[Closed] Best find from a skip.

Loads of VCRs, amps, DVD players etc (from the skip at the AV company my dad used to work for). Some of the stuff was brand new and simply surplus to requirements (and in fact I am currently listening to music through a Sony FA3ES amp that we rescued some years ago).

A van load of 7-inch Victorian floorboards... top find, now installed, stripped and varnished in our gaff.

A whole office worth of massively expensive, massively comfortable desk chairs lobbed out when another company in the building went out of business.

Foreign hard core jazz mag when I was a kid in the days before internet. It was liking finding gold then and a look at it could be traded for anything.

Hmm. My yucca seems a bit lame in comparison.

What counts as a skip? I get lots of cast-off lab equipment from the universities - I'm currently using a Haake water bath heater for my frame soak tank. I googled it to find the manual, and it cost about £800!

From an actual skip, best find is an 8ft control panel from a brewery:

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Just need about 1500 LEDs and a control system , and it'll be pretty cool 😉

Just need about 1500 LEDs and a control system , and it'll be pretty cool

Please tell me it'll be attached to a home brew setup?

Fridge freezer that must have been worth a couple in its day. Very solidly built. Its cream coloured though so am guessing thats why they lobbed it. Now in my garage.

Also got a load of doors and door handles from down the road when someone was ripping out the original art deco stuff to 'modernise'. Took some work but came up a treat in our extension. Doors are £200 each and handles £25. Got four of them! Only had to buy one more door (but lots of handles for the rest of our house to match)

Please tell me it'll be attached to a home brew setup?

That would be brilliant - but my current homebrew setup is a bucket, so probably not that interesting 😉

I was thinking something music responsive...

A suitcase full of what look like gold bars I think the previous owner threw them out because they have a swastika pressed into them. Very heavy though and made great plant lifters for the patio.

not quite a skip, but at a local agricultural & machinery auction in the "garage clearout" piles, I flipped open the lid of what looked like a camera case to find two [url= http://www.kane.co.uk/online-catalogue/flue-gas-analysers/kane425-203 ]Kane 400 Flue Gas Analysers[/url].
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I've been wanting one for ages but at £500 each for the current model new it's a bit much.

I got both for £8 at the auction as no-one else there had a clue what they were.

Im sending them off for calibrating for about £80 each and then sell one on ebay for a couple of hundred £ to pay for the calibrations and I get a free Analyser! Woohoo!

Loads of top quality food~ Lamb Shank, Lobster, even some bottles of wine.

The life of a freegan is a surprisingly well nourished one.

Non food wise, I got an AT-AT and a Spectrum +2 for nostalgic decor.

Edit: I'm tempted to pimp my AT-AT something like this:

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And the AT-AT wins. 😀

Someone on Retrobike found an Thermoplastic LTS (Not the STS) and a set of Judy DH's

My best skip find was finding out I could dump loads of crap in it.

camo16 - Member
And the AT-AT wins.

yes

Victorian doors, worth £100 odd at the salvage yard!

Pair of folding Teak garden chairs. A1 nick, right on top of the waste wood skip, didn't even have to climb in to retrieve them. Thanks for those Cheshire West and Chester council!

When we were younger, my dad often used to come home with an old pram frame that the wheels and axles were pressed into service on our home made go-cart.

A fully working A0+ drawing board with parallel motion and adjustable legs. Took some lifting to get out but works beautifully

we have an architects plan chest, we had an Xray lightbox (but that got stolen), A load of top quality underlay which now sits in various rooms in our house (one company goes under, new company want laminate floors...) my personal favourite was the chairs from our old uni library. I remember when these were brand new and were quite comfy. 5 years later there was hundreds of them behind the sports centre, piled up next to the skips. liberated 6 of them. a few years later still, our house flooded and the insurance people deemed our purple tub chairs as being worth £160 each.

A dismembered hooker. I'll post some photos when I get home.

Two quite high spec computer base stations. Both worked fine, had XP installed which I got into easily. Both had accounting information from a wholesale trading company on them.

I wiped them both, installed Linux, used one for years as a server at home and gave the other to a friend.

(The bike, not the 'shooms)... still my favorite bike. 😀
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Kid's bike trailer, sadly a bit mangled, but after a bit of modification (i.e. hitting with a hammer) it was fixed enough to act as a trailer for taking water and other stuff up to the allotment.

7 piece Mapex Drum kit.

I found it, the skip monkey wouldn't let me take it (but put it in his boot for storage)

hey ho.

I was at a local HWS and asking the bloke if they kept bikes aside (they didn't) when an old bloke came up to the same worker and asked where he should dump his 2 perfect condition Roberts radios. I said something along the lines of "right here" as I held out my hands. 😯

3 LWB landrover loads of joinery offcuts which kept our 1st stove going for 2 winters.

A suzuki ts185.

It's currently in bits in my dad's garage.

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I didn't get on with it though... Cleaned it up and sold it for £80

i had a makita electric chainsaw out of a skip last week. baffled as to why that was thrown away, its even sharp!

years back had a fancy mitre saw that seemed a bit good to be true so i asked the builders - they had thrown it because the laser guide had stopped working 😯

also about 75% of my food and alcohol comes from the supermarket bins.....just not so much while the weather is this hot

also about 75% of my food and alcohol comes from the supermarket bins.....just not so much while the weather is this hot

Where are these supermarket 'bins' of which you speak?

