Garbage find! Helmet, gas mask & can, canteen, dak(?) binoculars! Help!

[MySonsDad]

GIZMO....only item I have any idea on (and that's just from watching them on eBay) is the M38 GM and carrier...I concure with others on that, about $100US, maybe a little more because the numbers match. You can find them on eBay for this price pretty regular. Good luck with the sale of the items and the future wife.....I've had mine for some 30 years (the wife, not the items)!

[miroslav]

Good afternoon! The bayonet is of Yugoslavian army. He is not Russian.

[miroslav]

ПРЕДУЗЕЋЕ 44 is firm of SFR Yugoslavia (Yugoslavian army) .

[Good Pwny]

I'll say it again... WHO THROWS THESE THINGS OUT!!!!!! LOL.

[ObKrieger]

I'll say it again... WHO THROWS THESE THINGS OUT!!!!!! LOL.

More interesting yet, why don't they just give them to people like us?!?

[GIZMO8Z]

More interesting yet, why don't they just give them to people like us?!?

I lay the blame on companies that do whole sale clean-outs and evictions like 1-800-GOTJUNK. They employ kids to rush into houses and quickly haul away boxes and bags of stuff. They don't have time/ arent paid to sort through what they're taking out. Unless they see something valuable laying ontop, they simply wont find it. That's how I get my stuff, because our facility employs workers to sort through that garbage for things that can be recycled.

[GIZMO8Z]

I lay the blame on companies that do whole sale clean-outs and evictions like 1-800-GOTJUNK. They employ kids to rush into houses and quickly haul away boxes and bags of stuff. They don't have time/ arent paid to sort through what they're taking out. Unless they see something valuable laying ontop, they simply wont find it. That's how I get my stuff, because our facility employs workers to sort through that garbage for things that can be recycled.

We rent out dumpsters too. Of course, people are just plain stupid and lazy. Instead of searching through clutter, they don't want to worry themselves and they pay a few hundred bucks for dumpster service. In our dumpsters, we've found purses and matresses filled with cash, antiques, locked safes filled with coin collections, jewlery, and rare metals, brand new sports equipment, last summer we found crates of unopened bottles of whiskey from the 1940s and 1950s... the list goes on.

The worst thing is that big box stores just dump TONS of of unopned products. When things are out of season or go on sale, I guess these stores save more money in dumping products rather than returning them to the manufacturers warehouses. We've gotten TONS of clothing from KMart and brand new chainsaws and snowblowers from Home Depot.

We have a F16 pinball machine in our garage that someone threw out...

We have power equipment that "broke" and people throw out. Turns out the broken lawn mower works just fine if you change out the battery or air filter...

I should also mention that a few of our customers have been very generous and donated items to me. It helps that my father is well known and has a lot of connections. These people would rather me use their militaria in the classroom/ appreciate it for my personal collection rather than selling the stuff for a small profit and/or having the stuff rot in their attics!

[ObKrieger]

We rent out dumpsters too. Of course, people are just plain stupid and lazy. Instead of searching through clutter, they don't want to worry themselves and they pay a few hundred bucks for dumpster service. In our dumpsters, we've found purses and matresses filled with cash, antiques, locked safes filled with coin collections, jewlery, and rare metals, brand new sports equipment, last summer we found crates of unopened bottles of whiskey from the 1940s and 1950s... the list goes on.

The worst thing is that big box stores just dump TONS of of unopned products. When things are out of season or go on sale, I guess these stores save more money in dumping products rather than returning them to the manufacturers warehouses. We've gotten TONS of clothing from KMart and brand new chainsaws and snowblowers from Home Depot.

We have a F16 pinball machine in our garage that someone threw out...

We have power equipment that "broke" and people throw out. Turns out the broken lawn mower works just fine if you change out the battery or air filter...

I should also mention that a few of our customers have been very generous and donated items to me. It helps that my father is well known and has a lot of connections. These people would rather me use their militaria in the classroom/ appreciate it for my personal collection rather than selling the stuff for a small profit and/or having the stuff rot in their attics!

The thing that bothers me about this whole set-up, though, is the fact that you have not been doing this for very long and you are just one man at one recycling center! Think about all of the stuff that just gets thrown away at other places, that has been thrown away over the past several decades. It makes me so, so sad.

Every time you post a garbage find I get the same bittersweet feeling. I am glad you rescued these items but at the same time, I am sad that they were thrown out in the first place. I guess when it comes down to it, they are just chunks of metal and paint, but like most of us I have a sentimental attachment to these bits of metal.

Out in Utah near where I lived there's this place called Smith and Edwards. Apparently they once had a yard full of M1 helmets, including the earliest ones to the ones made in the 80's. I think some guys on here might have some too. Guys used to go there and buy WWII-era medic helmets, fixed bales, ones with 29th and 1st I.D. insignia painted on the fronts, etc. They are supposedly cleaned out now it's a shame that these thing end up in piles rotting away somewhere, or in the trash. Make sure you rescue as much as you can.

[GIZMO8Z]

It really bothers me... You're right, I really only started collecting this stuff this past summer. We've been open for 6 years... so I'm sure I've missed A LOT of things.

I have distinct memories of one time when I worked on the picking belt where our workers stand and pick out recyclable goods as they zoom by. I picked up an M1903 belt with garand pouches, first aid kit, holster, etc. I tried it on and it didn't fit... I was so stupid. I put it back down on the belt and let it meet it's fate. In that same load I let leggings, an shattered M1 helmet and a smahed M1 carbine pass me by.

I'm finding A LOT of stuff... I'm running out of room and dont have a place to display it all yet!

[plumbob]

Great finds
I showed a guy my German badges and medals last year . And he said that his dad had a lot of them in there attic he remembered pinning them on himself and playing at soldiers as kid with them, definitely ,iron cross’s ,wound badges that he recognised and he said there were others, one with snakes on it, a partisans badge i think, his dad had died a while ago.
So my first question are they still there?
His reply was that his mum had put the lot in the skip (dumpster) when she moved house!
How sickening is that.
Rod