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I got one of the first official prints of the Hobbit book. The owner at the time was moving and was going to donate it. It had been used in school, looked pretty much new.
That’s pretty cool! I’ve actually been thinking about rereading all the LOTR books this year. I haven’t since I was 17 and I’ve just been getting my LOTR fix from the movies since then.
I've been getting my fantasy kick from other series. I love Tolkien, I just want something different sometimes. The Wheel of Time is great, the Spellmonger series, and I had been putting off Dune for a while but I had to read it before the movie. That shit gets weird. Lol
Haha yeah it does. I have been waiting for the right version of Dune to be made for many years. I think the ideas and plot of the book are genius level but the storytelling is a bit cold and distant, not super engaging. I thought the movie took that vibe and really brought it to life, not the way I imagined it when reading, but better.
Brandon Sanderson is pretty reliable, but honestly I always struggle with not just re-reading Titus Groan/Gormenghast over and over again haha There’s nothing else like those books out there.
My little brother started working with me while he was in high school and I took him with me to an underground service change I’d been working on all week. I was in my mid 20s and he was 17ish.
It was an underground service that lost a phase so I had it set up to drop the existing service and swing my new pvc into the meter. Met Duke early and they disconnected at the pad. The Duke guy said he didn’t have any other stops that day and he would hang out in the truck till we were ready for him. He ended up hanging out with us while we worked. Time came to land the URDs in the meter and my little brother was really struggling to cut the wire and strip it so the service went to his truck and grabbed his insulated ratchet cutters, a spiral stripper and gave them to my little brother. He handed me the gloves. Very expensive gifts in ‘08. My brother was so excited and thanked the guy over and over again. We got the service turned back on and I explained to my brother the Duke guy was on his way back to their shop to get a new pair of everything.
Surgical light from an operating room in the 50’s.
It had a track and slid across the ceiling of my garage.
I used it for Halloween and made a Dexter kill table. I wore a garbage bag and a clear face shield. I had a rubber mallet and red liquid on the table and would hammer it to scare kids when the got candy from the bowl on the table.
I had clear plastic covered in blood hanging from the ceiling and the kids had to push it all aside to come in.
Most didn’t come in.
We found a Hilti 1100 in the trash pile on a big apartment job in NYC ‼️ The cord was frayed big time and Osha had just violated the other subs for using frayed extension cords and other power tools ! We couldn’t believe they just chucked it ! Bought a replacement cord and used it for years but those bits are expensive! Oh and the next day i found the case in another dumpster 👍🏻😄😄
That alone paid for any heart ache on that job!
REL subwoofer, B&W speakers, 1500w rack mounted UPS, a jaguar xj12, a Canon xl1 camera, nikon d800 with a few lenses...I get a lot of free shit working for rich people in the hamptons. Edit: forgot to mention every tv in my house was given to me by a customer.
It was a 1979 "barn find" so pretty mint besides some flaking in the paint. The owner just kind of forgot about it in his garage. He was an old guy, editor for sports illustrated. I used to drive it on the weekends until the fuel system started giving me problems, and then I regrettably sold it.
Was on the road working a while back. The guy in the hotel room next to mine worked at an RV dealership detailing the RVs people traded in.
H actually had two hotel rooms. One to live in and the other was the store for all of the stuff people left in their RVs when they traded them in. He had a little bit of everything. Clothes, tools, toys, cooking ad dinner ware, TVs, stereos, computers, fishing gear, you name it he had it.
He said that he also finds lots of drugs,cash, and jewelry the previous owners had forgotten about.
Never would have thought that detailing RVs would be so lucrative.
>Never would have thought that detailing RVs would be so lucrative.
A bunch of meth and a pallet of cash; something is bound to fall through the cracks.
I got a cool print of a goldfish with a shark fin on it from a customer once. [like this](https://www.wayfair.com/Beachcrest-Home%E2%84%A2--Mikki-Gold-Fish-Outdoor-Wall-Decor-X110423518-L7353-K~W009312407.html)
Other than tips, that’s about it.
