Tag: waste

It’s a good time for a yard sale

garbagefinds21 Comments

The finds have been plentiful lately, which is great though it lays bare the fact that no one human can possibly deal with this much stuff. My garage looks like a hoarder’s den right now, which means that it’s a good time to have a yard sale! I plan to be out from roughly 12-6pm (and probably a bit later) at 920 St Gregoire on Saturday. There will be a lot more books than usual, but also plenty of other quality junk. I hope to see you there!

I also hope to have a sale on Sunday too, but details on that are still tbd. My current theory is that May is the best month for yard sales, because a) people are happy to be outside after a long winter and b) people rarely schedule trips or vacations this early in the year, so locals are more likely to be in town. I’ve had plenty of randomly bad yard sales on otherwise beautiful days in the summer months, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad sale in May. Anyways, the next few weeks will probably be pretty busy for me between picking and selling.

These days I find it hard to choose which items to showcase for the blog, especially when there’s a lot to choose from (“can’t see the forest for the trees” is an expression that comes to mind). I also don’t have the time to take the big elaborate group shots like I used to. So, today I’m just going to share a few of my favourite or more interesting recent scores.

The tossers at this spot are the kind of people who don’t know how to recycle, or just don’t care. For them, the “recycling” bin is basically just a 2nd trash receptacle. Anyways, last week I opened up the recycling bin and saw this nice antique clock. I doubt it works, but maybe someone would want it as a project given that the wood and glass are in nice condition. I think it dates to the 1880s based on the patent info on the loose piece below.

It’s very pretty. The wood is a bit dinged where that green tape is but it would be an easy fix.

The week before that they tried to recycle a shoebox filled with Warhammer figurines. These definitely aren’t my expertise, but some individual vintage metal pieces seem to sell for 5-20$ each on eBay. I just listed my collection for 400$ with best offer, and we’ll see if anyone bites.

Elsewhere, someone is throwing out the wares of a once prodigious arrangement enthusiast. There have been bags filled with pinecones, twigs, grasses, dry flowers, and of course different types of vessels to put the arrangements in or on. Many were filled with that green or white foam stuff that you can stick flowers into. The foam was often glued into place, which unfortunately made some pieces not worth the effort of saving, but others were foam-free or had foam that was easily removed.

Here’s three nice examples that are still kicking around in my garage, which will probably end up on the Instagram selling page. Below are a couple of Naaman (Israel) pieces I gave to a friend to try to sell on Marketplace.

More lucratively, they’ve also tossed some old jewelry.

It’s been mostly bits and pieces, but a few of those bits and pieces have been gold. The single earrings and broken chains on the right earned me close to 300$ for scrap. The nicest intact pieces have been that silver prayer bracelet, the Omega watch buckle, and the pendant, which isn’t gold but looks antique. I hope they toss more of this stuff in the future, because it’s always fun to look through.

Here’s a painting I picked up not far from Vendome metro. It’s got a tear, but is in decent condition otherwise and is pretty well executed (at least according to my untrained eye). I’m also a sucker for the street scenes, so there’s that. It’s signed “H. Kimmelman 1940” (I think) but unfortunately I don’t see much under that name on Google. If anyone has any info about this painting, including where the subject of the painting might be, let us know in the comments!

One of my favourite recent spots was in Park Ex. Unfortunately, I think I discovered it kind of late and probably missed out on a lot of great finds. So it goes. Here are a couple things I did save. This chalkware rabbi is pretty cool, and thankfully survived his trip to the curb in good condition. It’s a bit over a foot tall according to the eyeball test.

This “mammy” cookie jar was made by McCoy in the late 30s or early 40s. It’s apparently pretty rare, appearing on this list at #14 with a value of 600-1000$. Based on my research, “cauliflower mammy” (or cabbage mammy, depending who you ask) probably isn’t worth quite that much, but it does appear to be relatively rare and should sell for a few hundred bucks.

I haven’t found anything new at the book spot for close to two months now, though you wouldn’t know it by looking in my garage (which is filled with books). Sorting through that will be a monumental task, and I’m not sure how exactly it will get done. For now I’m content to avoid them and deal with other things.

There are probably more notable books in that collection, but for this shot I just took some pictures of ones with pretty covers.

Finally, the “bedbug Jadeite” I mentioned in my last post got a thorough cleaning after about a month and a half in quarantine. As you can see it was quite the haul. The pieces are lightly used, and the colour is very bright. Unfortunately a few were broken in the act of curbing, but there’s still a good set here.

A friend helped me clean them and is now trying to sell them on Marketplace and Kijiji, though there haven’t been any takers yet. They’ll sell eventually, but it might take a little while given that we’re limited to the local market. I’d rather take less money than try to ship this anywhere.

Anyways, I’m going to go out and see if I can find any more trash. As if I need any more stuff for the yard sale pile, ha ha.

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. Donate to the blog. It costs close to 500$ a year to maintain (no ads, domain name, storage space, etc) which ain’t cheap. Otherwise, it’s nice to get a few bucks for coffee, food, or gas!

