# Best roadside ect. finds



## carobran (Apr 15, 2012)

It always amazes me what people will throw away.Whats the best thing you've ever found put out to the curb etc?


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## bottle_head9 (Apr 15, 2012)

A nice snowblower that just needed a sparkplug and some fresh gas.[]


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## surfaceone (Apr 15, 2012)

A lovely Paiute maiden hitchhiking, circa 1970...


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## toddrandolph (Apr 15, 2012)

I've been curb shopping for many years. I've picked up stuff on regular trash days, but the real fun comes with the once a year clean up days, which are starting now. I used to do about 12 different towns but only do the 2 closest ones now because of the gas prices. You can find just about anything if you are persistent. My best finds have come from talking with the people bringing the stuff out to the curb and getting in the houses, garages, attics, and basements. I once was given the key to a house to be torn down and told to take whatever i wanted. I spent days in there. Sadly, the rise in gas prices combined with the decline in the antique and shabby chic markets have made it tough to make a good profit, but I still go out just for the fun of it.


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## Brains (Apr 15, 2012)

an intact toilet- later we took it to a shooting range and blew it apart, best curb find ever.


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## JOETHECROW (Apr 16, 2012)

The most recent that comes to mind, A crude aqua gallon demijohn,...with tattered wicker hanging off it...[]


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## Plumbata (Apr 16, 2012)

Best in value was a working Art Deco Frigidaire refrigerator from 1937, found last December. Beautiful piece it is. A few years back i found several boxes of 1910s-20s papers, including lots of WW1 photos of camps and soldier documentation. Cool material to sort through.

 My dad found a lot of Belgian Congo related material back in the 70s, including rare antiques and a 4 ounce sterling bowl, being tossed after an ancient fellow in his neighborhood passed away.

 The goodies are still out there. Recently I found a box of papers from the 30s-50s from a doctor who submitted diagrams of futuristic weapons to the Department of War, with their responses (all essentially saying thanks, but your ideas are either proven to be uneconomical or undesirable, etc.).


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## carobran (Apr 16, 2012)

The best thing I've found so far was a nice Gail Pitman(a well know Mississippi pottery artist) bowl.My dad found a nice 10 gallon shop-vac that just needed a filter cleaning.I love people who are too lazy to try to fix anything or haul stuff back into their garage.Also found a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses in a yardsale box that somebody tossed.


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## JustDugIt (Apr 16, 2012)

A ww2 Purple Heart  in the leather box with a card inside Signed by Robert Patterson Secretary Of War =) it was in with some books


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## coreya (Apr 16, 2012)

Back in the 70's and 80's when working midnights sometimes it would be so slow that I started to pick up discrarded toys for my kids and the neighbor hood kids, I would take them home, clean them, fix them up and presto chango the kids would have toys we could never have afforded! (I worked in a very upscale area of the city a couple times a week) There were also tool finds etc. Its amazing what people throw away!
  I also had an Uncle back in the 50's who worked at the Dade County dump who got everything he needed for his house and hobbys and never spent a dime! He drove a brand new Caddy which wasn't to bad for a dozer operator back in the day. I guess there is a dumpster diver in all of us scavengers!!![][][]


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## ironmountain (Apr 17, 2012)

nice finds!!! 
 I've found bicycles that I've fixed and given to neighborhood kids who don't have one or had a crappy one.  golf clubs that my dad and I would keep to form junior sets for neighborhood kids (we used to hit up Salvation Army and GW too...back when you could get clubs for 10c each). We'd make a set, give it to a kid who didn't have one and take them golfing.  

 Haven't ever found much else... friend owns a ton of storage units and when his client just leaves stuff he calls me to take whatever I want. Unless it's filled with good stuff, then I just liquidate it for him.  I've snagged upright wingback chairs, sofas, bed frames, futons etc... basic house/apt furniture people left behind.  Works great for the deercamp/farmhouse.


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## Bixel (Apr 18, 2012)

I havnt found much good out on the curb, last year I got a really nice mountain bike frame, the rims were sitting there beside it all bent up, sold the frame online for 75 bucks.

 My parents live out in the country, and we have found some neat stuff dumped in the woods right beside out house. Best was a lawnmower that just needed a tune-up, it didnt start when I got it. I changed the oil, cleaned the carb(the reason it wouldnt start) replaced the spark plug, sharpened and balanced the blade, and sold it at our garage sale a month later for 125 bucks. I figure the lawnmower was only about 2 seasons old.


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## Headhunter2 (Apr 18, 2012)

I want to know how that Indian Maiden worked out for Surfaceone?


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## surfaceone (Apr 19, 2012)




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## temwood (Apr 20, 2012)

Many bikes and lawn mowers that only needed a cleaning and $5 in work...


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## ecotramper412 (Apr 20, 2012)

Not the most valuable, but the most interesting: A home made 8mm film from CampCroft in SC dating from summer 1942. The camp was a training facility for soldiers before they were deployed. I sent to to a museum/collector and it will hopefully be published online soon.


