craigslist freebies... - Page 3

Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Thanks phred59! I'll keep that in mind, although I'm not much into fixing things such as appliances. Never had much appitude for it. The wifey said she's not much into having big appliances in the garage and I really don't have the logistics to haul them anyway unless I use her van. Need a country place that has more room & buildings but I don't think that's going to happen for a while...

I'm not talking necessarily about big appliances. But smaller items that power up but wont function often have a really simple thing wrong with them.

I'll use this as an example and maybe it will help you once or twice when you are about to tear into something.



I took a Keurig coffee machine from a friend because they said it was wore out and not working. I took it home, cleaned out the needles at the top and bottom, they were jammed full of coffee grounds. I used a needle that I stole out of my wife's sewing kit. Plugged it in, popped a mug under it, and it worked fine. Now being the friend that I am, I took it back to it's owner and told him he owed me a 6 pack so I didn't burn my gas fixing his $hit for no reason. But had it been from someone that I did not know. I would have had that thing up on CL and sold for $20-$30 within hours. How much would that thing been worth in scrap? IDK exactly, but I'm guessing $1 or less. Hardly required any intense labor or ability.

Whenever you pick stuff up for free, always ask the person giving it to you what was wrong with it if you can. Sometimes it will just be sitting and that's not an option. But if it is, it can eliminate troubleshooting completely. My favorite is dishwashers that "leak"

Change the rubber seals on the door, and that usually cures the issue, and then you can sell that off without tearing it apart.

Personally, If I have time and space. I will take whatever it is, plug it in and see if I can figure out what's wrong. If I can, I do... if I can't... well... bone yard time. But since I am a hobby scrapper and usually mess with eWaste more than anything else, I can do that sort of thing. I'm not turning things over as fast as possible so I can pay my bills like some other guys. Which there is nothing wrong with, I just have more flexibility. And a lot less volume.

I haven't posted on this thread for a while. Its been a slow winter for me finding CL freebies. My youth involvement activities, ebay re-selling, and putting up fur during my free time has kept me busy. Besides its cold in the garage.

Anyway, last night I responded to an ad of a guy who had about 20 computer drives, mostly cd/rws and cds but also a 3.5 inch and 5.25 inch floppy. The 5.25 being so old seem to do well on ebay. He says they all work. I thought for sure someone would have sniped them already but the guy responded this morning that he'd be home. He lives in one of the bedroom towns about 20 miles one way from my place (but almost all nice freeway driving). If I would have known no one else had contacted him, I would have seen if I could have picked them up tomorrow on my way to the bro's to pick up eggs. So it goes...

He had them all boxed up for me and asked if I wanted some power supplies as well (4). Sure. He had tried to sell the drives on the local CL but had no takers. He thought they were too heavy to ship on ebay (I smiled inside when I heard this). I don't know if all the drives will sell (haven't cataloged/researched them yet) but even if they go for a 2-3 bucks over scrap value, I'd be happy (I'll be interested to see if that 5.25 drive sells). Otherwise, I break everything down while watching tv in the garage (spring is supposedly coming!!).

Originally Posted by DakotaRog

Here's a little story of never know what to expect with things. I saw a CL "curb alert" about a month or so ago in my bedroom town and stopped by after work. Not much for scrap there but a small pile of older license plates and some sort of home-made giant "dust pan" with a steel conduit handle (the thing wouldn't fit into the car so came back the next day with a wrench and took it apart and then it fit). Anyway, the first stop I took the license plates. If nothing else 4 lbs. of light steel.

I tbhought I'd run the license plates by ebay first before they hit the tin pile. There were 9 total; 6 from SD (2 different styles) and 3 from AZ. Late 1990s through early 200os. There seemed to be some market for license plates so threw them up on ebay last week starting at $4.95 (one of my default prices for small stuff). Knew there might be interested when a border hugging Canuk (if this is insulting to those up further north, its not meant to be...) asked what they'd cost going to a friend of his in the states. Picked up 5 watchers before this past Sunday when they closed. That morning someone made the first bid. Cool. Better than 20 cents of steel. About 2 hours before the close it had risen to $17+. Right on!! An hour before the close it had gone to $34+. Fantastic!! And there it closed. Not bad for a quick freebie stop

Here's a pix of the plates. P.S. I wonder if SD plates with maybe a million vehicles tops being licensed are more difficult to find than say OH with probably 20 million plated vehicles for people building collections??