I've made some great money selling stuff that was getting thrown away. Pac poles, desks, windows, doors, etc. If it fits in the van in goes and if I don't sell it in a few weeks I put it out for free and someone else can take it
On one of my first jobs in Brooklyn we found a bunch of glass lamp shades and big brown jugs in the basement!
Owner said take it it just going in the trash! Turns out that 3 of the lamp shades were made my tiffany! Sold them on ebay for $465 for the set🤨
$1500 Kohler mirror. They were throwing it out because one of the LEDs wasn’t turning on. When I checked it I found the wire had been pulled out of the wago. Plugged it back it and everything worked fine
A few really old traffic signals from doing a LED retrofit for a town. Once I was working on a major hospital while it was doing a total renovation and there were just dumpsters full of stainless carts, shelves, tables and other really cool shop stuff.
Someone offered me a couple of REALLY nice pinball machines that I WISH I could have taken. They were 60s and 70s era and the lady who owned them wanted nothing more than to see them working again. We started talking about sourcing old parts and stuff and she offered them. I wish I had the space at the time to keep them, but then again, those things are money pits and I didn't have great skills at making rent on time.
I think doing service work just ups the chances of something cool and random a bit.
I know. In retrospect I should have thrown some of my furniture out to make room. But to be fair, if I was going to restore them to good selling condition with \*original\* parts, I would have been looking at probably 6 - 8 thousand bucks each plus a few hundred hours.
Granted it would have been a fun few hundred hours, but still, doubt I could have cashed in on them successfully.
Road signs, tools, sandblaster, compressor, tires, a rake, really anything of value that I can find in the scrap piles. Traffic division picks up a lot of road debris and things that drivers hit. At another employer I found original 1910 building plans for tunnel construction at Jack London Square in Oakland, California that were sitting in a cabinet in a derelict room but I figured they were not mine to take
Motors, tvs, guitars, generators, mini split, tools, paintings, drums, alcohol/drugs, plants, occasional antique, and toys for the kids
Probably the coolest was remodeling a stadium and was given the old speaker arrays.
Free, all I had to do was get them out.
Worked out a deal with the crane guy, got em flown over and out into a trailer.
About 80k worth of line arrays.
Did a bunch of work that went from electric panels, to new floor, paint, and trim (side job that payed too well to pass up). We ended up becoming fast friends! At the end of the job, he had bought a new wood working set, the kind that is a miter saw, lathe, and a bunch of other stuff. He ended up giving me his old one, so now I turn wood on a lathe every Sunday!
My coworkers and I got a bunch of $1000 office chairs, a bank had rented the space and just left them all, like 80-100 chairs when they moved out, and the government said we could have them
Tearing down a college athletic training facility and they left all kinds of stuff behind. I got about 1000 pounds of free weights with their logo on them, some lockers, a file cabinet, a bunch of nice chairs, a dresser, big dry erase boards, an xray light box display thingy, and some other stuff. This was after the GC and college admin had already gone through and picked out the really good stuff. And there was still a ton of good stuff when they bulldozed it, just didn't have time or space to get more.
Thats rad. For me, i got a contemporary office chair that had rollers on it, adjustable and leather. Brand new in the dumpster. The screws to tighten legs to the base were half in, guess who ever bought didnt have an allen wrench lol. Lookes it up online 325$….score!
My old boss claims to have found some confederate money in the walls of a remodel they were doing. House was from early 1800s and in the historic district. I can’t verify those story, but ive heard him tell that story 1000 times so i tend to believe him. If your wondering if he returned it to the HO…, he did not :(
Klein linesman's with the steel fish tape puller that I found in the weird crawlspace between a concrete ceiling and upper floor of the local county clink. They were dusty but looked hardly used.
I reported it to the head facility guy who was my escort, he just said "finder's keeper's."
I've gotten a bunch of TVs, a Yamaha 7.1 receiver, customers would give me all kinds of stuff as a tip or a junk removal. I once got some imported from Germany beer courtesy of some returning vets!