The attack of the big babies

garbagefinds21 Comments

(FYI, I wrote the first half of this post in early February)

The last month of picking has been challenging. It seems like for every two intriguing piles of trash, there’s one person shooing me away from it. This one guy was particularly deranged. He came out to the street to greet me, and kept going on about how I was “stealing” garbage, how he felt like fighting me and trashing my car, how if we were in the States he’d have a shotgun (to do what, exactly I’m not sure), etc etc.

I spent about 15 minutes talking to this dude. Thankfully it never came to blows or shotguns, though he continually felt the need to close talk at me during a pandemic, and went on and on about the “stealing” and how, when I defended the act and legality of picking, I was only “rationalizing” bad behavior. He also spent a fair bit of time trying to convince me how great a guy he was for purportedly giving stuff away on Facebook Marketplace, went on a few diatribes about he wasn’t so well-to-do (despite appearances, and having a lot of expensive & apparently disposable toys), and at one point lied about getting a nice official Habs hoodie (which he was wearing) at Winners for 5$ (I don’t think Winners carries official Habs stuff, and if they did it wouldn’t be 5$). Anyways, I left after spending too long talking to this guy, but not before telling him to seek out a therapist.

I had found some quality stuff here in the weeks prior. One day I found two iPods, one of which I quickly sold for 100$, and another day I found two relatively new Amazon Fire tablets (still have those, need to buy some chargers). I also picked up several packs of unopened printer paper, a bunch of decent books (some of which went to my new Instagram selling account, @garbagefindssells), unopened packages of soap, tea, and toothpaste, as well as barely used cleaning products.

The best stuff though got tossed on the day of our lovely interaction. Fortunately I had 10-15 minutes to pick before he emerged from his castle to yell at me. I probably salvaged most of the good stuff by then, but who knows what I missed. I didn’t go back in later weeks –  I guess I could have gone at like 5am but I didn’t feel like dealing with him anymore. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy bashed all his future garbage with a baseball bat out of spite.

Buddy seemed to like buying tools & gadgets and not using them. Here we have a (maybe never used) chisel set, some kind of tack device, a whole bunch of new watch batteries that weren’t close to expiry (I used one for a watch already, which saved me about 5$), and a mini computer that looks to be worth a couple hundred if it works.

That long cardboard box in the intro picture contained mostly long items, including about 10 umbrellas. All were in nice condition, and three were pretty fancy. Two were made by Burberry, and another by Aquascutum. The brand-name umbrellas are worth north of 100$ each given their near pristine condition.

Here’s the last bit of stuff, including the most valuable item – a thermal imaging camera that looked to be brand new in its original case.

I was able to sell the Hti Xintai HT-18 quickly for 300$. This is how it saw my space heater.

Title: “A man and his beloved garbage”

He took a picture of me, so I took a picture of him. Or so I remember… it’s also possible I took it as proof that his trash was on the curb, so it wasn’t “trespassing.” Either way, the photo turned out great so I can’t help but share it here. Made some edits to buddy’s face to ensure his privacy.

A few weeks later I met another pleasant chap (above) on the curb. Unfortunately, I had only a couple minutes alone with the trash before buddy emerged from his garage. He was on his phone, giving neighbourhood security a description of me and my car. We talked briefly, I don’t remember much about his spiel, other than he was more sarcastic & pretentious than aggressive. In those two minutes I pulled out a little box with a few pieces of jewelry inside, including one silver chain.

I went back maybe an hour later because I really wanted to take that one bag with the jewelry for later sorting. My timing wasn’t great though, I passed by neighbourhood security just as I was nearing my destination. The security person pulled me over and gave me a talking to. I tried to debate legalities (I’m not a lawyer, but I often cite this Canadian Supreme Court decision that allows police to look through trash without a warrant, saying the owner essentially abandons their property once they put it out on the curb for collection, and can therefore have no reasonable expectation of privacy given that their trash is accessible to any passing member of the public) but he just gave me the usual talking points. Anyways, there’s not much they can do except tell you to buzz off, but they’ll call in the big guns if you cause any issues, and being a marginal member of society with no money set aside for lawyerly things all I could really do is follow my marching orders. I’d bet that I missed out on some nice stuff by not getting that bag.

I could have tried going back at 5am, but I was feeling discouraged and just wanted to be done with it.

Just a few days later I met a lady while picking outside an apartment building. She was relatively pleasant, noting that I was on her property (ie: 5′ from the sidewalk hanging out with the trash bags) and therefore I had to go. She said this very matter-of-factly, and all I could do is sigh and move on. I think I made close to 100$ from stuff I found there before she came, including a box with several model train cars inside, a red telephone (people seem to like red telephones at the auction house), and some other quality junk.

