Any collectors here?

Last year I was babysitting a receiver for a 1-hour static session across the street from a commercial building a guy was cleaning out.?ÿ I saw him toss (with some effort) an old paint striping machine into the dumpster, so I wandered over and asked if he minded if I salvaged some parts.?ÿ I came away with a nifty pressure relief valve, a control valve, some heavy-duty wheels and tires, and a few other bits.?ÿ It was a fun way to pass the time.?ÿ The relief valve is solid brass, and it polished up nicely.?ÿ It's sitting on my desk as I type.

Posted by: Jim Frame

Last year I was babysitting a receiver for a 1-hour static session across the street from a commercial building a guy was cleaning out.?ÿ I saw him toss (with some effort) an old paint striping machine into the dumpster, so I wandered over and asked if he minded if I salvaged some parts.?ÿ I came away with a nifty pressure relief valve, a control valve, some heavy-duty wheels and tires, and a few other bits.?ÿ It was a fun way to pass the time.?ÿ The relief valve is solid brass, and it polished up nicely.?ÿ It's sitting on my desk as I type.

It is obvious that you are probably a junker which begs to question.....Are you a dumpster diver? Not judging, I have been know to glance from time to time if I am around a business that looks like it might discard useful items but I have never taken the plunge.

I have never found new wheels and tires and pressure relief valves either.

Are you a dumpster diver?

I've never actually climbed into one, but I've executed a few extraction operations.

I collect bottle and can openers, the old steel type.

They are small and take little space, and every garage or yard sale I go to has at least one or two to choose from.

I collect brass garden hose nozzles. There I said it. Don't send me any because I have no room for more. My wife had a couple of cute wooden shoes sitting around which has multiplied rabbit like by friends and family sending us them.?ÿ

When I was a boy my father used to drag me all over the place in search of old bottles. Growing up where I did there was a lot of areas that had old family dumps from the 1800's where they would throw stuff and he was always in search of the "mother lode" hoping to strike it rich with some old obscure and rare bottle. He does have some rather valuable bottles but I care not for any of it. Then it became metal detecting. And he found a fair amount of silver coins and other old coins that has some real value but again I cared not for it. So I guess the collecting gene skipped me as I do not have the "passion" for it.

My mother collects little bells, the hand ringing variety and she has them displayed all over the bloody place in curio cabinets and it is a point of pride for her to have her pretty little bells displayed like a museum display. Again, I never saw the point of it.

I just wanted to go fishing or squirrel or rabbit hunting.

I've never been a hard-core collector. I keep what I like--so while I have had almost complete collections of several authors, I've winnowed those down, and other authors, by getting rid of any fiction book that 'I am unlikely to reread.' That has included some Heinlein, McCaffrey, MZB (I should get rid of more now that I know more of her personal predilections), Zelazny. I've almost completely switched over to ebooks for new stuff, although I still buy dead tree versions of authors that I really like (Martha Wells, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, others). I'm *trying* to get rid of hard copies when I have ebook versions, but it's really hard. Having ebooks has allowed me to get rid of a lot of duplicate books (backup reading copies).

Beyond that, I have a decent-sized collection of Japanese language textbooks, books on Geisha and Maiko, Japanese art particularly 20th century Shin Hanga (traditional woodblock print style like Kawase Hasui and Yoshida), and general cultural books. I have a small collection of books on WWII POW camps, particularly Japanese ones, triggered by seeing the A Town Like Alice miniseries in the late '70s, followed by reading the book.

I was a huge comic book reader as a kid up until I was 35-40. I got rid of a bunch when I moved to California, then about half when I was pregnant. I never speculated--buying issues because they might be worth something some day. I still get Usagi Yojimbo (Rabbit Bodyguard), an amazing story by Stan Sakai. A few creators are currently running new miniseries/followups. I've been reading those as ebooks and will probably get the graphic novels when they're released.

And I have a ton of miscellaneous stuff. I really need to do some weeding.

Just books. Mostly non fiction pre-1900s.?ÿ Being born in rural Maine, I am a natural junker.?ÿ It is almost painful for me to throw anything away. I think the Maine state motto should be, "You, ain't gonna throw that out ahh-yuh"?

It seems that I have a small collection of railroad "date nails" and a collection of "flattened" coins. The coins are of the "flattened" on a railroad track by me or the kids and quite a few of the ones "flattened" by those machines at various tourist spots. Friends and family have gotten me a few from various islands and other far away places they have been. Now I just need to figure out how to display them an leave room for more!

?ÿ

Found a collection at today's office:

What is/are that?

Monitors. The collection also extends about 20m (60ft) behind me (the photographer), and it's growing - yesterday it was about 3m (10ft) short of the monument.

That is incredible.

Richard, I gotta say, I have found monitors to be rather durable and rarely seem to go bad anymore and that is very likely an incredible waste.

I found this last week. I wanted to take it home but it's down a steep hill. I wish I was doing this job before the snow. It looks like there are all kinds of goodies under there and there are 3 dump sites on the property.

Gregg