Tag: quality junk

Another box from the shelf

garbagefinds9 Comments

Well, I had the one nice week that I detailed in my last post. Then two weeks where I found basically nothing. And this week was trending the same way, before I spotted a pile in the distance that ended up making up for at least some of the dry spell. I’ll share those finds here soon enough.

I also held two lucrative clothing-focused sales this past weekend. Clothing is another one of those markets that I neglected in my earlier days, but now contributes a fair bit to my finances. Thankfully, my friend who runs the @garbagefindssells Instagram account knows a lot more about the clothing & fashion market than I do. It’s nice to take a bit of a backup role for these sales, basically helping with the moving of stuff and being a placeholder during bathroom breaks. I hope to do a couple more of these before the big cold comes.

Anyways, here is another box from my shelf of aging garbagefinds. I found this stuff in Outremont a couple years ago.

I thought this toy projector from the 30s or 40s might be worth something, but apparently not. Some nut is trying to sell theirs for 2000$ on Chairish, but on eBay you’re lucky to get 100$ – and that’s if you have all the accessories. I put mine up for 70$, but looking at the market (or lack thereof) I might just put it out for 30$ at my next sale. I do have some of the “movies,” but many are in rough shape.

The cute little cheese box they were stored in is probably just as valuable. It’s likely destined for Instagram.

I found some nice fountain pens here as well. Some are a bit beat up, but there’s a market for those as well. The most valuable is probably the chunky “Eclipse,” which is probably worth about 60-80$. Other notable pieces include a pair of Egyptian-themed silver cufflinks, a “Magic Mirror” from a Red Raven movie record setup, a bronze dog that looks to be broken from a larger sculpture, and those cute little embroideries.

And then there was this coin bank, which was filled with late 60s/early 70s sports collectibles.

Here’s what was inside. Below are the photos I took for eBay, not including a few of the “marbles” which I divided into a few different lots. The metal hockey players are from a table top game and were stored in a separate bag, as were those El Producto coaster-sized cards. I had a hard time pricing the Jello medallions, so I decided to auction them off. Bidding starts October 6th.

And that’s one less box on the shelf. These are the easier boxes though, most of the other ones are much more “dense” and will take longer to process.

In other news, I decided to take a hiatus from Instagram. On top of the fact that it’s designed to be addictive, and promotes consumerism and low-quality content (amongst many other negative things), I just feel like it’s a conduit of misinformation and propaganda at this point. It stresses me out and I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our societal discourse has taken a nosedive in the last decade or so. The @garbagefindssells account will continue, because that’s run by a friend and they’re free to make their own choices. But going forward all my content will be here, barring a change of heart (which feels unlikely at this point). I’ve got a few ideas for increasing my blog output, which I might detail 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). — These are Ebay Partner Network links. If you create an account or buy something after getting to eBay from these links, I get a small cut of the profit!
2. “Things I find in the garbage” on Facebook
3. Follow @garbagefindssells on Instagram (this is managed by a friend, I’ve quit Instagram for the time being)
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.


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.



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.