Tag: picking

Bordeaux-Cartierville

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I mentioned in my last post that Cartierville had been my best destination of late. As it turns out, what I thought was Cartierville also included a small neighbourhood I’d never heard of called Nouveau Bordeaux. Despite the different names the two seem linked – at the very least they share the same garbage day (and the area is called “District Bordeaux-Cartierville” on the collection map). However, I’ve also found Greek and Armenian items in both neighbourhoods, so it’s likely that they share some ethnic similarities as well. If you have any insights into these parts of town please share them in the comments!

Geography lesson aside, these bags contained some surprisingly valuable items. They felt like renovation stuff at first kick, but my instincts said to investigate further.

Inside one bag was a collection of old silkscreens in wooden frames.

Three were old Pepsi advertisements. This one was the nicest looking of the bunch, and the lot just sold for 30$ at auction.

Another bag contained old silkscreen tools, paints, and miscellaneous tins. I wish I had taken more pictures of this stuff, but it was around this time that I was really busy dealing with other junk. Anyways, this picture I took for Instagram captured what turned out to be my most valuable find of the day.

Petroliana is a pretty hot market right now, and people are willing to pay big bucks for all kinds of stuff relating to the oil & gas industry of yore. Vintage oil cans are a commonly collected item, and some of the more desirable tins sell for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

My can was made for a St Laurent Petroleum company that was based out of Montreal (specifically, the borough of Ville St Laurent). I found few references to it online (the most informative being at the bottom of page 34 of this digitized 1954 document), and did not see any similar cans on image search. So, I figured I had stumbled upon a pretty rare can that might fetch a good price. I decided to list it on eBay using a 10-day auction. Usually I go with the Buy it Now, but I figured that an auction would work well given the popularity of the market. Plus, sometimes auctions are just more fun.

The auction went well. It was very popular, just as I had hoped, and by the end it had reached 40 “watchers.” However, that doesn’t matter so much as the final price, which was 355$. I’m pretty happy with that! Are you surprised that someone was willing to pay that much for an old tin? I’m not, but I’ve been doing this for a while.

I also found these oil can labels that were made for the same company. I assume these were prototype designs of sorts, as they feature different color schemes and differ greatly from the can above. Regardless, they’re also pretty cool and a great example of the graphic design of the day. I went with the 10-day auction for these too, but they’re not nearly as popular as the tin. At this point I just hope they sell for more than 1$. Click here if you want to check out the listing.

I’ve been hoping to see more trash coming from that house but so far it’s been a one-hit wonder. Fortunately other spots have produced quality junk, and one in particular has tossed enough to put most Westmounters to shame. More on that soon!

I’m having a bit of a writer’s block in terms of how to continue this post so I guess I’ll leave it at that. After a transformative summer I’m still trying to get into a rhythm when it comes to documenting my finds – posts should become more frequent once I discover it.

Due in part to the success of the oil can auction I’ve chosen that route for a couple other recent finds: a large tin VW bug and a 1960s Sharp transistor radio. I expect those to do well even though they’re still at 1$ currently – a lot of the time most of the bidding happens on the last day. Check them out if you’re interested!

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This & that

garbagefinds19 Comments

The weather has not been cooperative of late, making it hard to pick and impossible to do yard sales. It’s supposed to be nice this weekend, however *knock on wood* so maybe it’s finally time for my first sale of the year! I think I’ll take it easy and just deal with the stuff I have in my basement and plastic bins out front. If you’d like to see some of my junk, come to 147 St Joseph Ouest near St Urbain on Sunday between 12-4pm.

Otherwise, don’t fret if you can’t come to that one – I’ll also be selling at a vintage market all next weekend. I’ll bring some of my fancier stuff there, as well as the usual collection of interesting if often useless junk. Hope to see you at one or the other, or both!

The past two weeks haven’t been amazing for picking but I still managed to find some decent stuff. My Monday evening run was a total write-off before I happened upon a pile of old renovation and fireplace stuff. These vintage andirons should make me a bit of money, even if there aren’t as many fireplaces as there used to be.

I also saved some nice old door knobs and door plates. My favourites are the bubbly glass ones on top.

 

I’ve never found one like this previously. A single similar looking knob sold for 45 USD on eBay, so I should do well for the pair!

Around a week ago I happened upon a neat pile of trash not far from home. At the bottom right is a set of five Alcoholics Anonymous tokens – I’ve seen individual ones before, but never this many at once. There’s a token saying “think before you drink” as well as one each for the three, six, nine, and twelve month milestones. At the top is a vintage lockpick, an old metal comb, an interesting clay brooch (top left), a Catholic medallion, and a small collection of small photos. I’m not sure what that ruler thing with all the metal sticks is (top right), do you?