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## ecotramper412 (Apr 20, 2012)

Soldiers marching


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## tigue710 (Apr 22, 2012)

> ORIGINAL:  surfaceone


 


 Lies!!!!

 Ive found all kinds off good stuff... even as a kid living in apartments in a college town I got my first ten speed, a box of matchbox cars and a friend and I scored an electric guitar and amp, which worked!  

 Ive always been a complete scavenger, whether its curb side, yard sale, flea market or haggled down, (I have no shame in asking for discounts in any store, and usually get one),... I dont think I could begin to start listing the stuff Ive picked up...

 In st Louis I used to make an extra couple hundred dollars a week cruisin the alleys on trash days for antique furniture... I hauled truck loads of the stuff

 I work my f'in butt off for my money, and our society throws it all away...


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## Bixel (Apr 22, 2012)

This next week, I will spend many nights cruising the streets on my bike searching the neighbourhood for good items being thrown out, since I live in a student neighbourhood, and the students are moving out within the next week or so.

 Last years finds were a 2006 Specialized mountain bike frame, stainless steel bar fridge that was like new and some other odds and ends. Made a couple hundred bucks selling off everything. I have found that printers are something that get thrown out a lot by students, and they are easy to flip for 10-20 bucks a piece.


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## ironmountain (Apr 23, 2012)

good list of ideas tigue and bix.  I normally stop if I see something useable, fixable or sellable. Most of the time if it'll work for deer camp, i'll snag it. 

 There's one weekend a year I love.  There's a local town that holds a rummage sale. Everyone does their sale on that weekend. all the stuff they get rid of goes to goodwill. I swing by and talk to my friend the store manager and he's very good about giving me a phone call when necessary. They literally have stuff packed to the ceiling in the sorting/warehouse room.

 small GW rant. GW is almost never worth going to now.  With their shopgoodwill auction site, they have to send pretty much anything of any value out to be auctioned. there used to be all kinds of cool fenton glassware and milkglass etc...now you see just pure junk clear glass.. I haven't seen a bottle get pushed through in ages and I used to get all kinds of stuff like pitchers from dairies long defunct and other goodies.  The auction site is decent, except the ebay syndrome.  

 a: some of the stores put reserves on items...really? guess that's the new non-profit model.  You can get stuff for a good price, just have to watch out for the shipping.  many times you'll see an item calculated at 2x it's weight, plus a $ or % handling charge.   And there's serious ebay fever there as far as overbidding on things go. I saw an epiphone les paul guitar that sells for 349 brand new go for over 500. insane.  /end rant


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## yaledigger (Apr 26, 2012)

i found a beautiful old china cabinet.  it had a stain on the top and a pane of glass broken.
 i took it home cleaned it up.  put a new piece of glass in it, and now it is full of my wifes nic nacs.


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## Dened Fenders (Apr 28, 2012)

I didn't find it, but a buddy I work with did. It's a 54ish Philco console (AM radio, turntable, tv) that he saw along the road. He picked it up for firewood, thinking it was a rundown old cabinet, but when he realized what it was, he decided that it would be better fit at my house, since I collect radios/tvs. It's big, and I had no idea what to do with it, so I jokingly said, "If it fits in my trunk, I'll take it." Not thinking it would fit, of course.








 It now sits on my porch as a garden cabinet/plant stand. (Missing everything inside but the radio unit.)


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## RCO (May 20, 2012)

i found a victorian piano stool a couple years ago , it was from 1860's and in good shape . it needs to be refinished and such . never got around to that but it look nice once its done  .


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## LC (May 20, 2012)

> since I collect radios/tvs


 
 Now that's what you call a big addition Trevor . Had to comment on your collecting radios , used to collect a lot of them as well years ago . At one time I had around sixty five table radios and a good fifty transistor radios . Got rid of most all of them a  few years back . This one some how escaped being passed on with the others . It is the Lady Bug transistor radio , when you turn the volume up and down the wings open up and close . Thought you might like to see it .


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## Dened Fenders (May 21, 2012)

That's pretty neat, LC. I haven''t got anything new in a while. No room left in the apartment, and no extra funds as of late.  []


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## LC (May 21, 2012)

If I remember right , my best table radio was a small Silvertone catlin . I believe it booked at a thousand , sold it for seven hundred when I started getting rid of the radios .


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## Dened Fenders (May 21, 2012)

> ORIGINAL:  L C
> 
> If I remember right , my best table radio was a small Silvertone catlin . I believe it booked at a thousand , sold it for seven hundred when I started getting rid of the radios .


 Amazing! Wish I could locate a catalin.


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## LC (May 21, 2012)

The one I had was quite small for a table radio , and a butterscotch color , and it was an Emerson not a Silvertone . I had three different catlins but that little Emerson was the best of them all . Kind of wish I had kept it , did not take up much room .


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