My best dump find ever

Most of you know I have hardware disease and can't pass a landfill site with out dropping over the fence.

A lot of WWII Spitfire and Lancaster aircraft parts had been showing up at the landfill in Sandy Lake, I gave the instrumentation a go on fleabay with no takers so most went back to the dump.

On one of my trips I find this doughnut shaped thing painted army green so I bring it home and give google a work out nd find out it's flame thrower nick named the Lifebuoy because of its odd shape.



Missing is the round canister that holds the pressurised nitrogen used to propel the napalm, nasty piece of equipment. Goes on to say the enemy hated the flame thrower operators so much that they would execute any they came across.

Ok now that we know more than we need to know, I listed this on ebay, had two outside offers at $1500.00 which I turned down then an offer came to cancel the auction and sell at $2500.00 plus shipping and my incoming Paypal fees associated with the incoming funds.

Now we know how much a WWII flame thrower is worth,, because I accepted the offer. At the time I had cancelled the auction bids were at $500.00 with three days to go.

Yours truly,

I'm confused so u climbed over a fence to take this from a landfill?

Cool find and congrats... but you blatantly violated Ebay's policy, and then bragged about it on a public forum...

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

I'm confused so u climbed over a fence to take this from a landfill?

Dropping over the fence was intended as black humour.

Here's a list of the landfill sites that I frequently visit, the caretakers will even help load a heavy item.

McCreary good for electronic waste. sometimes a good find in the metal pile.
Ameranth a few electronics and not much of anything else
Glenella good for electronics the odd surprise shows up in the way of antiques.
Plumas used to be very good for electronics along with the odd treasure.
Arden the odd computer, some copper pipe and wire.
Eden good for electronics, vintage lamps and other goodies
Erickson a gold mine, I find catalytic converters complete or guts in a bag here on occasion, good for electronics.
Onanole electronics and other treasures, when someone dies at the old age home they toss out all the deceased's personal possessions.
Elphinstone recently got 800 lbs of vintage video arcade boards, always good for electronics
Oakburn sometimes a deceased belongings will get tossed otherwise not much of anything shows up at this site.
Rossburn no electronics but good for other finds of interest.
Russell a border town serves two provinces a gold mine for electronics
Sandy Lake a gold mine, this is where I found the flame thrower.

I keep a note book with the names of the caretakers along with a notation to their personality's the odd one is crazier than me.

If we leave early in the day we cam hit everyone of these sites.

One of my treasures a very old Hudson Bay box made from wood with painted rope and bow, turned out this was one of the three sizes they offered as Christmas hampers that you could order for friends and family living afar. Sold for $500.00 on ebay.

Here is a detailed item list of what each hamper contained along with the price of the hamper.

Hamper No. 54
Price $3.00
(Weight 30 pounds)
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Niagara Port
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Sherry
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Special Native
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Calawba
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Ginger Wine
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Claret
6 bottles

Hamper No. 55
Price $4.50
(Weight 30 pounds)
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Brandy
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Claret
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay London Dock Port
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Old Rye
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Sherry
1 bottle Hudson’s Bay Scotch
6 bottles

Some were food and assorted items.

Hamper No. 66
Price $7.50
(Approximate weight 45 pounds)
10 lb. Turkey
1 lb. Cranberries
2 lb. Plum Pudding
1 package Mince Meat
1 lb. New Figs
1 can Tomatoes or Corn
1 lb. best Cluster Table Raisins
1 lb. New Season’s Mixed Nuts
1 box Somebody’s Luggage
1 lb. Finest Mocha and Java Coffee
1 lb. Finest Quality Chocolates
1 lb. Huntley & Palmer’s Fancy Mixed Biscuits
1 3 lb. can Bowlby’s Pears
1 bottle C & B Mixed Pickles
Fancy 3 lb. Tin Tetley’s Tea

They will ship to any address. Please prepay if being given as a gift. And each hampers is nicely packed in a painted box with hinged lid and fastener. The most expensive hamper was $15.00 and that was for 12 bottles of assorted alcohol. For $13.25 you could get a turkey, assorted food and 5 bottles of alcohol

Rob the caretaker of the Elphinstone site had saved this chair from the fire pit for me. I still have the chair it's made by a well known American wicker company.

I may be slow or missing something, but if the workers are helping him load, that doesn't really sound like theft in my book. That sounds like a nice arrangement you have, though!

You're up $2500 on something that was in the dump- that's not bad at all!

Originally Posted by alloy2

Yes this is true, and ebay has violated my rights to fair and legal trade with their foolish buyer protection scheme that opens up a can of worms for buyer fraud which I have fallen victim to on more than one occasion.

Buyer protection had nothing to do with the buyer, fleabay was getting hit with so many credit card charge backs the card handlers threatened to remove their services if the charge backs continued in the volume they were coming in at, had the credit card companies dumped fleabay the shareholders would then be dumping shares. Had this happened we may have been reading in the news about some executive intimating Superman with out the cape..

I'm not going to feed this rant.

Not trying to feed a rant, not defendin Ebay or its policies, just pointing out that this forum does not condone illegal or shady activities. You choose to use Ebay so you chose to follow and agree to their policies. Break them on your own time, but please don't encourage others to do so on this forum.

Originally Posted by ScrappinRed

Not trying to feed a rant, not defending Ebay or its policies, just pointing out that this forum does not condone illegal or shady activities. You choose to use Ebay so you chose to follow and agree to their policies. Break them on your own time, but please don't encourage others to do so on this forum.

I'm not really seeing what your talking about. What he said is an old slang term and if you'd remember this gentleman, he is good at inserting quirky humor occasionally. The explanation (see post #8) was good enough for me, no harm no foul.

Thanks for clarifying I didn't want anyone to get their panties in a wad over that............Great find

As far as ebay goes I wouldn't worry to much about them........I am fairly stringent about not selling items after they have taken bids but $2500 would probably allow me to loosen my policy a little.....LOL

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

As far as ebay goes I wouldn't worry to much about them........I am fairly stringent about not selling items after they have taken bids but $2500 would probably allow me to loosen my policy a little.....LOL

It's not canceling the auction that is the problem, I'm all for the best price! It's listing an item and then receiving an offer to sell outside of Ebay (through Ebay), then canceling and selling outside of Ebay that violates their policy. I think they get pissed that you basically used them for free advertising and they obviously lose their precious 10%.

I know two people who had their accounts closed and were banned from Ebay for doing this. It can get you into trouble, and anyone not familiar with Ebay's policies reading this could have problems with their account.

Anyway, really cool find and I think we can all probably agree that Ebay is evil to some extent