A cornucopia of quality vintage junk pt.2

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.

 

One hit wonder

It was just another pile of trash to most people, and I’m sure many passed it by without a second thought. But to me it was a pile of trash worth checking out, given that it was somewhat larger than your average pile of trash. Collections of this size will often disappoint, but until I develop x-ray vision my best chance at finding great garbage is to investigate piles that deviate from the usual. Fortunately this particular one was pretty good.

I found several neat items, including an old camera, a leather picture frame, a vintage alarm clock, and a few photos. That hearing aid remote control (to the left of the frame) was also a good find, I sold a similar one a little while back for about 80$.

It was the silver and jewelry that really made by night though. Those brushes are Birks sterling and should fetch a good price. The cufflinks weren’t super exciting, but the 14k white gold necklace chain (top right of the open jewelry box) was. The necklace at bottom right is nice as well – there are four strands of what look like tiny pearls attached to an 18k gold clasp, which featuring three stones that are probably diamonds.

I spotted my best find loose in a bag alongside some clothes. I had a feeling it was gold, given its weight and look, but had a hard time finding hallmarks. I eventually spotted some on the pin catch, but they were indecipherable. So, I brought it to my jewelry guy who confirmed that it was 18k gold, and was worth a bit over 700$ for its weight in gold (about 18 grams).

I wanted to make sure it wasn’t some fancy designer piece, so I took it home to do some research before making a decision. However, I wasn’t able to uncover any useful info, and after consulting Reddit I decided to sell it for scrap.

I think it was the right call. The price of gold is fairly high right now, and it’s hard to find buyers willing to pay above scrap value for pieces like this. I’ve had (and continue to have) other quality gold jewelry that languished on eBay for way too long, and sometimes it’s nice just to make a quick buck! Or 700…

Another interesting find was this small cup featuring a scene from Exodus.

The design is unlike any cup I’ve seen before. Most of the design looks like a repoussé, except for a small piece of the wall (to the right of the door) which is etched. I’m not sure why the maker did it like that, but maybe there was a good reason to do so. The cup is hallmarked “13” (around the top in this picture), which I hope means 13 loth, a base 16 German (and apparently Austro-Hungarian) silver standard that’s been obsolete since the late 1800s.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s from the 1800s just from the way it was made, but I can’t say I’m an expert in the area. I was able to find some similar cups on Google, but none were exactly the same / had the “13” hallmark. If you have any ideas let me know!

I haven’t seen anything at this spot since. Perhaps it will end up a “one hit wonder.”

Otherwise, I’ve been having a hard time putting words down lately. My family has been struggling with illness and age, and I’ve been dealing with more anxiety & depression, so maybe my brain just hasn’t been in a good place for writing. I hope my focus returns soon, but forgive me if it’s another long wait until my next post.

On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about doing some shorter posts, say between 1-3 photos. It might make it easier to share finds regularly. What do you think? I’ve worried that doing too many short posts might make the blog feel “spammy,” but I starting to wonder if that’s just a figment of my imagination.

Links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay, Search for something you want / research something you have (I’m a member of the eBay Partner Network so I make a bit of money if you buy things [even if they’re not mine] or sign up for an account via these links)
3. Help me pay off student loan debt / Contribute to the blog
4. Follow me on Instagram
5. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com

Please note that I am hopelessly bad at responding to emails & Facebook messages.

Sortilège pt.2

Most of the snow from the past week has finally been cleared, making it easier for me to go about my business. I went on a long run this morning, passing through some of Outremont and lots of Cote St-Luc. I didn’t see much of interest, but five nice pens (including a Parker 51) I found on one of my last streets may have salvaged the day.

My Tuesday evening run was also saved by one good pile. Some rich folks who look to soon be moving put out bags and bags of clothes, most of which were in great shape. I found a bag loaded with barely worn jeans, a bag of nice shoes and boots, a bag of jackets, and a bag of dress shirts. Most seem to be in yard saleable condition, but one pair of 20-eye Doc Marten boots might be worth listing on eBay.

It’s supposed to rain a lot, and then snow again tomorrow which might put a damper on my picking. We shall see! In the meantime, here’s some more finds from the summer. This place was tossing out great stuff week after week, from fun vintage “quality junk” to some silver and gold jewelry. Above is a nice old rotary phone, an Oticon hearing aid doohickey, a Cartier watch box, and some chandelier crystals.

I saved a sewing box filled with shoe shapers, many of which sold at my yard sales.

The family looked to be Jewish. Above you can see a mezuzah and a medallion commemorating one of Israel’s military victories.

This coin celebrates the 25th anniversary of Israel. They don’t tend to be worth much – I think they were pretty commonly given out as gifts. However, maybe one day I’ll get lucky and find one made of silver or gold. This one is bronze.

I found some cool frames here. The green ones are a bit odd – they have no earpiece to speak of and are also perhaps the strongest glasses I’ve ever tried on. Usually it hurts my eyes to put on strong prescriptions, but these ones just make me feel drunk.

Here’s some of the costume jewelry, as well as some smaller pins & baubles.

You might remember those pens from a recent sales post. They were old Parker Vacumatics that despite not being in perfect condition still sold for 90$. That Birks frame was missing the glass but still sold recently for 30$. There’s another mezuzah here, as well as a nice vintage Montblanc pen box that should sell for a decent profit.

My favourite finds though were the bits of gold and silver jewelry you see above. Most went to my silver/gold scrap guy – he can do with them as he pleases. I kept the gold Star of David pendant, which I expect I can sell at above weight value online, and the charm on the bottom left. All in all, these pieces should end up making me around 300$.

There’s one more part to this series. It’ll include some interesting photos and an uncommon book!

Links

1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram

Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.