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

You just had to top my sewing machine find, didn't you, Paula.

I have decided to heed the advice of Osso, Paula, and CJ and keep the damn thing. It is quite impressive looking, a fine piece of Americana, and I have placed it on top of an old walnut desk, alongside some vintage brass and copper blowtorches and some old tools. It fits right in.

Gus..NO! I would much rather have your sewing machine than some filthy, stupid, dirty bonds...wouldn't you?

Your still the man, I have two more trash stories, one involves massive drugs, and the other...death.

I shall hold off momentarily

I have some more too. I, too, shall wait.

Thats not what I had in mind as far as decorating goes. But being a capybara farmer, I suppose it should be expected. Don't forget to dust it.

Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me.

Now-now. Let's hear your story first, go Gus go Gus.

I kinda thought it would be the Bay Area. Once when I was in SF and wanted to go on the BART to Berkeley and I asked for a ticket they laughed at me because they pronounced it the funny American way, not knowing any better. :wink:

The drug story.

My buddy Jim was at work one night and 2 huge trucks pull in, along with a couple of armored vehicles.
About 6 agents, with machine guns in hand get of the vehicles. When the goverment makes a drug bust they eventually have to get rid of it, so they burn it. I guess the agents were there to make sure the shipment made it into the furnace. Only the men in black were allowed to handle the shipment. None of the workers new what kind of drugs they were burning.

It could have been pot, maybe cocaine, heroin?

That plant isn't to far from where I live...and if the wind is blowing just right

No wonder I don't feel normal!

Paula (i'm not normal) j

I picked up loads from the trash. Not from the regular Tuesday-and-Friday garbage rounds, but when they come pick up "grof vuil", big trash, separate rounds those are, once or twice a month or something. Have a desk in the kitchen thats from the street, and a cupboard with drawers in the room, and a stool I painted black, and I do think the low table in the middle of the room was from the street as well (yeah I remember: it was actually a desk with two drawers on one end and a big one on the other; I tore off what "feet" were still on it and so now it rests on the drawers like a coffeetable). I got a tall four-"armed" candleholder from the street too, and I used to have an old army typewriter, A3 format and military green, but it stopped working after all, should be in my basement now somewhere. Oh, and the tall copper-coloured floor lamp is from the trash too, A. and I found that one on one of our evening walks, just needed a new halogen lamp. And I had a black desk chair from the trash I used for a long time, just had a small tear, pillow on top you dont notice nothing.

Its not that I go out looking or anything, just I used to work in a bar so I'd come home early in the mornings, would find things. And occasionally still do, when it turns out to be the evening before "grof vuil" day, when people've just put the things out. Its how I furnished my student room so I still stop when I see it again, kinda naturally. You're not the only one usually either, there's always people poking around among the stuff, Turkish fathers stepping off their bikes, techies who're looking for stuff they can repair, and the folks who I think do it systematically trying to make an extra buck.

(It used to be a profession - I read an interview with a guy who used to do it as a living, up in to the seventies, going round with his delivery bike down the streets calling out if people had large trash to leave, or coming round on request ... but when the city itself started doing these specific "big trash" rounds, that was the end to that profession.)

I have an old sewing machine too, even older though -- 1910 or something. It wasn't a trash find, exactly, though almost. My mom got me a regular (new) sewing machine for my graduation present (BA), and then got me an old stand/cabinet thinking I could tinker with it and put the new sewing machine in it. Didn't really work, but it's really cool, cast-iron curves and fillips on the legs/ base, used it as a table.

Later, I was visiting my mom and in her guest room, behind a bunch of stuff, was an old sewing machine -- like the part gus has (older and much more ornate, though. Black with gold, green, various colored floral decorations). I said wow, what's that, and she said oh that's what came with the sewing machine base I gave you. I goggled at her and asked if I could have it, she said sure.

So now I have the whole thing, love it. I just keep it open, I put stuff on it like vases of flowers and stuff.

I just got a pair of bar stools from the trash maybe a year ago, one's perfect, one's not. Using the one that's perfect. It is a wood stool base and then a swively chair thing on top. The chair thing on the other one was wrecked, got rid of it, but the base is fine. Will probably take the chair thing off the other and upholster both of them soon. (Piece of wood, piece of foam, piece of fabric, staple fabric to bottom of wood, nail stool to bottom of wood.)

Used to dumpster dive in Madison all the time, students would throw things out rather than having to schlep them around, got a lot of great stuff that way.

I bought a 16 arm chandelier at a yard sale in N.H. It had a light gold finish, and a 16 foot chain, it was very heavy.
The fellow that sold it to me refurbished a doctors office on Beacon Hill Boston, Ma. The chandelier was hanging in the foyer of the building.

He sold it to me for 3 dollars. At the time I owned a 3 story victorian mansard. One of the rooms in my house had a 10 foot ceiling with a plaster medalion, guess where the chandelier went...it looked perfect their.
Oh yeah, yard sale finds, gotta likem'.

I have a really beautiful cat that someone tried to throw away.

As in...a live cat?

Countless items of jewelery that tend to fall in my bin.
Worst thing was a used condom, used by someone other than me.

I have found...
A beautiful 1950's couch which I recovered and still have in my basement suite, two chandeliers - repainted and hung in the dining room and bedroom, jewlery, patio furniture - including an old table which I tiled with mosiacs and a adriondac(sp?) chair, a lovely full length beveled mirror on a old door complete with glass knob and believe it or not an old sewing machine similar to yours Gus, sadly it's not in as good condition.
My house is filled with old finds and hand-me-downs.

How do items of jewelry fall in your bin, material girl?

I got an antique hutch at a yard sale once.
The seller's greatgrandmother had brought the hutch
with her from Panama when she immigrated. The seller
wanted modern furniture and got sick of the antiques.

It's a beautiful piece of furniture and I still have it.

Unfortunatly, with the onset of Antiques Roadshow and Ebay, less and less people are throwing out really good, old stuff. **sigh** Ah, to be back in the day when people threw out stuff they thought was worthless $4 crap only to have someone else pick it up and have a $4000 antique.

You're so right Bella. Luckily I got the hutch 20 years
ago, before internet and ebay

Today, everyone is selling $4 crap on ebay thinking it
should generate $ 4000