Tag: silver

Part one in a million pt.13

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Hope you all had a happy holiday season! This time of the year is usually not too exciting for trash, as most people are focused on other priorities. After my last post, I went a few weeks without finding much of anything. This week and last, I made up for some otherwise slim pickings with a couple of small silver & gold hauls, both from recently sold houses. This week I salvaged about 10 mismatched napkin rings, and four of them look to be solid silver. I think they are from France, as they each have a Minerva hallmark. In the same bag I found a lone gold band, a 14k gold clasp, and a Trifari brooch. I’ll be returning to that spot next week for sure.

Otherwise I’ve been pretty productive at creating order in my garage “office.” I don’t think I’ve ever been this organized. I’ll share some pictures of that once I have the chance. I’ve also been reading more, and writing (for a potential book) a bit, although I haven’t done much of that in the last few weeks. I find my inspiration is stronger when I’m actually finding fresh junk, but I don’t think there is a big rush regardless.

Anyways, I want to keep clearing out the last of my “old stock.” Here’s some cool old (mostly) Montreal postcards, and a few blanks dating as far back as 1897.

I found an envelope addressed to someone in the old Corn Exchange Building, containing some larger photos of what I assume is very old Montreal. It’d be cool to know where these were shot. The first word looks like Clarke, which is a road in Westmount (checks out), but I’m not sure what that second word is. It looks like Roy, but those roads don’t come close to intersecting (unless they did about 130 years ago, but I doubt it). Regardless, the fact that these fences were down was apparently very relevant in 1896.

On the topic of photos, these five were pretty cool. The first three were taken on Mount Royal during Easter of 1902, according to some writing on the back. The 4th was taken in Val Morin, and the 5th is unmarked. I think getting the three Mount Royal ones frames together would be pretty neat.

There’s not too much left from this spot. Mostly photos if I recall correctly, but harder formats to document than the ones I’ve shown here recently.

More recent finds

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Today I’ll share a few finds from couple of weeks before my move. This pile in front of a recently sold home contained a bunch of artsy things.

I saved a bit of stuff, including this artistic light box thingy. I’d bet that it’s someone’s c. 1975 university art project, but it’s kind of cool regardless. I’ll see if the yard sale shoppers are interested.

I found a bunch of posters and prints, my favourite of which is this unsigned (maybe silk screen?) print that looks to depict an evening in Montreal in the late 80s or so. I’m getting it framed by a friend, so it should be appearing on my wall soon enough. Maybe I’ll share a picture here when it’s done.

I also found this Montreal “baker” license plate from 1963. I couldn’t find any others like it online, much like the 1940 “garage” license plate I found that ended up selling at auction for 536$ around this time last year. (I guess I only mentioned this on my Instagram, there is still a picture there if you want to see – just scroll down my feed).

I’m not sure why a baker would have a special plate. It’s about 8cm narrower than your standard license plate, but the screw holes are right in the corners vs. somewhat closer to center on a usual plate, so it must have been for a car. A license for the wall probably would have been more detailed and also made of paper or cardboard.

Regardless, the license plate market is a hot one, so I feel comfortable doing auctions when I have something unusual. I don’t expect this to go for nearly as much as the garage one, but it does have some bids and the auction ends tonight. Who knows, maybe a couple of bakers will bid it up.

Elsewhere, I know I talked about garbage empathy in my last post, but it’s hard to feel it when the perpetrators are most likely clueless rich kids who don’t understand the value of anything.

I saved a bunch of clothes, most of which I donated. I also saved a bit of jewelry, the nicest pieces being a silver chain, silver Tateossian skull cufflinks, and another pair of cufflinks that appear to be unmarked 14k gold.

I also saved some nice glass pieces, including a Lalique piece on the right. The middle one is signed as well, but it’s hard to make out by who. On the left is a nice crystal box, which has a couple of chips but is good for the yard sale.

Maybe my favourite find there was this antique-looking ornate shelf. I’m not sure what’s more surprising, that it ended up on the curb, or that it survived the voyage. If I recall correctly it was wrapped up in a towel, which helped protect it during the trip to the curb. It is near flawless, besides some flea-bite chips in the stone and a missing screw that doesn’t effect it all that much. I’m very tempted to keep this for myself!

One last find from somewhere else. I hadn’t found a high-end watch box in a while, but I picked this Omega box up a couple weeks back and quickly sold it for 150$. I hope I find more, these boxes are easy to list, quick to sell, and simple to ship.

Otherwise, moving has made me re-evaluate some of my possessions. Marie Kondo is a bit of a meme at this point, but there is some simple wisdom to the “spark joy” criterion. Plus, while I have a love of objects, I also hate having too many of them. So, some of the things I’ve been holding onto for years (often thinking, “I’ll find a place for this once I live on my own”) are ending up in the yard sale pile, or are going back to the curb (usually in such a way as others will find it). It also makes me want to clear more ancient finds from the garage, in particular the “One of a million” series junk, some of which has been sitting around for 6 years now. It’s a complicated job because there’s a lot of cool stuff, a lot of which is (ironically) hard to photograph, but I’ll get it done.

The all-nighter pt.3

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I spent about 8 hours at the garage this week, organizing my new finds and processing some of the old ones. I took a few pictures of stuff I found when I pulled that all-nighter about a year and a half ago. I started with this batch of silver, or maybe not silver. Only one piece was hallmarked (the little mirror on the right), but I decided to test the rest to see if anything else was solid and not plated. As it turned out, according to my acid test everything except the brush was solid silver. That’s another 360 grams, worth around 4-500$ depending on the purity.

Most is scrap, including the cigarette case because the latch that keeps it closed is broken. But that flat, ornate piece on the top right is intriguing. There are little nail holes around the edges, so it was clearly attached to something at some point. Here’s a closer look, after I cleaned off a bit of dirt with a toothbrush. If anyone has any ideas as to what it is, let us know in the comments! These people had Iraqi & Armenian roots, if that helps.

I also took a picture of my perfume finds. I know that little Chanel #5 (I can’t remember if it’s worth something, the rest I’ll have to look up. Van Cleef & Arpels is a brand I associate with fancy jewelry on Antiques Roadshow though, so that one is probably good!

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