You just go round the back and help yourself?

yes camo, co-op is good, but dont get caught, do it after they close. if you get caught too often they will start locking the bins up and for all you know there maybe people wholly reliant on this food source so dont **** it up for others would be my advice

...yeah, I nearly got arrested for doing just that. It's theft apparently. Was a bit pissed though, but polite, so the police officers, calling out 'We Got 'im!' in the middle of the night, let me go.. 😕

Good to know, jonah. I've no intention of ****ing it up for others, just curious is all. 😉

i got caught by a manager once, he chased me and everything- its hard to run with a binbag full of out-of-date malteasers in your hand. although they are lighter than ordinary chocalate 😀

i know mate, its the same advice i give everyone who is interested though

I used to work in a supermarket when I was a student. Once a bloke "found" a bale of compressed cardboard in a skip and decided to liberate it. However, whilst trying to get it in the back of his van it fell on him. Oh how we laughed. The police and the fire brigade laughed too.

Back to the OP... There appears to be a perfectly good bike in a skip on Sunningdale Drive in Prestich if anyome wants it. Bit of TLC and some kid could have a lot of fun on it.

Found a motherboard with an Intel i7 processor. Rescued it, added a video card and RAM...and it works.

Mototolla carphone about 15 years ago. Worked fine, sold to boss and it funded 25% of an Astra GTE 🙂

I've found myself in one on at least one occasion.

I did once find an entire 35mm B&W porn film in one. It ended up festooned across my ceiling like perverted christmas decorations.

A couple of Le Creuset pans, which we are still using years later.
Also, donkey's years ago, some Arthur Ransome hardback childrens' books. I walked 100 yards to the nearest bookshop & got a fiver for them. Probably about £25 in today's money.

By the way, since we're all law abiding citizens on here 😉 I'm guessing we all asked the property owner's permission before liberating our booty?

I didn't the first time (about 10 Victorian floorboards), but was quickly informed by a friend it was the legal thing to do - so when we revisited the skip we asked the guy and basically took everything that he had left...

By the way, since we're all law abiding citizens on here I'm guessing we all asked the property owner's permission before liberating our booty?

A mate got a caution for 'theft' after taking stuff from a skip, his missus wasn't impressed when the Police turned up at his house asking who owned the vehicle on his drive, so good advice.

I used to work next to Homebase.
And in most cases if someone had something and it went wrong then they would just throw it in the skip.
I had brand new drills,lights,christmas trees and lights,phones,garden table and chairs,parasol,garden bench,kingsize sleigh bed and so on.
Good findings!

Some pallets.
.
2 friends and me were walking home one night, spotted a load of pallets in a skip and thought they would be great for the bonfire.
One friend and I each took two, the other friend has his knackered commuter bike with him (had a front brake but no rear) so he only took one.
Got to the top of the hill (Kendrick Road in Reading for those who know it) He climbed aboard his bike and shot off down the hill, propelled at great speed by the extra weight of his pallet. He was however, holding it in his right, front brake, hand. Other friend and I laughed for a while and then realised he was heading for the A4, three lanes of busy main road which goes across the bottom of the hill, and he wasn't going to stop. We gave chase shouting at him to drop the pallet. He was too drunk or too deaf to hear us. He was clearly going to die.
Just as he approached the A4 we heard the beep beep of the pedestrian lights to his right, the traffic stopped, he shot across the road, through the petrol station on the other side, missed all the pumps and the cars there and disappeared from our sight out of the other entrance to it.
We lived on that road, apparently he just coasted to a stop outside our house using his feet as brakes.

A Complete set of Sash windows from a house down the road which was being modernised.
I actually asked if hey were replacing the windows and If they were could I have the old ones ?

They said yes, so I actually went down and removed the sashes intact from the windows when they were ready to fit the new ones.

Saved them Skip volume, saved risking them getting damaged 😀

They were float glass, same as My house (Which has a different refractive index to modern glass therefore the light coming through is different) so I then removed all the replacement (Modern) panes of glass that had been put in over the years, and replaced with the rescued Float Glass.

The whole front of the house now has matching "Flawed / wobbly" glass in it and is much the better for it 8)

I`m sure my Ex appreciates it just as much as I did 😕

a 386, with a whopping 4MB of ram and an 80MB HD, in fully working order, might sound sh1t now but in 1992 it was still plenty usable!

you have that the wrong way round cr500dom, float glass is the modern 'perfect' stuff cos it is floated on liquid tin. the wobbly bubbly lovely stuff is cylinder glass as its blow into a cylinder, cut lenghtways and flattened

One of my mates, after a particularly heavy session.

We lifted him out, dusted him off and took him for a curry. He was as good as new!

A full Olympic weight set -20, 10, 5kg plates and bar 🙂

Where do i start.....

Food, booze, tools, UPVC window in "just the right size" for cellar in our old house, pots of new fence paint and my best so far

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Was complete with a load of mixed up stuff on it. Now repainted and in the garage.

