What's the coolest thing you've found in the Dumpster?

[Roger Thoms]

I found enough styro foam to pack up a Zone VI print washer and ship it cross country without damage. Thought it was pretty cool at the time as I was wondering how I was going to pad the darn thing.

Roger

[paulr]

I was at a CompUSA store around closing and I saw some employees taking a big cart of computers out to the dumpster...

A guy I used to work with (an older, cowboy hat-wearing, viet nam vet graphic designer and computer nut) had memorized the garbage day schedule of the building where we worked. He found they were always tossing out perfectly good computers. He got plenty of decent CRT monitors, and even a few power macs that were only a few years out of date. Most of the computers had been stripped of their innards (memory, drives, etc.), but he had piles of that stuff at home.

[drew.saunders]

I rescued a dumpster-bound Leica 35mm slide projector with a 200mm lens from a former employer. It still worked really well, provided you had enough distance to the wall for the huge lens. It's one of the older 1-slide-at-a time (holds 2) projectors, so I paid real money for a Leica that took trays later.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

are we restricted to actually pulling from the dumpster?

i bought 4 GIANT brass lenses from a guy who pulled them from a dumpster.

a voigtlander 7b, dallmeyer 2a, and two 25 inch RR.

No, the items in question are related, just simply "once removed"

[bigdog]

Six foot projection screen.

[bvstaples]

I was working for a fine art publisher in the early 90s. When the owners closed the business, they were cleaning out the building, and I watched them toss what I thought was a process camera into the dumpster. I went to retrieve it and I found an 8x10 Cambo with a 450mm Nikkor-M lens, a box with miscellaneous filter holders, an old Wollensack 75mm lens, and 10 film holders.

I still have the Cambo, it started me in LF and I've grown from there (meaning I've acquired more cameras, lenses and equipment and have become a much poorer man for it).

Brian

[Robert A. Zeichner]

So I checked out the Dumpster on the way to picking up the mail today and spotted some plastic movie reel looking things. Upon closer inspection noticed that these were reels of printed circuit components. I had no interest, but sent our service tech to check it out and he retrieved over $9,000 worth of tantalum capacitors in values he uses! Holy crap on a cracker.

[percepts]

I had no idea this was a forum for bin divers

[jaimeb82]

Half of a Mamiya 7II, yes half of the camera only. The back of the camera was probably there but couldn't find it.

[vinny]

My dad and I use to dive at the local lumber yard once he sent me in for a 12volt cordless dewalt drill, another time I got a huge box of scratch off tickets that were part of a promotion they had put on. We spent 20 minutes scratching off about a hundred of them, took them inside and claimed our winnings, dozens of coffee mugs, knives, etc. They were pissed!