What's your coolest find in the scrap yard

As my name says I repurpose. I like the old industrial weathered look and great patina. I haul scrap to sell and shop the place like Walmart. Last Monday I ran across a pile of old road signs that had to be from the 70's and earlier. Some are made of enameled steel. There was also some old painted steel letters. The ones the Pickers love to find and sell. Picked it all up by the pound which totalled to less than $7.00. The guy at the scrap yard has no clue about the collectibility of the stuff today. The week before I found some old metal cabinets uppers and lowers that might have been in grandma's pantry back in the 50's. I recall my grandmother having steel cabinets on her back service porch. We repurposed one of them in to a dresser and bedroom TV stand. Has the right patina and top to look cool. A few weeks earlier I found some old Schwinn and JC Penny bikes someone had scrapped. Picked them up for $5 bucks each. People in Mesa Az come here from where ever and buy up old historic homes and renovate them in to new homes. They toss the old stuff in and around the homes like garbage. If they put a free ad on Craigslist I would pick up everything that had. In most cases they simply toss it all in a dumpster and it 's gone forever. At least the people who tossed all the stuff I found recently thought about recylcing. What cool stuff have you found recently??

found a 1957 chevrolet tailgate in great shape

Full 2/20/60 amp battery charger with cords cut off tossed in pile. Was allowed to take home. All was wrong with it was motor fell off that cools transformer. Motor was froze from falling off. Replaced motor from one with a fridge. Have had it several years now. Actually lives outside in the rain and snow.....hasnt failed yet. Used a old pair of jumper cables and a computer tower cord for power. Only that dont work on it is battery test function.

I see all kinds of things I'd like to take home but the yards here won't allow it.

same here jimicrk, the yards don't allow browsing. In fact, my goal is to get out of the steel yard place as fast as possible. It started as as a needed survival trait in their old, cramped, too congested yard. Their new second yard is a breeze but I still don't linger.

I asked my non-ferrous guy what were the coolest or most unusual things they had come across (I think I've mentioned this before). One was the aluminum wing off of Boening-727 that was lost when the plane landed here in a snow storm and hit an airport snowplow out on the runway, killing the driver. Their place ended up with the removed torn up wing. It ended up being a harder nut for them to crack when they started to break it up into smaller pieces.

The other super cool thing they got was the big brass bow "seal" of the pre-WWI "U.S.S. South Dakota" battle cruiser. The thing weighed about 400 pounds. They had it off in a corner of their office for a long time. Later they got a call from the U.S. Navy museum wondering if they could have it for their collection. It seems that it was the last existing piece like that off of that class of U.S. warships. I think the owner of the non-ferrous place was pretty proud that it ended up in a national museum.

My main job for a while was hotshotting with a 32 ft flatbed trailer that has sliding strap ratchets that use cheater bars to tighten the straps down. These bars run about $40 new at a truck stop. I was taking in a load of shred to the scrap yard and saw one lying on the ground next to the weighing shack. I asked if I could buy it, and they said no problem. Got a good cheater bar for $3.

One of my best finds at the scrapyard was an air compressor that had been unloaded with the claw and ended up high in the pile.
The attendant said "When they brought it in, they said it worked but the tank leaked". I took it home and brazed the hole (I'm not afraid to do that) and it's by far the best compressor I've ever had. Usually either the motor or the pump is shot but this thing was in good working order. I did have to replace a copper line between the pump and the tank that was bent beyond repair. (With scrap of course) Some people would just rather buy a new one when there is very little wrong with their present one.

Application, determination and a little time mixed with a dash of common sense can fix alot of things. That could be why I have 8 or 10 air compressors (not all running) and 5 battery chargers. One for each building on the farm I guess.

I do a LOT of business with one yard, so I'm allowed to go "shopping" there. Recent finds include a Bridgeport machine, a Harley engine and a stainless steel rolling rack unit from a dairy facility.