vintage – Things I find in the garbage

The Lens

February 20, 2023 garbagefinds18 Comments

I finally started using this Google Lens thing after hearing about it from my followers. For instance, I occasionally ask for help identifying an object on Instagram, and people would then send me Google Lens results in their replies. Eventually I clued in that it was a useful tool (it takes me a while to figure these things out sometimes). So today I’ll share three objects that this new tool helped identify.

I picked up this ceramic vase in Park Ex amongst boxes full of kitchenwares in the fall of 2022. I could tell that it was pretty old, but I struggle to describe these things (“old vase with blue and black pattern??”). Researching it would have been very difficult in the past.

(The vase had a sticker with someone’s name on the bottom, which makes me think it was inherited at some point, and “master stone” written using some kind of marker on the inside).

Thanks to the Lens, I was able to identify some relevant keywords (Qajar dynasty [Iran], Persian) and was linked to very similar pieces, like the vase at the bottom left. That one purports to be from the 18th century, though I wouldn’t be surprised if this design was made later than that as well. Either way, this seems like a pretty close match. I hesitate to pretend I’m an expert because I used the Google, but based on what I’ve seen I’m thinking this vase is worth somewhere between the few hundreds and the several hundreds.

Lots of these hard-to-research things end up sitting on shelves in my storage for years before I figure out what to do with them. I picked these up in Outremont, along with someone’s old coin collection and other quality junk, in maybe 2017 or 2018. I think I posted them here, but I can’t find the pics now. Needless to say, they’ve been kicking around a while.

They looked old, but I never did find any similar pieces in my brief research (in retrospect these ones are easier to describe than the other, given their unusual shape). I’m sure I would have figured it out if I have spent longer trying, but “there’s always more garbage” and I got distracted with newer finds.

As it turns out, Qajar dynasty/Iran/Persia are important keyword here yet again. Also, “tri-sided” and “fritware” (I’ve never heard of that kind of -ware before). The guys at top left are trying to sell theirs for 480 AUD, though from what I’m seeing you can find them a fair bit cheaper. If those guys are right about their description, these vases date to around 1900.

Finally, I always thought this platter I found in late 2018 was unusual, particularly the look of the glaze on the bottom. It’s been sitting around the house for a while, because I never had any luck finding a comparable piece online. Queue the Lens.

Thanks to this, I now have “French” “Faience” and “Rouen” keywords to work with. According to various sources, this platter was probably made in the early 18th century (though you always have to take these product descriptions with a grain of salt, because all it takes is one person describing it as such for it to become a “fact” on the internet). Anyways, the guys selling the one at bottom left are asking for 744$, but I’ve seen others in the 300$ range which I think is probably the more realistic price – maybe less if you wanted to sell it quickly.

So, I would definitely recommend you check out this Google Lens thing if you haven’t already. I think you can only use it on your cell phone, but maybe there’s a similar tool you could use on the computer. It also does translations!

Part of me dreads the day when this technology becomes too advanced and ruins the magic & mystery of finding something unusual. That being said, I don’t think we have to worry about that yet. Google Lens still comes up empty on a lot of things I research, so there’s still plenty of mystery out there… for now.

Links

1. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay (Canada, US), Search for something you want / research something you have (Canada, US) – FYI these are Ebay Partner Network links, so I make a few bucks if you sign up for an account or buy something after getting to eBay using these links
2. Facebook page
3. Follow @garbagefinds and @garbagefindssells (selling account, operated by someone else) on Instagram
4. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com – note that I can’t fulfill most requests for items, many are already gone by the time they are posted here.

The book tossers pt.1

February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 garbagefinds24 Comments

If not for this spot I’d barely have any finds in 2023. Thankfully (for me at least), these guys just keep curbing recycling bins full of books on a near weekly basis. This has been a near constant phenomenon for about six months now, though it happened occasionally even before that – I first stopped here for a big pile of trash way back in 2021.

It’s funny, because from the street there’s no indication whatsoever that this blue bin would be filled with anything but the usual tin cans and whatnot. I myself wouldn’t ever have stopped for it, if not for the fact that I found cool stuff here previously.

Sometimes, trash picking can feel kind of magical.

This is a decent sized recycling bin so the books are piling up in my garage. These are just the ones I want to research more, or feel the need to sequester for now. Others go straight to the yard sale bin, or occasionally back to the curb.

A lot of the books in this picture are from sets, so I have to figure out if I have a complete set, keeping in mind that another load of books comes nearly ever week and thus a currently incomplete set might become complete with time. I just recently completed a thirty book set of Encyclopedia Britannicas from the early 1900s for instance – I found the first 27 months ago, and then another two and the final book more recently.

That might actually be a nice score. I know the market got flooded with encyclopedias and a lot of them are pretty much worthless, but the old Britannica sets do quite well.