I collected license plates for nearly 20 years (Age 6 to about age 23) At one time I had over 6,000 license plates from all over the world.
As some advice on the plates. Some dudes like to collect specific counties to make a run
Unfortunately, current or recent plates like this are about $1 each on a good day.
When I pull plates off cars I scrap.. they just end up in the Aluminum bin to be scrapped.

Sawmill... if that plate is in nice shape with its original paint.. you are looking at a nice payday! Old plates with original paint are becoming harder and harder to come by.. and collectors gobble them.. license plates are graded like baseball cards.. and one of the reasons I got out of collecting was because business and cut throat prices took the fun out of it. I know guys who put 2nd mortgages on their houses to buy plates.. Check out ALPCA that is the worldwide plate collecting association

Sawmill-
Hopefully this link will show up from the Sold Listing of Ebay
$35 bucks for a decent 1930 BC.. if paint is better or you have a pair.. mmmmm good day
British Columbia 1930 Passenger Plate 5 699 | eBay

Sawmill-
Old habits die hard.. I haven't collected plates in years.. but I still look immediately at plates on every vehicle.. someone brings up license plates in a thread.. Oooh.. it's ON like Donkey Kong!

Is the SATA to USB a reader or an external drive?

A license plate story and then I have to do some work.

In my 9-5 paycheck job, we used to do a few field work trips a year. Usually we flew some place, picked up a rental vehicle, drove around 1-2k miles of back roads to our observed locations, took a lot of geo-referenced field photos and notes on general land use characteristics, and then flew home.

But once in a while we could do a trip from our home base using one of "our" vehicles and save on a rental and its gas (you'd be stunned how much inter- and intra- government charging one another goes on even though we all eventually work for the same government--an accountant full employment act!!). Anyway, we did q week long trip from se SD and got as far north and west as Great Falls, MT and back down, although the last day and half was all open highway miles without any field stops on the way back).

During this trip, we had a young French PhD student along who was working with us that summer. Anyway, he was fascinated about how everything was bigger in the USA and taking him across the Dakotas and Montana, his eyes got even wider. But he loved all the different state (and provincial) license plates that he was seeing and took pictures of them when ever he could. This made me a little nervous, especially if someone saw him pile out of a fed gov plated vehicle, take pixs of other cars license plates, and get back in. I had to curb his enthusiasm several times on the trip, the most memorable was at a c-store stop on an Indian Reservation in eastern MT. I was glad to get out of there!! I think in the end, he got about 30+ different state and province plates. Not bad for a week long trip, although we were sort of on the way to Yellowstone on several occasions.

When I started Collecting License Plates in 1982.. my dad is an old car guy.. he would go to junkyards to hunt car parts and I would go along with him for dad/son bonding time. Still to this day to walk into a junkyard and wonder how many hidden treasures there are there.. still gives me a tingle. At that time the Honeycomb boxed cereal were giving away a little bike sized license plate in each box. One day we went to a car show and my father would give my sister and I both $5 to spend that day.

I stumbled upon a gentleman who was selling nothing but license plates. I told my dad I wanted to use my money to buy some "REAL ONES" and that day.. 5 plates.. $5 and as they say the rest is history. My dad was a member of the Buick Club and he had an international roster. We sent letters to darn near every person in it.. in the letter the last line was "Postage refunded upon request" My first package that arrived came from Australia and it was over $50 in postage, my father said "I'm going to go broke"

The man was a kind gentleman.. sent me a stack of plates and a letter about himself and his registration system in Australia. He was retired.. his family owned 2 cattle ranches in the outback.. the small one was half a million acres! He said at the end of the letter "Don't worry about the postage.. I'm loaded"

That man came to visit us on 2 separate occasions and stayed at our house. Every few years he would go on a worldwide tour with his Jaguar club and sometimes it landed him in the states. I met a lot of AWESOME human beings in my time collecting.. but somewhere around 1989 1990 it all began to change. Junkyards no longer gave plates to me (I used to walk out with ARMFULLS and they said "Eh take em" Plate collecting became more about bragging rights to a lot of guys than fun.. I was growing up too and the cute 6 year old who people gave plates too wasn't such a cute youngster anymore. I had a ball in my time with it though. I was in the local paper.. they did a huge story about me.. which the local news station picked up.. I then got to be on the local CBS news.. and then the biggest AM radio station (which was bigger than FM at that time) a guy called me to give me his personal license plates and put me on the air. For a 9 year old boy.. it is still one of the best years of my life.

Ahh.. those were the days