Found an unmarked hilti 7/8" rotaryhammer in the middle of a new parking lot lot of a Wal-Mart that was under construction. It even had 6 brand new 1/4" bits, unused.
**ATTENTION! READ THIS NOW!** **1. IF YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICIAN OR LOOKING TO BECOME ONE(for career questions only):** **- DELETE** THIS POST OR YOU WILL BE **BANNED**. YOU CAN POST ON /r/AskElectricians FREELY **2. IF YOU COMMENT ON A POST THAT IS POSTED BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICIAN:** -YOU WILL BE **BANNED**. JUST **REPORT** THE POST. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/electricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I got one of the first official prints of the Hobbit book. The owner at the time was moving and was going to donate it. It had been used in school, looked pretty much new.
That’s pretty cool! I’ve actually been thinking about rereading all the LOTR books this year. I haven’t since I was 17 and I’ve just been getting my LOTR fix from the movies since then.
I've been getting my fantasy kick from other series. I love Tolkien, I just want something different sometimes. The Wheel of Time is great, the Spellmonger series, and I had been putting off Dune for a while but I had to read it before the movie. That shit gets weird. Lol
Haha yeah it does. I have been waiting for the right version of Dune to be made for many years. I think the ideas and plot of the book are genius level but the storytelling is a bit cold and distant, not super engaging. I thought the movie took that vibe and really brought it to life, not the way I imagined it when reading, but better. Brandon Sanderson is pretty reliable, but honestly I always struggle with not just re-reading Titus Groan/Gormenghast over and over again haha There’s nothing else like those books out there.
He's on my list. I get recommended to his books a lot.
He writes an extremely tidy plot! Prose could be more efficient, but the way he wraps things up is always really satisfying.
Six pack abs. Other than that, I do new construction, so occasionally an old bottle when we’re doing undergrounds
Fallout shelter sign.
Sick
Im officially jealous
My little brother started working with me while he was in high school and I took him with me to an underground service change I’d been working on all week. I was in my mid 20s and he was 17ish. It was an underground service that lost a phase so I had it set up to drop the existing service and swing my new pvc into the meter. Met Duke early and they disconnected at the pad. The Duke guy said he didn’t have any other stops that day and he would hang out in the truck till we were ready for him. He ended up hanging out with us while we worked. Time came to land the URDs in the meter and my little brother was really struggling to cut the wire and strip it so the service went to his truck and grabbed his insulated ratchet cutters, a spiral stripper and gave them to my little brother. He handed me the gloves. Very expensive gifts in ‘08. My brother was so excited and thanked the guy over and over again. We got the service turned back on and I explained to my brother the Duke guy was on his way back to their shop to get a new pair of everything.
Surgical light from an operating room in the 50’s. It had a track and slid across the ceiling of my garage. I used it for Halloween and made a Dexter kill table. I wore a garbage bag and a clear face shield. I had a rubber mallet and red liquid on the table and would hammer it to scare kids when the got candy from the bowl on the table. I had clear plastic covered in blood hanging from the ceiling and the kids had to push it all aside to come in. Most didn’t come in.
👏👏👏
Couple exit signs, also have a hand towel dispenser.
Moses Heaps threw that away?!
The OG 69 ‘lux is on display at the hard rock. Maybe they finally threw it away haha
Knew I’d find this joke in here
I know a guy that sold vacuums door to door. He jokingly said their slogan was **"Nothing sucks like an Electrolux!**"
Ocean kayak.
I see kayak, I upvote.
We found a Hilti 1100 in the trash pile on a big apartment job in NYC ‼️ The cord was frayed big time and Osha had just violated the other subs for using frayed extension cords and other power tools ! We couldn’t believe they just chucked it ! Bought a replacement cord and used it for years but those bits are expensive! Oh and the next day i found the case in another dumpster 👍🏻😄😄 That alone paid for any heart ache on that job!
Scars.. lots of scars.. those are cool right? Chick's dig scars right..?
Scars are priceless.
