Sony scope Reel to Reel Player Recorder 1960

"My husband says that it might need a belt, as it was slow turning. Very heavy unit, applrimately 35-40 lbs."

I'm pretty sure that the only way you're going to get someone to take a nonworking, 40-pound piece of completely obsolete machinery off your hands these days is to convince them that it should be part of their owl collection.

Cabover Camper

Honey, let's go camping! By "camping," I mean admitting that we have failed in every possible way, and that we deserve only the worst of everything.

open fridge

"NO WARRANTY. AS IS. NO DELIVERY."









As is? Do you promise? Because if I show up for this behemoth and find that bottle of white zin and collection of off-brand energy drinks are gone, my afternoon plans will be shot in the ass.

MODULAR MOBILE OFFICE TRAILER

"FREE TO A GOOD HOME!!!! "










The only possible use for this would be playing the role of the field office in Blair Witch 3: The Blair Witch Construction Project. In this installment, the Blair Witch continues to terrorize the Maryland wilderness, this time through the erection of depressing subdivisions.

Dead Horse

"This is a skeleton of a horse I found in the desert. I brought it home for an accent to my cactus garden. We are moving and I cannot take the horse with me. It is missing the head and two legs, but all else is there.Use it for the same purpose as I did, or for an art project..."


An art project, huh? No comment, I don't want to . . . beat a dead horse. Hey-OHH!!!

Steel Racks

"Each is approximately 24' long by 6' wide by 8' tall. Welded so you will have to transport complete, or could be seperated into 3 smaller pieces with a few cuts. Each weighs approx 1900 pounds."


I'm done talkin', honey; I'm gonna make it happen. We're starting that skyscraper out in back Saturday morning.

Awning

"Come take it down and it's yours!"





What a find. Just what I've been looking for. A hideous 1960's or so metal awning. About a year ago, I helped a friend take one of these rusted, mildewed, ugly hulks off his house. I'm still expecting tetanus symptoms to show up. It didn't occur to my friend to try to get someone to take the awning down for him by offering it for "free." He had a clear sense that it was an object of pure trash value, and bought me lunch and a beer for the help.

I look forward to future posts from this poster. "Asbestos insulation, come take it down and it's yours!" "Broken water heater circa 1963. Come take it down and it's yours!" "Dead oak tree in back yard. Accessible only by helicopter or enormous crane. Come take it down and it's yours!"

Pool Table

"Its warped and the felt is coming off."

Ever played pool? Billiards? Snooker? There's not much the table has to do. It's inert. It is simply a place where other things occur. Like a doctor, however, the pool table must heed the Hippocratic Oath - "first, do no harm." A warped pool table violates this oath. It interferes with the game - it becomes a silent opponent. It becomes . . . utterly unusable. But maybe you have a spare space of X cubic feet you want to fill. God knows this is a good use of it. You can be an amateur landfill operator, and this can be your first trashquisition!

Telephone Poles

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a sham. Designed to open up the proprietary lines of the telecom giants, allowing spunky start-ups to compete, it never really worked. Jeff's Phone Co. was never able to make any real money, and never provided a real service - it was just a billing agent. AT&T has re-formed, and telephony is back to regional monopoly status.

Until now. Here's what we always needed. Not an illusory opening up of AT&T facilities, but a real, physical alternative. A separate system of lines, switching stations and - most importantly - telephone poles. Sure, with these poles, we'll only be able to establish a network about half a block long. But it's a start. "The mouse that roared" will be the company's slogan. We'll genetically engineer a mouse/lion hybrid to be our mascot. But that may be getting ahead of ourselves.

Star Trek Video Tapes

"I have 3 boxes of Star Trek & Star Trek Voyager Video Tapes. They were left at my house by a friend."



VHS, a former frontier. These are the voyages of an obsolete format. Its five-year mission: to explore the possibility of not fading and losing contact with the VCR heads; to seek out new ways to take up an entire bookshelf; to boldly melt in the trunk of your car.

Mechanical Bull

"My father's company has gone out of business we can no longer afford to keep storage for the bull"

You think I don't know what you're thinking? Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "no way, dude, I want that thing bad! I'd go get it right now if it were within driving distance!"

Stop fooling yourself. No one has room for a mechanical bull in the house. And no one can afford the insurance it would cost if you were to let anyone actually get on it.