I love my job at times

a bag of 600 blue zip ties. that was about 8 years ago and i'm still working my way through them.

You lot live near some pretty generous skips!

I've only ever found mouldy carpets and rubble.

Just the other week i was clearing our house out and threw a crap old subwoofer that had been cluttering the garage up (only cost about £30 new). Last week i went to look for it to try and salvage an aux cable for my stereo and someboady had helped themselves to it. The thing is we live on a quiet cul-de-sac with an average of 80, so god knows who took it! probs the same people who also claimed my knackered old hybrid!

a terry dolan road frame with campag veloce and record on it, no wheels, from the local tip. asked the tip man who said help yourself. cheers, still riding it today 🙂

I found a computer desk in a layby .I have also made a profit from a bike shop who had a spec.hybrid on a heap after they told the owner it wasnt worth repairing .I put a new gear cable in it and got £60 for it ,and £25 for a plain gauge 531 frame they had as well !! Sack trucks from the tip last week along with a barbecue grill and a perfectly good disc hub front wheel for my single speed

Not actually from a skip, but a colleague offered me his Dad's old bike just before he went to the dump. I tried not to sweat and stammer and I said "yes please"

(Colombus Genius tubing, full Campag Record including brakes and seatpost. Saddle and wheels added for the photo)
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Our hockey team goalkeeper, a bit battered and broken.
It was night and he'd hit the mini-skip on the way home, it was unlit on the roadside, and he had been flipped OTB of his Honda 250 Wetdream into the mini-skip.
Handy really as we could just chuck the wet dream into it, one fewer in the world was a good thing, then got am ambleance to take him to A&E.

Mate pulled a Dean ti frame from a skip in London(s****y post code) many years ago.

You lot live near some pretty generous skips!

I've only ever found mouldy carpets and rubble.

its hard to run with a binbag full of out-of-date malteasers in your hand. although they are lighter than ordinary chocalate

Timb, did you keep it? It's bloody lovely that.

When I worked on the council yonks ago, the council ran the local tip & Black & Decker of Spennymoor used to use it. My boss was pretty handy & we'd get the nod off Sid who drove the bulldozer that B&D had been. Off we'd go & collect what we could, me & Ron made up loads of power tools from bits of motors, bodies, chucks, all sorts!

Me & my ex GF found a tall wrought iron garden gate complete with frame in a skip in Altea in Spain but we couldn't get it all in the suitcase.

This Kef active subwoofer.. it needed a new thingybob to get it working, but the bit only cost 4p and my little brother did all the electrical engineering bit

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Damaged bikes, gears, wheels - I dropped off at Bristol Bike Project (charity) many years ago.

All asked permission of the owner.

Best so far ( all from the same skip)
1 orange Alu elite
1 set of pace rc35s (seized)
1 Reynolds 531 road frame and fork
Many, many wheels.

Turned the Alu elite into a Frankenstein bike for my sister, and sold the rest to fund bike bits I would actually use!

200m2 of used hardwood parquet flooring from a bank.
I hired a van, filled it completely.
Used about 20m2 myself.
Sold the rest of it on eBay for £350.
Result.

Not a great find and not technically a skip but I went to ikea a while ago to get a floor standing lamp for the flat. Couldn't really find one I liked, and the closest was about £100. I was going to get it but decided to check out what else I could find in town first and come back tomorrow if nothing else.

Went home and took the bins down to the bin store that evening, and sat in there was a floor standing lamp almost if not identical to the one in ikea. Win! It does make me feel a little bit pikey whenever I look at it though.

Stihl string trimmer left out on trash night in my neighborhood. Needed an $8 fuel line assembly, sell for $200+ new!

I actually got a business and a living from a skip - the bike shop I worked in as a student was closing down, and the owner chucked all the trade catalogues and price lists in the bin ready to set fire to them - I took a lot, phoned the companies up and pretended to be a proper company, and that was how I started my own business 😉

Got my pillar drill and the motor for my lathe, not quite from the skip as I intercepted them on the way... Got some funny looks walking into the office that day 😆

I have a Grass polygraph 7d, (lie detecter) i rescued from a certain place that shall remain undisclosed, kinda similar to this one below but with more fancy machined knobs and extra boards attachede,
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It's currently sitting in my back garden under poly wrap and when i get round to it i'm gonna remove the top half with all the cool knobs and buttons and either make a glass topped table out of it or just hang it on the wall and plug it in so it lights up, obviously i want it to light up once i've attached the electrodes to a mate beforehand so those 3 yrs i wasted at uni studying electronics will not have been in vain after all.

edit : not really relevant to a skip but 20 years ago i found a 25kg bale of weed washed up on the shoreline a few weeks after a major weed bust on a yacht in the irish sea .....that was a ****ing good summer for us all at that time, it still gets talked about to this day, needless to say i have hunted the shoreline ever since 😀 .

We used to pay the odd visit to what was the GT and Rockshox distribution place in Bristol as yoofs (Madison maybe?). I never got anything more than half a pair of gloves and scuffed grips. A mate managed a pair of SIDS back when we all rode RST 381s, lucky get.