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I've been "makeing the rounds" around the area here for a few years, and I've found some pretty good stuff. This year I didn't find a whole lot, but I came back with a lot of perfectly working TV's - including a perfectly working 32" RCA set, only a few years old! Not a lot out there in terms of tube sets, but I did find a low end GE tube B&W console, and a tube GE portable with no tubes or knobs. Never found a roundie, although last year I found a nice CTC-28. Typically people are really friendly or just watch quietly while I load things in the car, but I've had a couple people talk to me, thrilled that I was taking the TV, and amazed that I was able to fix them. The _only_ time I've ever been told off by a homeowner was this one time last year when a friend and I were out in the outskirts, in the dark - it was like 9:00, and I had spotted a tube console radio - it turned out to be a Victor Electrola, but it was totally trashed - it had clearly been sitting outside for YEARS, the cabinet had all seperated, the legs had rotted off, and the bottom was full of mud and crud. But the chassis weren't rusted (what did they make those things out of, I've never seen one rust), and it had all it's tubes, so we were pulling out the chassis and the speaker. My friend was holding my old Maglite, and I was prying the power chassis out with a tire iron (the bolt holding the bracket in was hopelessly rusted), I'd just gotten it free and we heard a woman yell "There's nothing good there - it's all garbage - get out of here". My friend replied - "We know, we just want some parts here, we'll be gone in a minute". To which we heard "You could get shot out here!". We'd already gutted the thing, and we were about to leave anyway, so I tossed the power chassis in the trunk with the rest of the parts, and we headed off, laughing the whole way. We had visions of her calling the police, "Someone is stealing my garbage!" - "OK, lady, we'll be right over, yeah. We'll catch those trash theives" <click>.
I've been over to the side of a road, my flashers on and loading an old television into the car and had police drive right by. They could care less. It's basically a free for all, and nobody is going to give you a hard time for scavenging from the garbage.
-Ian
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