You, at insurance office: "Hi, I need to update my homeowner's insurance."
Insurance Agent: "Great, let me bring up my InstaQuote software, and we can run the numbers. What do you need an amendment to cover?"
You: "You won't believe it! I got a mechanical bull!"
Ins. Agent: "You mean, like an Urban Cowboy, ride-it-in-the-bar, faux rodeo mechanical bull?"
You: "Oh yeah! Awesome, huh?"
IA: "Uhhh . . . yeeah, neato. You may not like this, though, we call things like that 'elective dangers.' They can be kind of pricey."
You: "Whatever it takes, man. I've got some to spare. It's a mechanical bull."
Insurance dude: "OK, then. The base rate is $250 a month. Does it have any particular dangerous qualities?"
You: "Well, it's not made of razor blades, if that's what you mean [laughs]. It does have horns, though. Wouldn't be a bull without horns."
IA: "Horns? That's what we call an 'add-on risk'. With the horns, that's $400. Per month."
You: "Wow, that's kind of steep. I guess I'll have to charge. [smiles]"
IA: "Wait, you're going to have guests on the thing? That's another $250 on top."
You: "I was kidding about charging."
IA: "But guests?"
You: "Well it wouldn't be fun alone, so . . . yeah. It'll rock at parties."
IA: "I think you want to avoid parties."
You: "You've gotta be kidding, that's what it's for."
IA: "Can't have a party without drinking, right?"
You, hesitant, quietly: "suuure."
IA: "We're at $1000 a month now"
You: "Really?"
IA: "Yes."

No, no mechanical bull for you.

Wolf Range

"The photo is not in its current element. It is behind the restaurant in the rain right now . . . Worked like a charm before we moved it outside and realized it had so much wear and tear . . . It has a ton of caked up grease on it (from a chinese restaurant that used it for +/- 10-15 years). It has rusty parts which are corroding and very thin walls where insulation is coming through . . . people have been picking pieces and parts from it."

It really reduces the load here when a prior post can simply be reused.

Display Piece Non-Functional Dressers

"We have two display pieces. Wood covered in felt with draw pulls and studs. They look like dressers but the drawers are not functional and stick out for display purpose. Must take both. They are large and heavy you will need two people to move them"

Not dressers, mind you, but felt-covered, studded dresser simulacra. To satisfy your many felt-covered, studded dresser simulacra needs.

Perhaps you run a BDSM dungeon, and want to torture your slave with some Sisyphean so-close-and-yet-so-far lure of being able to place something in the dresser. "Slave, put my bustiere away! What do you mean it won't go in? You dare disobey? Put the bustiere in the dresser. Stop your whimpering!"

That's not a use you see in your future? Well, I'm sure you'll find something to do with two felt-covered, studded, dresser simulacra. Must take both.

White Couch

I believe this sofa may be made of marshmallows. If not, I hope it's a clever use of an orphaned slab of polar ice cap.

Electric Kiln

"Needs some work"


You leave a kiln out there in the rain for a few years, and yeah, it may need some work. Of course, you could always forgo the work, and simply enjoy the inevitable electrocution. Which might be preferable to opening the electricity bill you'll receive after sparking this up. The dead leave no carbon footprint.

China Cabinet

"no driveway, on hill, lot of stairs"

I'm starting to sense a move towards artisanal, pocket-sized reality shows. "Let's see if anyone can get this off our property. Get the Flip and start shooting. We'll put it on youtube and see if we get a development deal out of Bravo. If not, we can just watch it ourselves."

Snowmobile

"72 Arctic Cat. Does not run. No paperwork."


It is a banner week for the useless and burdensome.


Perhaps this is region-specific, but in case you don't know, it never snows in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, OK, once every 100 years we get a dusting, but really, it never snows. So to be interested in a snowmobile, you have to really be committed to the craft of snowmobiling. You need a trailer and probably a truck, and you need to drive for a few hours to find some sort of snowmobile ranch, where you and your fellow aficionados can discuss the finer points of snowmobiling over hot chocolate when you're not out doing the thing itself, the snowmobiling you love so very much. Presumably, if you're that guy, the one who thinks snowmobile when you think recreation, the one with a poster of snowmachiner extraordinaire Todd Palin out in the garage, you're going to want a more recent snowmobile, one less than 36 years old. You may also be interested in having one that, say, works. I think you should let this one go.

This is equivalent to offering a free, inoperative boat to someone in the desert. Or a free, brokedown car to someone in a dense, impassable jungle.

Electric Hospital Bed

"Come on honey, let's play 'Infirmary' again. I've been waiting all week."



"Jeff, I lied when I said I was ok with this. And I'd like to be able to get to the bookshelf in the study."

"I think you mean, 'in the infirmary.'"

"OK, I'm going out for awhile. We can talk later."

Iron Rite Mangle

"This is a ironing machine (Mangle) from the 1940s or 1950s it still works"



If you're like us (and we know you are), you find this intriguing. You don't have use for this enormous, obsolete laundry tool, but you think "mangle? Never heard of that. I wonder if the word 'mangle', as in 'to do some calamitous physical harm' originated with laundry workers using this thing and getting caught in the mechanism. That would be cool. Etymology works that way sometimes, right?"

Well, prepare to be disappointed. The Vintage Microwave Library is fortunate to contain a compact OED, and research has been done. The "mangle" we're all familiar with, the verb meaning "to leave you wishing you were dead," dates to at least the late 14th Century. The nominal form, for a "wringer," doesn't appear until the late 16th Century. More important, they seem to derive from different languages; no common root is shared. True homonymy.

Modular Trailer

Less a usable shed than an opportunity to really, REally, REALLY irritate your neighbors. "How do you like it, Fred? We needed a little storage space back here, and this really fit the bill. Your roses won't get the morning light anymore, but your tax bill will probably go down."