La Voix De Son Maitre

This time around I found out a reason why some people may throw out so many good things. Frustration. As I was doing my usual rounds, I came upon a pile that had out some framed prints and a wooden baby gate clear as day in front of the pile. I stopped of course, loaded them into my car and then went to check out if there was more good stuff in the bags. As I was doing that, the homeowner came out. This always makes me a bit nervous, because you never know how anyone is going to react to your scavenging. I looked up at her, smiled and gave a little wave as I usually do when I see homeowners watching me. 

She asked me what I was looking for and I told her "Anything really, what I can't use myself, I sell or donate" She then told me she was so glad, because she had all this stuff packed up to donate, and she had called places to come pick it up but they never did. She said she was so frustrated, the stuff had been sitting around her place and she needed it out of her house now. It seemed she thought the curb on large pick up day was her last resort. She went through all the bags with me showing me the stuff saying "Do you need clothes? Look at all these clothes. What about stuff for the kitchen? Here look..." I ended up taking almost her entire pile, just leaving behind stuff that unfortunately broke, or was missing pieces.

Here is some of the stuff I brought home..

This wool and cashmere 3/4 jacket/coat

These 2 beautiful and funky embroidered wool coat/sweater/jackets

This is one of the large framed prints that were out. The other one was horse themed so I gave it to a friend who has horses before I could take a picture of it.

and this is the baby gate which I very quickly sold for $20

Other stuff from the pile being tossed...

Various candles

This large cookie jar

This costume jewellery necklace

A box full of large gold Christmas ornaments

and Santa!

This woven throw blanket

And a faux ice bucket wine chiller (It's insulated in the bottom) The wine is mine though :D

Various small appliances

All in all I ended up with 2 big boxes full for the second hand store from this pile alone.

Moving on to another pile! :) I stopped at this pile because there were some open boxes out and some suitcases. The boxes contained a few small kitchen knicknack things like bottle openers and stuff that I picked out for the second hand store, but nothing special. Then on a whim I decided to see if the suitcases had anything in them as well. Usually I find suitcases don't, but sometimes people fill them like a box with more stuff they are getting rid of. I'll quickly check them out by lifting them to see if they are heavy and seem to contain anything. I usually don't stop at a curb if there are suitcases alone.

Both of the suitcases seemed heavy so I looked inside...

One contained these funky vintage Philips bookcase speakers. The plugs on the wires looked unfamiliar to me, so I think they are european.

and the other contained an amazing old record player from the 1950's. 

Look at how beautiful this thing is. It's got a European plug and from looking online, it seems this record player was made and sold in France. Unfortunately, I don't have a plug adapter at the moment, so I still haven't been able to see if it works.

 

 

  

"La voix de son maitre" Translates to "His master's voice" You may recognize it more as the logo title of the little dog peering into and listening to the horn of an old phonograph (record player) which has become a popular image.

 

at various other stops I picked up...

Another old fold up card table. It wasn't as nice as the last one I found, and had a few paint splatters on it. I'm too busy right now to remove the top and recover it, so I sent it off to the second hand store. It got there before the holidays, so I like to think that someone bought it, threw a table cloth over it, and used it as a kiddy table for their family Christmas feast :)

 

 

This skate board. It looked used, but still had plastic over some parts and a price tag of $19.95 on it. It's all dirty looking here because of course my kids grabbed it right away when I unloaded my car.

 

This bookcase sat at a curb still in the box. I peeked inside and it wasn't even assembled. However, when I got home, the hardware was missing. I emailed the company, explained the situation and asked if I could order a new set. They told me they'd send me a new set for free, and it came by courier a few days later. How awesome is that for customer service?

 

Unassembled with new hardware :)

 I couldn't find the exact same model and style still for sale (It's sold exclusively at Toys R Us) but very similar ones go for $150 and up. Crazy.

 

Last but not least, this is what my kids really went nuts over. It's a little pedal go-kart. It was at the curb missing a pedal, but thankfully the people put the missing pedal right on the seat. I grabbed the kart and the pedal, and once I got home, I opened it up to see what the problem was. There seemed to be a little bracket that held the pedal on that had broken off in 2 pieces. So, I went into the work shop, got some wire, put on the pedal, wrapped some wire around the notch where the bracket fit so the pedal could no longer pass over and slip off, screwed it back together and bada boom, bada bing, now the pedal was secure and staying on :)

I knew this kart is still being sold in stores because I remembered seeing them at the toy store when we were last there in the summer, so I went online to check it out...

There she is...

 

I hope you guys all had a great holiday season, see you again in the new year :) 

Keep looking out for treasures, and happy picking!

Jewel

I have been having a really good time selling my finds online. It's so nice to just have a bit of pocket money to spend and know I don't have to dip into my bank funds as often. People have been really nice, and the site I'm selling on has been great, but every once in awhile you run into trouble, and that's when what I call "potatogate" happened.

