Thrift Stores, Flea Markets, Garage Sales and....the Garbage?

[Den82]

I vaguely remember in the early 90's seeing toys that people go nuts for today on the curb. I got this idea a while ago of what would happen if I took my bike out the night before garbage night to see what I can find. I've watched a few YouTube videos from people who do this on a regular basis.

I think it's funny there is competition even with garbage. Metal is gone the second you put it out in my town. Scrap Metal guys take it.

I actually do remember throwing out some old Star Wars stuff. After I sold off my collection I had like crappy vehicles, C3P0 and Vader cases missing the bars, etc. I put them out with the garbage and they were gone after a about an hour.

Does anyone have any good garbage picking stories? Maybe you were just driving down the road and saw a big box of Nintendo games? Vintage Star Wars toys? Etc.

[Rallygirl]

I haven't found toys, but sadly, I regularly take things home from roadside trash cans. Some of the best things were a wrought iron headboard, a leather-top barrel table, the chairs that currently sit on my front porch, and a carnival plaster gorilla. I also once got into a fight over a real carousel horse, but my desire to avoid arrest led to the other guy getting it.

[johnnystorm]

Every April our town has a cleanup week, where you can set junk out & the boro picks it up free. I'll bet 80% of it is gone before then, metal to the scrap guys, but people coming & taking just about anything. I cruise around a bit, but I've never come across anything too exciting. Still, you never know when that long lost Picasso will be curbside and the Antiques Roadshow dream story will be yours.....

[megocrazy]

The towns around here have the clean up weeks as well. Usually for getting rid of big stuff like washing machines or water heaters. It has actually been better recently because so many people are scrapping so the towns haven't had to pay for the disposal of most large items. On those days you see guys in trucks just driving around picking up anything they can scrap. Best toy scenario, I actually bought. Was at a flea market talking to a dealer about some stuff when his kid shows up with a big box. He puts it down and says get me $25 for this, I saw it outside someone's house in the trash. The box was covered by the 2 halves of Castle Greyskull. I look in the box and it's full of 80's figures. I offer $20 and proceed to bring it to my car. About 35 He-man and T-cats figures in immaculate condition. All pretty much complete. Cha-ching. Most of the T-cats are the ones in my collection today.

[EMCE Hammer]

My best curb find was a Safety First Batmobile. The circuit board was fried, but I found a replacement and it was good to go. Best "toy" was a Cat's Lair I found about twelve years ago.

[Brazoo]

For some reason in my neighbourhood people tend to leave boxes of books out by the curb. Not with their garbage, and not on garbage days, they're hoping people walking by take them.

I've found cool books over the years, and even some awesome VHS tapes. My biggest find so far was a set of about 18 Terry Pratchet Discworld books, about half were hardcover and they were all in great shape.

Sometimes I see people leave baby toys out, but I've never taken any.

[B-Lister]

Lucky you. Most yard sale and garbage finds around here are breast pumps and baby clothes.

[jwyblejr]

I bet it's fun to do that with stores that repair computers.

[justzeg18]

my only big garbage score has become somewhat of a tired story to me. I was lucky enough to find a full size upright Deluxe Space Invaders II arcade game on the curb.
It turns out it was a collateral victim of a sloppy divorce.

[nazgul]

A few years back I found about 5 different Commodore 64 computers, all boxed. There were also a ton of peripherals as well as about a million games on floppydisks...I was hesitant to grab the stuff because it was in a neighborhood that I teach in. I just didn't want to have a conversation with some kid the next day as to why Mr. M was taking my garbage.....so I came back at about 2am...luckily it was all still there...

[Fitski]

Best find we ever had was at the Salvation Army, this was about 3 weeks ago..$10 for a Jake the snake Roberts and King Kong Bundy Thumb-wrestler



Sorry cant post image here's the link

http://bdcollectibles.tumblr.com/image/51576950081

[kattie]

My best find so far was a jazz-guitar from the late 50s. It was not in best shape but still I sold for 100 Euro. Not bad :-)