What's the best thing you've ever found in the trash?

Why don't you keep that. New sewing machines don't sew through thick material well, certainly not leather or blue jeans.

That is made better than the one I have, which would probably cost $300+ to replace.

The new machines have nice features, but are all plastic. I say keep it, good find.

Do you have the foot pedal?

My grandmother used to have one just like it.

Why don't you take up sewing gustav? You can make your
Gertude some nice quilt for her birthday.

Paula - if you'd like one of those, come to an auction in Eastern Ontario. You can get them for a coupla bucks a pop these days. They've replaced manual typewriters as "anyone need an anchor?" items. But the price'll go up. The manual typewriters just started being collector's items again.

To find a sewing machine that can do the job the above one can, one would have to buy an industrial machine, around here very pricey.

I was going to buy a used industrial machine and I couldn't find anything cheaper than 500 or so.

But that was industrial. Gus that machine can also serve as a decorative piece, they look nice if displayed just ~so~. (no pun intended, for once)


Anchor? <snicker> they are a bit weighty.

My uncle was a garbage man in the 80's and 90's. I'd go over his house and he'd have like three nintendoes (that worked), treadmills, old schwinn bikes, old tools (that worked), all kinds of stuff. Every time we'd go to his house it was like christmas. Also for the holidays he used to fill an entire truck bed with nothing but beer people would leave as gifts.

I think it's beautiful and wouldn't sell it, even if I never got the pedal and bobbins, etc.

A friend and I were going for a walk and found some stuff at the corner of an alley in Venice. So now I have a Marimekko bowl for the dog... and she has some swaths of brocade. Not much to compare with Gus' fine find.

Hard to beat my business partner's finds though. She was a landscape contractor in Los Angeles, with the main of her projects in Bel Air, Bev Hills, and so on. People threw the damnedest things out. Thus she had some really excellent patio furniture, some great ceramic pots, and so on. I think her hot tub at their house there was also a trash item that she put in her truck and proceeded to build a small deck around at home. Of course she found these things very early in the morning as she arrived to meet her crew at the job sites.

beer bonus? Interesting.

Business partner also had found in a Bel Air trash can three stuffed animals, which she ensconsced in her studio on La Cienega, where I was a consultant. When she quit LA and moved north with her hub, and was cleaning out the office, I took the stuffed animals - all about 15" high - a black pig; a brown AA bear, who recited things like I Love You, Let Go and Let God, as you pushed his belly; and a fluffy white monkey.

I still have the first two, but I washed the monkey and he shrunk.

Should I post this on Noah's thread?

Yeah, my cousin works for that company now. AFter christmas I go to his house and i take about five or six cases home with me.

I like yard sales and old flea markets. lil'k ever go to the flea market in Rowly, Ma.? They have it every sat. & sun. during the summer, I can't think of the name.

They also sell antiques...what is the name, arrg.

I'm tired, going to sleep. (i'll bet the name will pop in my head right before i pass out.)

I just thought of an awesome story about finding bearer (sp) bonds in the trash, $$$$$$. Tomorrow.

When I was eight years old, I found an old glass doorknob in our neighbor's trash can. I thought it was a treasure. I still do. I use it as a paperweight.

In Japan they used to throw out a lot of good stuff (they didn't do any garage sales when I was there) so you could routinely find relatively new appliances like TVs etc in the trash.

Heck, I know some people who used to furnish a new house with just a few days of "gomi hunting".

I found an ex-partner in the trash once.

I was very odd. I was going to a party, and there was a pile of trash on the lawn of the house next door - it turned out to be clothes and such. Sitting in the middle of it was my ex.

"Hi" I said. "Er - can I help at all?"

He gave me a hug and a kiss, and said, philosophically, that he had arrived home to find all his stuff on the lawn, and a note from his new ex(which he considered redundant) telling him to get out. He was waiting for a friend with a van.

"Oh", I said - "I guess you haven't changed much in the last ten years, then?"

"Not a lot, no".

We laughed and hugged again.

We plied him with restorative drinks at the party, until his mate with the van arrived.....

There was a time when I would have picked him up, and taken him home.

He prolly would've ended up on ebay within a couple of weeks, though.....

Yeah I've heard they have these days and you can like just go round and pick up stuff maybe in Japan or Norway or somewhere.
The Yay Area? Where is that?

Bay Area, CA -oakland, SF, San Jose

Around my way, the best times for trash picking are in June and in September, when the school year is over/starts and the uni and college students are going home for the summer/coming back to school. They throw out the damndest stuff -- good furniture, TVs in working order, computers or parts thereof. Too much trouble to move back home, I guess. I've picked up a monitor for a computer, a perfectly good toaster oven, any amount of shelving, etc. etc. I know people who have furnished their entire apartments with stuff they picked from the trash. I once acquired what seems to be a brand new never used three-drawer filing cabinet. Didn't have a lock or keys with it. Probably why it was discarded.

in the eaerly 80's in the garbage room of my sister's co-op, i found some great late 60's early 70's stereo equipment (turntable, monitor/receiver and speakers, i can't remember the name now but my brother i law recognized them as a fairly good brittish make

the turntable and speakers were a little worse for wear but the monitor/receiver (tubes, non of that transistor crap) was in pretty good working order, i used it for a few years after that

An old school mate of mine, Jim, used to work at an incinery. One of his jobs was to sit at a conveyer belt that fed the incinerator. Some dirt covered papers passed by that looked somewhat interesting, but he let them pass, they were wet and covered in mud. Some more passed by and he grabbed a handful and stuffed them under his chair.
He forget about them for 2 weeks, went back to the chair, they were still under the seat, he brought them to his insurance agent and found out they were bearer (sp?) bonds worth a thousand dollars a piece. He had 72. After taxes he walked away with around 52 thousand.

He said he let about 30 of them pass by.