I found this really cute potato bin in a pile at the curb. Nothing wrong with it save for a few onion and potato stains on the wood inside. I thoroughly cleaned it, yet they remained. I thought since it was stained, I'd list it at a modest $20

It's cute, but nothing really special that I could see

Well, instantly I was getting notification after notification that people were interested in buying my potato bin. My computer, email, and tablet were blowing up. I listed it on the sections for 2 different city areas since I'm kind of in between them both. I'm telling you, there were line ups about 50 people long on both sites. People were privately messaging me asking if I would skip over the line (a rule breaker) to sell it to them because they "could pick it up right now!" etc.. it was crazy.

However, I am a follow the rules gal and made sure I went person by person.The first person in line decided to pass, so I moved on to the second person. They could not pick it up in my area. When I suggested the second area, she said it was impossible as well, and then told me to pass to the next person. I went on to person #3, made arrangements for pick up and that was that. Or so I thought...

The next morning I woke up to a snarky email from person #2 saying I should have been more accommodating and that I should have met her somewhere. She then reported me to the moderators. I replied back to her that I gave her 2 options, that she declined both of them, and that she told me to pass to the next person. You can't just tell me to pass and then change your mind! The moderators contacted me and told me that because I had replied to her (which she took as me being hostile) and didn't contact or go through them about it, I would receive an X on my sellers file. If you get 3 X's you're banned from the site. WTF? 

Anyways, I fought it and got the X removed, but the mods say that if they get another complaint about me, I'd get an automatic 2 X's. I'm not too happy about that, but I guess I have to live with it. As I explained to the mods, right now we're just a 1 income family and this is pretty much a small part time job for me to earn a little bit extra while I'm still at home with my youngest. Why would I jeopardize that in any way? Some people just don't see the bigger picture and realize there is a person on the other side. I'm not some big faceless corporation. This petty complaint could ruin a good thing I have going, but they don't care, they're just all butt hurt because they didn't get their potato bin.

Now whenever I list something that gets a lot of interest, I'm always thinking "Oh man, I hope this doesn't go all "potatogate" on me!"

So, let's get on to the rest of the finds for this entry!

In one town I hit, it's rather large, so I do the most populated area at night, and then in the morning I hit another area that has a few side streets. I always have to get there nice and early because by the time I'm done, my nemesis the garbage truck, is crusing in. I think he's on to me because he has been coming earlier lately.

This time I'm so glad I beat him because I found a big clean out pile full of vintage treasures :)

This old Kodascope movie screen is from the late 1920's





Here's the cool old label on the back

There was also a large box full of frames marked "garage sale". Inside were a whole bunch of dusty old framed prints with beautiful vibrant colours. The series is called "Great moments in pharmacy" painted by Robert Thom. Unfortunately, some of the prints did sustain damage, but others look pretty good.

 



Can't say that I know what I'm going to do with them yet, if I'll attempt to take them out of their frames, or try to sell them as is... For now they're properly wrapped up and being stored in my shed.


There were also 2 original boxes full of vintage mason jars with original zinc lids. The boxes are in pretty good condition considering their age. The colours still look as if they were just printed.

 


 One box was full of Jewel brand jars. I don't think they had ever been used.

 




The other box had a bit of a mish mash of jars of different sizes

 




There was another box as well of Shell insect sprayers. The box is marked 1939. Check out the price in the top right corner marked in grease pencil...$2.48 for the whole box. I wonder how expensive that was back then compared to today.

 


They were all used and the amber bottles of spray were all empty, but again, everything looked like it was still new. No rust, no corroding, nothing. Just a good coat of dirt and dust.

 


A little wipe down and they look amazing




The extra amber jars look nice too

 

I'm so glad the garbage truck didn't get to chew up these treasures!


 I also managed to pick up...

A working DVD player

 


Two old farm house windows that I sold very quickly and easily for $20

 


and a cute little wooden shelf




The next day I went on to another small town where I picked up...

A nice little side table from the 1940's. It's a little worn on top, but the rest looks great. Most small pieces of furniture I end up selling ends up to the "shabby chic" painting crowd anyways, so I'm sure someone can re-vamp this piece.

 


This thing which I thought might have been a magazine holder or something, but I later found out is  a fireplace accessory. I think it's used to hold logs by the fireplace.




 and this cute gold leafed mirror

 


At another pile I pulled out a few electronic things, like this voice recorder...

and a bunch of Apple products. Unfortunately I couldn't get the ipod to charge up or turn on, but I'm pretty sure someone will still buy it for the right price

I also picked up this outdoor light up Christmas tree, because from experience, all the ones I have picked up and taken home have worked just fine. This time luck wasn't on my side. I went to plug it in and discovered a scrapper had cut the cord off. Grr!

Nevertheless, I took 10 minutes to unravel and take the lights off the tree, listed it, and sold it for $10.

Took my lemon, and made lemonade thankyouverymuch! :D

Keep looking out for treasures, and happy picking!