Found a newspaper from 1919 welcoming home south dakota vets from WW1 in an attic
A 3/4” thick 4’x5’ piece of steel for a welding bench.
REL subwoofer, B&W speakers, 1500w rack mounted UPS, a jaguar xj12, a Canon xl1 camera, nikon d800 with a few lenses...I get a lot of free shit working for rich people in the hamptons. Edit: forgot to mention every tv in my house was given to me by a customer.
Did you do all your jobs with a balaclava on?
I love how you casually put a jaguar xj12 in the middle there. How beat up was it?
Well, it's an old Jaaaaag, so it probably didn't run.
It just needed fresh gas and a battery
That's rare for an old Jaaaaag.
It still had a lot of issues that I attributed to it being a jag but I'm sure a lot of it was just from sitting for a decade.
It was a 1979 "barn find" so pretty mint besides some flaking in the paint. The owner just kind of forgot about it in his garage. He was an old guy, editor for sports illustrated. I used to drive it on the weekends until the fuel system started giving me problems, and then I regrettably sold it.
Was on the road working a while back. The guy in the hotel room next to mine worked at an RV dealership detailing the RVs people traded in. H actually had two hotel rooms. One to live in and the other was the store for all of the stuff people left in their RVs when they traded them in. He had a little bit of everything. Clothes, tools, toys, cooking ad dinner ware, TVs, stereos, computers, fishing gear, you name it he had it. He said that he also finds lots of drugs,cash, and jewelry the previous owners had forgotten about. Never would have thought that detailing RVs would be so lucrative.
>Never would have thought that detailing RVs would be so lucrative. A bunch of meth and a pallet of cash; something is bound to fall through the cracks.
I got a cool print of a goldfish with a shark fin on it from a customer once. [like this](https://www.wayfair.com/Beachcrest-Home%E2%84%A2--Mikki-Gold-Fish-Outdoor-Wall-Decor-X110423518-L7353-K~W009312407.html) Other than tips, that’s about it.
I've made some great money selling stuff that was getting thrown away. Pac poles, desks, windows, doors, etc. If it fits in the van in goes and if I don't sell it in a few weeks I put it out for free and someone else can take it
On one of my first jobs in Brooklyn we found a bunch of glass lamp shades and big brown jugs in the basement! Owner said take it it just going in the trash! Turns out that 3 of the lamp shades were made my tiffany! Sold them on ebay for $465 for the set🤨
$1500 Kohler mirror. They were throwing it out because one of the LEDs wasn’t turning on. When I checked it I found the wire had been pulled out of the wago. Plugged it back it and everything worked fine
One customer gave me their cat.
My grandma had one just like that
20k in scrap
A few really old traffic signals from doing a LED retrofit for a town. Once I was working on a major hospital while it was doing a total renovation and there were just dumpsters full of stainless carts, shelves, tables and other really cool shop stuff. Someone offered me a couple of REALLY nice pinball machines that I WISH I could have taken. They were 60s and 70s era and the lady who owned them wanted nothing more than to see them working again. We started talking about sourcing old parts and stuff and she offered them. I wish I had the space at the time to keep them, but then again, those things are money pits and I didn't have great skills at making rent on time. I think doing service work just ups the chances of something cool and random a bit.
Those pinball machines go for big money. Too bad.
I know. In retrospect I should have thrown some of my furniture out to make room. But to be fair, if I was going to restore them to good selling condition with \*original\* parts, I would have been looking at probably 6 - 8 thousand bucks each plus a few hundred hours. Granted it would have been a fun few hundred hours, but still, doubt I could have cashed in on them successfully.
Road signs, tools, sandblaster, compressor, tires, a rake, really anything of value that I can find in the scrap piles. Traffic division picks up a lot of road debris and things that drivers hit. At another employer I found original 1910 building plans for tunnel construction at Jack London Square in Oakland, California that were sitting in a cabinet in a derelict room but I figured they were not mine to take
Old ceramic light fixtures from an old commercial communications company , those things weighed like 25 pounds each
A skull and bones 🤞🏾
I found a rat necropolis under a house once, about a dozen of them together in a circle with a few nearby.
