VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) – As a franchise operator of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Calgary’s Dave Harrop thought he’d just be hauling away other people’s garbage — not bona fide treasures that would lead to a lucrative lifestyle.
He once picked up 50 boxes of books which were bound for the paper recyclers. Looking inside one, he found early editions of three books by Charles Dickens, including a copy of “Bleak House.”
“It was totally by fluke,” he said. “I just happened to look on top of the boxes and … saw it was worth going through the boxes,” he said.
Harrop’s find is not as uncommon as it may seem, says company spokesman Christopher Bennett.
Bronic Gold, a San Mateo, Calif., franchise operator of 1-800-Got-Junk, found a 1954 Martin Parlor Acoustic Guitar worth almost $10,000, said Bennett, who has a document signed by President Teddy Roosevelt worth $17,000 and a Spiderman 1 comic as a result of junk jobs.
“You’d be amazed at what people throw away,” Bennett said. “It’s junk. You’re really going into people’s basements and backyards and grabbing junk and taking it to a landfill site.”
They’re all part of a Vancouver-based company that has transformed itself from a one-man operation carting off people’s unwanted stuff 16 years ago to one that expects to have 250 franchises throughout North America by the end of 2006.
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