who also had a car, was able to drop by. Thanks to her we were able to save a lot more than I would have been able to otherwise.

Overall, I spent about three hours looking through this stuff. We were lucky that this street was later in the trash collection route, all of this could easily have been taken away after only an hour.

We still have a lot of sorting to do but I can show you a few of my favourite finds.

Much of the jewelry doesn’t look to be too special but there are definitely a few nice pieces, including the three sterling silver rings in the back. The one on the right is familiar as I’ve found one exactly like it before. It’s an old Avon piece. My favourite though is the one on the left.

I also found a St Christopher medal. It came in a little leather pouch. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s made of silver as well, a lot of old religious medallions are.

This nursing license diploma dated 1921 is definitely one of my favourite finds. Everything we found in this pile was well organized and taken care of.

Another great thing about my finds here is that whoever owned them often left notes as to why the item was significant, or in the case of pictures a short description of who the person was. Inside this 1903 copy of “The Four Gospels Harmonized” was a note on which was written:

“Mumsie’s Gospel which she studied in the convent in Richmond – she often told me she had to stand & say it word for word.”

Oftentimes I have to guess at the meaning of the things I find. It’s nice to have a bit more knowledge this time. Knowing the story adds a bit of depth and richness to the finds.

Tomorrow I’m going to TMR, if not by car by bike, to see if I can find some more cool stuff there. I also have to spend some time sorting through and taking photos of the stuff my friend and I found today. Another post isn’t far away, I’m sure of that.