Best Find at the Dump?

[RobLoasby]

About ten years ago, I used to go to auctions of stuff that the family running the local amenity sites acquired from the tips. It was eye-opening what people discarded - including cameras, working TVs and vacuum cleaners, even jewellery. Never any decent bikes, though.

Even though everything went for little money, they were doing alright out of the waste business judging by all the gold they all wore.

Best find for me was a pile of Star Wars magazines, which cost me £1. Sold them on the bay of E for £80 to a collector in the US.

 

[FiveAlpha]

I never get anything, sadly. But I did sell a Campagnolo hub to a lad who lived up North (here, that means North of Aalborg).

He had found a handmade steel Danish road team bike from the past, minus the rear wheel. Full Record, etc. He managed to trace the man who built the frames back then and contacted him for info. Though retired, he offered to teach the young guy how to build wheels, so not only did he get a national team bike, he got free wheel-building lessons from the guy who made them!?!

 

[bikeworkshop]

11th august 1999
My future wife and I took the train to Exmouth (it was crowded, no room for bikes!) We went to the tip and bought 2 bikes.
For me?
A late 1940s 4 speed racer, mostly rust and steel, not much paint.
For her?
A charming raleigh 20 shopper iirc.
A quick bit of servicing and we rode from the exmouth tip, past a line of 10,000 cars, to the edge of totality!
It was about 25 miles. We got to see the moon's shadow rushing towards us up the coast, and then a line of miles of tiny flashes - those latter day instamatic film cameras had autoflash.
The birds stopped singing,
the air got cold.

Definitely the best ever tip find.
I'll hunt through our old sticky photos to see if I can find one with the bikes in it

 

[LondonClassic]

Great story! She had to be the one if she agreed to such an adventure.

 

[bagpuss]

Mate of mine who worked at a recycling yard for a short time . He came home with all sorts of bike items .Best was a park tools bike repair stand with hardly a mark on it.

 

[jim haseltine]

We aren't allowed to pick over stuff at our sites (all two of them), especially not bike stuff as there's a bike shop in town that has a recycling contract (not a pun, as they recycle scrapped cycles) with the local authority.