6 More Salvaged Free Curbside Recycling Finds Sold For $466

in ecoTrain3 years ago (edited)

Here are more household items I’ve recently plucked from my city’s curbs for free and resold. For those who may be new to my posts, I most often find items by walking my streets that are lined with piles of clear plastic bags, boxes, and trash bags... all loose and in plain view.

Some see it as waste. I think GOLD MINE and crypto funds.

While some people dabble in this practice here, I’m shocked that more don’t do this as a hobby at least. There’s an overwhelming amount of valuable stuff in sight during the day, despite my preference to have privacy and quiet time at night, which means that I likely miss some of the easy pickings.

6 More Finds Sold:

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Sealed New Will & Grace DVDs:

  • Sold online for $65.
  • I found some of these thrown loose on the curb from someone else who’d open a bag. I found the rest in that bag.
  • While selling a complete series is ideal, I knew there’d be some value and listed what I had.
  • Shipment weight of 1 lb 8 oz before a USPS discounted regional box to save on costs. Forgive me/

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High-end Canister Vacuum Base:

  • Sold online for $100.
  • I didn’t want to take this because there was no hose or wand, but leaving it behind would be against my cause. It was found at the end of my route so I didn’t have to worry about carrying it for long to tie up a hand.
  • It was an older model of a very expensive brand, so I figured someone would eventually want it if it ran.
  • I brought it home not knowing, but luckily it did. After a wipe down with rubbing alcohol to remove the scuffs, I listed it for about $130.
  • This got a lot of watchers, but it wasn’t moving. I gradually lowered to $100 to move it out for more space.
  • Shipping weight with recycled packaging of 18 lbs.

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Dyson Vacuum Motorhead Part:

  • Sold online for parts/repair for $100.
    This was found as a full set, and is one of Dyson’s newer models.
  • I realized that it was tossed because of a broken trigger, but the fix would cost me about $35 for the part. Everything else seems fine.
  • I saved the other parts to combine to future finds of this model since I’m sure I’ll find more.
  • I advertised the broken switch, knowing that someone would still bite at it. They did within 2 days of listing it for cheap postage costs to an adjacent state.
  • Weight of 4 lbs 10 oz with recycled packaging.

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Physics Textbook:

  • Sold online for $70.
  • This was from 2008, so a solid return on an old book.
  • I found this in a box with about 15 Vintage Nintendo Power magazines. I had a LOT of fun flipping through those at home. Talk about nostalgia. I sold one of those magazines for $40 and have the rest still to list.
  • Shipment weight of 3 lbs 8 oz with recycled packaging.

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Two Panasonic Phone Stations:

  • Sold online for parts/repair for $86.
  • These were in great shape, but I couldn’t test them.
  • Pulled from a full bag of phone electronics, but I had to leave the rest behind since they were too bulky to carry, and not that popular enough to resell.
  • Shipment weight of 1 lb 14 oz before flat rate USPS packaging was used to cut costs.

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Vintage Video Camera Handle/Battery Cover:

  • Sold online for $45.
  • I found the complete popular camera in its case with sealed new film, but old batteries leaked badly to ruin something inside.
  • When batteries leak, you usually just have to scrape the coils to clear the connection path, but this was beyond that.
  • Repair was likely possible, but it’d be too intensive, and I didn’t have the expertise.
  • I parted the camera out and will sell the pieces slowly.
  • If it worked, it’d be an easy $250 sale. The camera was in a time capsule and pristine minus the battery issue.
  • Shipping weight of 3 oz.

...I also found this with a large fake Chanel bag that got me a little excited for about half a day before I wised up. I usually keep my cool until I fully confirm what I have, but I allowed myself to break that rule a little.

Proof as always:

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  • 6 sales / $463 revenue = $77.67 per find (a little low for my average, but I’m human)
  • 0% of revenue received as cash.
  • Revenue is before any fees or shipment.
  • No costs. Can’t beat that.
  • Yes to more vacuums. Not thrilling, but the money I get from them is.

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I’m posting 5-6 examples here to spread out the recent results since I don’t have millions of examples. I’m also being more detailed for each as you can see, a fair trade versus my typical 10 examples with less info.

The amount of items here in no way shape or form correlates to the amount of effort I put into finding, restoring, fixing, selling and shipping them. My effort is intended to help the environment, others, and to support myself so I can keep doing this while patiently waiting for crypto to do its thing. It’s been almost 6 years since I worked for anyone else, or at all... These things are my rewards.

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Recent Active Posts With More:

Thanks for your interest,
Matt

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Best thing I've found lately is some of the discontinued/banned Dr. Seuss books. Can't sell them on eBay, but they were going for about $300 each

Wait, I won’t cheat and check Google. What banned Dr. Seuss books!? They’re outside from time to time and I just leave them. I need to check more thoroughly for whatever you’re talking about.

The company that owns the Dr. Seuss books announced several weeks ago that they would no longer print or sell a handful of books, like "And to Think I saw it on Mulberry Street" and the "Cat's Quizzer" due to racist caricatures and content. They then started selling like crazy on the secondhand market like eBay. However, very quickly, eBay banned the sale of those titles sometime around March 6th on it's platform. I think they can still be sold on Amazon

Also pretty sure I had that physics book lol

 3 years ago  

Thanks for posting great content to the ecoTrain community! Your post has been featured in our weekly curation,, CONGRATS!! Why not stop by and check out a few other posts, theres many great ones this week!

https://peakd.com/hive-123046/@ecotrain/whats-up-from-the-ecotrain-community-season-2-4-sustainable-off-grid-living--more

Always a blast seeing what you find... and what you get for it!

I'm on a serious gold drought. I've been watching too many metal detector videos on YouTube to make this more of an urgent issue than it realistically should be given that I'm just walking about my curbs. Maybe I'll make a post about some of the jewelry I've accumulated to kick off the law of attraction.

Outstanding. What an incredible mixed bag of things!
Love the camera, that’s very cool.

I’m blown away by how many vacuum parts you seem to find (there’s often one in each of your posts) and how relatively easy they seem to be to sell.

Ace stuff

The camera was a shame to find with the battery issue because it was literally untouched for decades in its case and gem mint. It also had a tape in it that I wanted to see, but I kept it for another time. Ironically, I have an absurd amount of vacuum stuff. I just show some of the notable ones to not be the vacuum guy here. If you think about it, every household has one or two, and there are a ton of households here. With people being wealthy to toss their old one for new, or just lazy to not investigate a simple issue or clog, they are literally everywhere. I'd say that they're one of the most common things out there, so I have no choice to take the good ones. Only a few key parts for certain popular or high end models can often sum to far more than I'd get if I sold the entire unit for cash.

That’s a very good point when you put it like that.
I think my dad fixed his Dyson with a spare part from eBay.

Worth salvaging if they’re in good condition!