Anyways, I figured that today I’d show you a few of my favourite individual books from this haul, all of which I found relatively recently.

I’ve found several old books about Montreal, which are always fun and easy to sell due to local interest. This one was written by a guy named N. M. Hinshelwood and was published in 1903. It seems to be hard to find original copies – most of the ones I see in my research are reprints or those “print on demand” books that are becoming more common. The only original from that list of 36 I linked to above is priced at about 50 USD, and there’s one other on eBay for about 75$, though there’s no sold prices that indicate whether or not those are realistic prices. You can see some pages that relate to our current season below.

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. I figured this “Complete Book of Fortune” was a good find right away, and indeed it seems to sell for 100-200$. It was published around 1935 (no date, but includes a “birthday calendar” for 1936) by Associated Newspapers Ltd. At 640 pages, it is certainly very complete and discusses topics ranging from palmistry to the “science” of phrenology. There’s a few extra pics below, and some more in that link.

Published in 1999, this is one of the newer books from this collection. The cover was unassuming, but it looked nicely made so I did some research and discovered it was a gem. It’s one (signed) copy of 175 from the regular edition of Inishbream by Theresa Kishkan. The key factor is probably that it was published by Barbarian Press, a “fine press publisher” based in Mission, BC, and features fancy paper (my simplified version of what’s described on the second picture, lol) and woodblock prints. It sold pretty quickly on eBay for 700$. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for books by this publisher going forward.

Finally, you all seemed to like my late 1700s almanacs, so I assume you’ll like this liturgical book from 1675.

It’s written in Latin (I think), so you can kind of make out some words. The content seems to relate to the Roman Ritual, but I don’t know much about that. I’m hoping you guys can help me out with this one. I don’t know much about value yet, besides finding that other liturgical works from this time have sold for between a few hundred and several hundred dollars.

This is one of the oldest books I’ve found. Just a bit older was this one from 1610, though it was in worse condition. This one is in pretty good shape considering it’s nearly 350 years old!

These book tossers are truly absurd. I hope for my sake (both from an entertainment, as well as financial perspective) that they continue tossing out great, easily flipped, and often antique books for a while yet. Either way, I definitely have more blog-worthy stuff from this spot to share here in the future.

Meet the parents

January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 garbagefinds24 Comments

Happy new year everyone! (I’m really stretching the time limits for saying that, but it’s my first post of 2023 so I figure it’s ok). Here’s hoping for some fresh starts, new beginnings, etc. The last couple of years haven’t been especially good for trash, or anything else for that matter, but I’ve got a feeling that 2023 will be better. If nothing else, after two down years for trash I think I’m due for some positive reversion to the mean.

My notable 2023 finds thus far have mostly been limited to that one house that keeps putting loads of cool old books in their recycling bin on a near weekly basis. January isn’t the best month for picking, especially with the snow and other blah weather, but that one spot has kept things interesting. Maybe I’ll post more about that soon. Another good spot produced a huge load of low-quality weed and vape paraphernalia, a lot of it brand-new in its packaging. I guess someone gave up on some Alibaba product they were trying to hustle. If I’m in a good mood, maybe I can document that with a video or something, but don’t count on it. Most of it is the kind of crap that should never have been produced to begin with, but it’ll definitely make me a bit of money.

Today, I figured I’d share some pics from the past that I never got around to posting.

This spot was notable because I remember stopping here a few times in the summer, and finding some interesting stuff. Then, one day, a grumpy middle aged lady saw me and got angry and shooed me away.

That was a shame, because I found some neat stuff there. Perhaps the best find was a plain manila that contained two old almanacs from the 1700s. They’re not super valuable based on my research (around 100$ for the one with the cover?), but it’s always cool to find something that old. I think I sold the one missing the cover on Instagram, and the other I still have. For now, it’s part of my collection of interesting found junk.

So several months pass. I skip out on a few piles after that person confronted me, but there was a long stretch where there was nothing for me to regret not looking through. Then, I spotted another pile there in the winter, and decide to give it another try because so much time had passed. Just so happens that another person came out to greet me… but this time it was a woman maybe in her 60s-70s who was quite nice, who I’m guessing was the grumpy one’s mom. She ended up helping me look through her own trash to find the good stuff she had tossed, and also offered me some things from inside the house. She was moving, and seemed thankful that someone was helping her with these objects that she apparently had no clue how to, or no energy to deal with.

A lot of the best finds were in those trash bags, like that little solid silver creamer, the ceramic bowl which was labelled as being from the 1800s on the bottom, that cute miniature cottage figurine which also looks to be quite old, etc.

There was plenty of other quality junk, including lots of other old copper stuff, but I never got around to taking pictures of it. Nothing mind blowing anyways, just nice things that didn’t deserve to be trashed.