Chapter 709

Sept 30, 2026

Joy of Junk

treasure hunt

Continuing to clean house. Priced a few of the more valuable items below market value to move quickly on Facebook Marketplace (mostly good experiences).

The 1910 Western Electric fan that I restored 11 years ago had been sitting in my garage doing nothing under a plastic bag to keep the dust off. Still worked on high but the oscillator stopped working as a lever got lost during handling. Thought maybe  the guy was scamming me coming from Boston, but said he was passing thru on vacation at Lake George. Turned out very legit, and maybe I scammed him selling him some of my foreign coins to boot.

Hit it off with Anton as he was on my wavelength being a robotics engineer from Worchester Polytechnic Institute where he was on the design team of Sabertooth. In 2012 they presented  "The design and realization of a high mobility biomimetic quadrupedal robot" in China.

He was interested in coins so I pulled out some of my collection and sold off some of my Roman Empire, Lithuanian, Persian, Japanese, and Dutch pieces. Actually gave him a good deal because I want to downsize and it will be tedious to sell all my stuff. From potential scam to  netted over $300, it was a good evening and we were both happy.

He used a 3D printer to make this red U shaped holder for his early Spanish Reale coin from Mexico. He wrote a computer program to obtain a high definition 3D scan of the coin which he sent me.

Sold the Queen Anne Chippendal style highboy dresser for $30. I picked it up off the side of the road for free years ago. One leg was sketchy and I put in 5 new drawer sliders (for about $30). Thought I'd used it to store nuts and bolts but it was heavy, bulky and unwieldy. It sat in the cellar for years taking up space. Was the worst thing that I ever brought home. Happy to break even and was readily willing to chain saw it if it had not sold. Recycle bins pretty much only accept cardboard, plastics, glass, electronics, and metal.

I delivered the dresser in my truck to the young couple's Scotia address, squeezing out another $10 for delivery. Turns out their house was a block from the Village Tavern who had sponsored one of my basketball teams back in the early 70's.

Had the heavy duty saw horse legs priced to sell at $50 and a property manager familiar with them snapped them up no dicker. Dont quite remember but I probably got em for free somewhere. 

The water pump at $30 went to a guy surprising his wife as she always wanted one for decoration. Had installed my house water well point system 40 years ago with it. 

The oxygen acetylene system went quick for $70 to a mechanic from Guyana. Had 2 other guys promising they would buy. Leased the tank 40 years ago then company went out of business. The  torches were wearing out but the package deal was worth the price.

I could perhaps sell most of the stuff but if you think about trying to dispose of 1000 items and sell one a week it would take you 20 years to clear out. I had 1000 items some similar to Dad's auction that all went in one day. Move the merchandise don't think too much about it. Nobody wants your junk. So far 2 solid weeks hard work of hauling stuff out of the house.

Yes, I'm throwing out thousands of dollars. It's small potatoes over 50 years. Especially when you put it in perspective relative to the cost of hobbies, vacationing or just going out to dinner.

 It feels good to clear out. My approach : Sell a few big items, dump 90 %, reorganize then throw out another 90% keeping maybe 1% of the orginal pile. 

Another example to illustrate the point. Music Delete: Long Playing viny records and CD's. I get most of my music streaming from Pandora, Alexa, Youtube or XM Radio.

I took a morning boxing up 100 CD's and 60 albums all in pretty much good shape. Lugged down to an Albany reseller's store. Got $35 for a few albums & CD's. But the 35 mile round trip cost me $35 in mileage, depreciation wear and tear on the truck. Went right to the landfill to dump the rest , 90% of my original stash. Would have saved time and effort if I dumped the whole lot to begin with as I expected. Just didn't want to throw away some valuable item and it was a learning experience. I previously gave Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon to daughter (maybe retailer give you $10 & he sells for $40). Gave me $5 for Stevie Wonder.

Landfilling junk can seem like a nasty way of disposing unwanted items and has been the way forever. Recycling helps where economically feasible, but everything has got to go somewhere.  After Dad passed it became the responsibility of the next generation to clear things out. This will give future archeologists a treasure trove for discovery.