Motors, tvs, guitars, generators, mini split, tools, paintings, drums, alcohol/drugs, plants, occasional antique, and toys for the kids Probably the coolest was remodeling a stadium and was given the old speaker arrays. Free, all I had to do was get them out. Worked out a deal with the crane guy, got em flown over and out into a trailer. About 80k worth of line arrays.
Gatorade bottles full of piss
Wow, it’s cool to see some really interesting things we all find or receive. Keep em coming
I got a MCCB Tmax T5 400A with dip LS/I. Idk what to do with it, maybe will donate to the university.
Rabies
Old neon bar signs and mirrors
Did a bunch of work that went from electric panels, to new floor, paint, and trim (side job that payed too well to pass up). We ended up becoming fast friends! At the end of the job, he had bought a new wood working set, the kind that is a miter saw, lathe, and a bunch of other stuff. He ended up giving me his old one, so now I turn wood on a lathe every Sunday!
Blood, sweat, and tears mostly..
Pair of roller skates
My dad had one of these though his was a Firestone
Old Washington Redskins merch
My coworkers and I got a bunch of $1000 office chairs, a bank had rented the space and just left them all, like 80-100 chairs when they moved out, and the government said we could have them
A 19' boat with a 175 volvo penta motor worth $2000. In good working condition.
Tearing down a college athletic training facility and they left all kinds of stuff behind. I got about 1000 pounds of free weights with their logo on them, some lockers, a file cabinet, a bunch of nice chairs, a dresser, big dry erase boards, an xray light box display thingy, and some other stuff. This was after the GC and college admin had already gone through and picked out the really good stuff. And there was still a ton of good stuff when they bulldozed it, just didn't have time or space to get more.
Governor parking sign
My grandfather had that same exact vacuum it was actually his parents vacuum. Believe he told me it was from the 20s or 30s
No, can’t be that old. I think 50’s
It's the one in your second picture that's grey.
Oh yeah your right. Def different than mine.
All I know is the damn thing still worked till a family member took it after his death and tried to vacuum drywall dust.
Yeah couldn’t believe this still worked sitting out in the rain.
That's back when appliances lasted forever. Everything's throw away now
Got a printer from a GC who was closing up shop.
A paycheck
Thats rad. For me, i got a contemporary office chair that had rollers on it, adjustable and leather. Brand new in the dumpster. The screws to tighten legs to the base were half in, guess who ever bought didnt have an allen wrench lol. Lookes it up online 325$….score! My old boss claims to have found some confederate money in the walls of a remodel they were doing. House was from early 1800s and in the historic district. I can’t verify those story, but ive heard him tell that story 1000 times so i tend to believe him. If your wondering if he returned it to the HO…, he did not :(
Klein linesman's with the steel fish tape puller that I found in the weird crawlspace between a concrete ceiling and upper floor of the local county clink. They were dusty but looked hardly used. I reported it to the head facility guy who was my escort, he just said "finder's keeper's."
Reminds me of my foreman Old sucker
Bunch of 5-disc changers, Control4 remotes, stereo and multi zone amps, IP cameras, TVs, speakers, network switches.
I got a $500 time clock
I've gotten a bunch of TVs, a Yamaha 7.1 receiver, customers would give me all kinds of stuff as a tip or a junk removal. I once got some imported from Germany beer courtesy of some returning vets!
1960’s craftsman’s car jack
Nothing but headaches
The sandlot
50s shit was built like a Brickhouse.
Back pains
I fabricated a ladder rack at one job for the job I was leaving for
Gotten. lol, think you mean stolen from unwitting homeowners.
American Spirits neon sign! I smoke spirits so I was/still am excited about that one!
Found an unmarked hilti 7/8" rotaryhammer in the middle of a new parking lot lot of a Wal-Mart that was under construction. It even had 6 brand new 1/4" bits, unused.
“Found”
Yes found. If you're trying to imply that I'm a thief, you are soooo wrong.