Anyways, the first two experiences in particular gave me some thoughts about why people are like this. According to popular lore (and confirmed by my mom), a baby will sometimes cry when you take away a toy, even if they weren’t playing with it. They don’t want it, but they don’t want you to have it either. It’s a selfish behavior that has to be worked through. Similarly, adults put their “old toys” in the trash, and then they’ll throw a fit if someone takes interest in it. The adult knows they’re taking the lazy way out of dealing with their possessions, and often know that they’re missing out on money (ie: the 300$ from their nearly new thermal imaging camera) by not dealing with it more effectively, but they’re more mad about my taking & potentially profiting from their old toys and laziness than they are about their own wasteful and selfish behavior. So basically, I’m dealing with a bunch of big babies. The rationalizations might be a little more complex, but in the end the root of the behavior is mostly the same.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts on all this. Pickings have been slim, but I’m excited to see that spring is finally here. At the very least, the warm weather makes picking a lot more fun and feel a lot more casual.

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 me on Instagram
4. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com – note that I really suck at email right now, and can’t fulfill most requests for items

Odds & ends

garbagefinds24 Comments

Sorry for the lack of posts, it’s been a pretty blah month on the mental health front. I guess February sucks for a lot of people in general, but this year is particularly bad as a few good friends have moved away and I’m more alone than I’ve ever been. Plus, it’s a lot harder to meet new people when you’re 34 going on 35, it’s the middle of winter, you struggle with depression & anxiety, and there’s nothing going on in a never-ending pandemic. The garbage has largely sucked too, and I’m meeting an unusual amount of angry people with good garbage that apparently really needs to go to the dump and not somewhere useful for some reason (I’ll get more into that in my next post). I’ve found a few good things, but it’s hard not to wonder about “career path” in these trying times, though I’m sure things will turn around eventually. I’m very much looking forward to spring, but that’s still a ways off.

On the plus side, I finally started using Chit Chats Express for most of my eBay shipping. I heard about it years ago, but for a while their only location was out in Ville St Laurent, and driving out there would offset any savings. Now they have a drop-off location on St-Denis, which is much more convenient. I’d say that I save 5-10$ on most packages, and sometime more than that. Other times it’s more or less the same, and only once was the Chit Chat’s rate a bit higher (for shipping a big Ham radio to Washington State). It also offers tracking on low-value packages that I normally wouldn’t track, due to the extra cost (for example, a 25$ poster to the States costs 6-7$ with tracking, when Canada post would be 12-13$ with no tracking or 18-19$ with – I don’t usually have a problem shipping low-value items without tracking, but it’s still nice to have for both me and the customer).

Anyways, I would recommend them anyone who ships things on a regular basis. I’ve saved probably 150-200$ just in the couple months I’ve been using it, and they have lots of locations across Canada now it seems. Please use my referral code if you do, that way you’ll get 5$ free and I’ll make a few bucks when you start shipping (I believe it’s 10 cents per package in the first month of you using the service).

In other good news I figured out how to get the old WordPress editor back (apparently just needed a “widget”), so now I can quit whining about that. Also, I decided to bring back the Paypal “donate” widget (which stopped working for some reason) because that’s what most bloggers do. Most say “buy me a beer,” but you can also help with blog expenses. It costs about 450$ a year to pay for the WordPress stuff (extra storage space for pics, no ads), and I wouldn’t need as big of a garage if I didn’t blog. Plus the time it takes to make these photo arrangements. Of course I’ve kind of sucked at this blogging thing for a while now, but hopefully one day my brain will cooperate again.

Anyways, this apartment building produced a nice haul in early January. Not much since… but I still check on it.

 

With apartment building trash you’re bound to find a lot of crap, so I only stop if the garbage pile is interesting. That vintage card table set and mirror was enough to get me to stop the car, and then I discovered that the bags were full of kitchen & dining wares. This short video shows you the sound a bag full of kitchenwares makes. The sound and look of the bags helps me differentiate the good stuff from the bad, the latter of which comprises the vast majority of what we call “garbage.”

All in all I picked out about two big bags worth of stuff, as well as the card table and mirror. There was some breakage, which is common when people throw ceramics and glasswares into bags and then drag them to the curb, but plenty of quality stuff survived.

There was lots of silverplate, but some was pretty worn out and best scrapped (the plated brass and copper is worth decent money at the yard). That serving dish at the top right had its original glass insert, which is pretty uncommon (at least with trash silverplate). That odd looking thing at the bottom right is a vintage “cake comb.”

I found a few things in protective Birks drawstring bags. The nicest piece is probably that cake server on the bottom. Based on my research, it’s a solid silver piece made by Hippolyte Thomas in France sometime in the 1850s. You can see (and zoom in on) the hallmarks below. I don’t find stuff that old particularly often, so that’s fun. It’s probably worth around 150-200$.

A couple of other favs include this early mid-century Pillivuyt porcelain pot, which managed to escape its trip to the curb without any damage. I sold it via the @garbagefindssells Instagram (managed by someone else, but I post occasionally) for 40$, which I think was a good deal.

Also nice was this old decanter with a silver top. Below are the hallmarks, which show that it was made in Birmingham, England in 1911, probably by John Grinsell & Sons. Haven’t figured out a price yet but I’m thinking it’s worth around 100$.

Anyways that’s all for now. Hopefully I can get another post up soon. It’s not for a lack of stuff, just a lack of brain power.