I also found jewelry, perfume, and watches. Most of the watches are yard sale quality, but I think that Bulova will sell for around 40-50$. The Caravelle would be nice as well; alas, it doesn’t run. That curvy brooch looks to be sterling silver. It’s a cool piece but it’s unfortunately unsigned. That bracelet is signed “Clara” but I can’t find any relevant information about that person or company online. The (busted) earrings in the bag are by Nina Ricci. The miniature YSL Opium and Egoiste are the best of the perfume finds.

I didn’t see anything here last garbage day, but I’ll keep an eye on the situation in case more treasures emerge.

I was dumbfounded to find three different generations of iPhones – a 5s, 6, and 6+ – all in the same bag in NDG. They’re all in really good cosmetic condition as well. Unfortunately, when people toss their iPhones they rarely turn off the “find my iPhone” feature, and as a result the two smaller phones are currently bricks good only for parts. I have hopes that the 6+ might not have had the “find my iPhone” activated, but I’ll need to figure out what provider it was on before I can know for sure. If it does end up working, the 16gb 6+ seems to sell for around 225$. My previous best iPhone find was a 5s with a cracked screen, so this haul blows that straight out of the water.

Another spot in NDG provided a bit of old toolsy stuff, including this old cigarette tin.

Inside was a neat collection of locks and keys, some of which are of the skeleton variety. Unfortunately none of the keys seem to fit the padlocks, but so it goes. This stuff should do well at a yard sale. I’m sure it could sell on eBay as well, but there’s just not enough time in the world to list everything I find!

I found these things outside of a recently sold house in Ahunstic a couple months back. The necklace on the right might be the most valuable piece here – it’s signed by Anne Marie Chagnon, a local jeweler whose work seems to do well on eBay. Based on recent completed listings (looking through these is the main way I research my finds) I think it could sell for three figures, though I’ll lower the price if it takes a while to sell. I really like that chalkware lion in the middle – I might keep that for myself. The Sheaffer and Armani cases are empty, but still useful for shipping out similar items.

The folks who tossed this stuff were pretty nice. They came out and offered me and my friend some other stuff they were parting with, including some cute embroideries, an old clock, and a large framed class photo that includes a picture of the multitalented Gratien Gelinas. If only people were this nice all the time!

I found a bag of jewelry elsewhere in Ahunstic. The first piece I noticed was the silver bracelet on the bottom which got me excited as to else was in there. Unfortunately, the rest was pretty junky though some was good enough for the yard sale pile. That other bracelet could be silver as well; there’s some marks on there but I can’t make them out.

In Rosemont I saved a large collection of old paper bags. My favourites were these oddly tall and narrow Maple Leaf potato chip bags. The company labels itself “Pioneers in Canada” – pioneers of what, I have no idea. The weight is written in ounces, so this bag dates to at latest the early 70s. Does anyone remember this company? I also saved a bunch of Steinberg bags. I hope they sell at a yard sale, but at worst I can bag people’s purchases in them!

I found this cute little shoeshine box in Rosemont. I also met the previous owner, an older lady who told me that her dad made it when she was just one year old. I’d guess that she was about 80, making this box quite vintage! Many of the things I find are stripped of their history, so it’s always nice when I get to learn even a little bit of their backstory.

 

Here’s a video of me opening the box via an interior latch (her son showed me how). It appears that the wood was repurposed from old butter crates. I might have to hold onto this, at the very least it’s a fun cubby hole.

Otherwise, people keep throwing out stamps. Some rich folks tossed these two packs (minus one stamp), good for close to 20$ of shipping goodness. I’m also almost finished using that huge haul of stamps which for me was like incrementally finding 100$. Here’s hoping I don’t have to pay to ship things via lettermail anytime soon! (I ship most of my parcels with Paypal labels, so stamps don’t come into play for those).

I’ve been finding more stuff at the gold ring spot. No more gold as of yet, but a decent amount of interesting junk (and also a whole bunch of useless crap). I’ll save those finds for a future post.

I was planning on taking today off from picking as I’ve been feeling a bit under this weather. I decided to go on a quick run at the last moment, however and ended up finding some great spring cleaning “junk.” I’ll share that in a future post, but for now let’s just say that it involves round, sometimes shiny objects.

I’ve been re-tooling the site a little bit. Some of you might have noticed that the old “resources” tab is now called “how to…”, which I think is a better way to phrase it. I also re-wrote a lot of the sections inside that tab, though I still have some work to do on the “how to garbage pick” section. Now that I’m looking at it, the “about” tab is totally useless and has been for some time… I’ll have to work on that as well. I guess you could say I need to do some spring cleaning on the blog!

Links

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4. Kijiji listings
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Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. Staying on top of emails is not my best quality, so please be patient (but feel free to nag).