Millions in a landfill, or How to get rich on the trash of the USSR era

If you are cleaning in the pantry or in the attic and found a bunch of old Soviet things, do not rush to throw them away. Unsightly porcelain dolls, battered books and Christmas toys made of cotton wool and papier-mache can make you rich! It would be a shame if your discarded chair or cracked cup is picked up in a landfill and sold for thousands of dollars.

Some hoarders make fortunes just by sorting through someone else's trash. Of course, it's not enough to be just not squeamish — you need to be well versed in old things, their origin and features. What could be so valuable in a garbage heap?

Experienced people say: there were times when you could literally get rich in a landfill. Now those happy days are in the past, but something valuable is still being found in the trash. There are people who live off books found in garbage dumps. Unsophisticated heirs often threw away entire libraries of deceased relatives, in which there were real printed treasures.

The first editions of rare books, ancient manuscripts, military and just old maps, valuable historical documents from family archives — letters of famous people, military diaries — all this comes across in the trash and sometimes one find is enough to not think about daily bread for several weeks, or even months.

People looking for valuable books and manuscripts in the trash are called "cold second-hand booksellers." They make valuable finds not only in garbage dumps. Very often, such people negotiate with waste paper collection points and look for rarities among tons of unnecessary paper handed over by the population. Surprisingly, even today in the waste paper you can find magazines of the 19th century and books published before the war.

Sometimes a very unsightly publication can turn out to be a real treasure. Sergey Burmistrov, Head of the House of Antique Books in Nikitsky, told reporters how one day homeless people found an old catalog of American equipment from 1939 in a landfill, all scratched out with a pencil. They sold their find for only 100 rubles to a "cold second-hand bookseller".

He carefully examined the find, consulted with experts and found out that the pencil scribbles and marks "this equipment should be purchased" or "we should try to copy" were made by Stalin's own hand. After that, the old catalog was sold for 100 thousand rubles.

Many items that we consider to be garbage turn out to be incredibly valuable for collectors. And the older such stuff is, the more likely it is that someone will need it. Literally everything is collected today, from matchboxes and wrappers to empty bottles of vinegar essence.

A shabby cigarette box made of tin or cardboard, released in the late 19th — early 20th century, can cost 5-7 thousand rubles, and especially rare copies are even more. There are cases when 50 thousand rubles were paid for an inconspicuous bottle of old perfume! Large Soviet glass containers with a volume of 10-30 liters are also in demand. For such a bottle without cracks and chips, you can get 2-3 thousand rubles.

Collectors hold old toys in special esteem. A faded Santa Claus made of rags and sawdust, made in the 50s of the last century, can be estimated at 30-50 thousand rubles. The same amount can be given for a rusty children's car on pedals of the same time. There are also connoisseurs of Soviet watches — some wristwatches with a paper dial and scratched glass can cost like a used car. But sometimes gold pre-revolutionary watches turn out to be in landfills.

Seekers of old furniture are a special caste of people who have a sharp eye and often golden hands. An unsightly chair without upholstery or a chest of drawers with a torn door can be much more expensive than a fashionable branded sofa. Of course, to work with discarded furniture, you need to have a high qualification — only a pro can distinguish a diamond from glass.

Often of interest is not the cabinet or chair itself, but the material from which they are made. There is a category of seekers who are interested in the tree array. A cubic meter of oak or walnut in large parts, for example, boards or beams, can cost up to 40 thousand rubles. There will be buyers for carved facade elements, legs and other details — they are used both for the repair of antique furniture and for the creation of a new, original one.

Antique mirrors and their frames are also a subject of special interest to antiquarians and collectors. Appearance can be deceptive and an unsightly curved frame "under bronze" can be a good help for the budget if it is sold to a knowledgeable person. Do not forget that caches are often found in antique furniture and mirrors. They hid things much more valuable than the piece of furniture itself.

Interior details and even building elements are also valuable. Doors and windows, railings, steps and balusters, platbands — all this may be of interest to buyers if it is made of natural wood, is in relatively good condition and made no later than the middle of the last century.

Oddly enough, they also find awards in the trash, both military and civilian. These can be orders and medals from the Great Patriotic War or the war in Afghanistan. Most often they are thrown out accidentally, along with junk, so you need to look for them in old briefcases, boxes and bags.

The buyers do not always get the rewards — some conscientious hoarders try to find their owners and return valuable and memorable items. Among the state awards there are incredibly expensive copies, for example, the Order of Glory costs collectors from 400 to 700 thousand rubles, and a simple "Badge of Honor" of 1935 — up to 800 thousand rubles.

Electrical appliances may interest people not only in terms of the content of non-ferrous and precious metals, but also as a product. Tape recorders "Romantic", radiols "Minsk" and "Ural", televisions "KVN" with a lens are very popular among collectors.

Soviet photographic equipment of the Soviet Union is in particular demand, which can replenish your family budget by 10-30 thousand rubles. There will be buyers not only for FED, SMENA and Zenit-E cameras, but also for lenses. Many photographers use high-quality old Soviet optics with modern digital "mirrors", saving tens of thousands of rubles on the purchase of branded lenses.

There is a demand for other photographic equipment, such as photo enlargers, glossers and even red lanterns. They don't give a lot of money for them, but a 2-3 thousand photo magnifier in good condition may well bring. Filmoscopes and projectors for filmstrips, as well as the films themselves and slides from them, are the object of hunting for many connoisseurs of antiquity. The slide projector of the 50s is ready to enrich by 7-8 thousand rubles, and in perfect condition and in a factory box and by 10-12 thousand.

A separate, isolated caste of hoarders is stalkers. They are not looking in landfills and garbage cans, but in abandoned houses and even just in the woods. They are interested in "dead" villages, abandoned factories and military bases, as well as places of fighting. Stalkers are armed with metal detectors and other technical means, and they often combine their activities with blogging.

This category of search engines is interested in a variety of subjects of the past years. Someone specializes in military subjects, and someone is attracted to household items. There are even those who are looking for antique bricks with the brand of the manufacturer, which are then sold to collectors or designers who create loft interiors.

As you can see, money can be made simply from garbage, but it takes a lot of work. In order for the search to bear fruit, you need to know a lot about things, manufacturers and their era. It is also worth adding that this work is not always grateful, and stalkers are also deadly. There are many cases when lovers of antiquity were blown up with ammunition or found themselves piled up in an abandoned cellar.