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Dumpster Diving - What is your best score?

dougw

We had a question previously on what is the best deal you ever got when procuring electronics, but what is the best free deal you ever got from dumpster diving, trash salvage or discarded material?

It is okay to mention the great free stuff we get from element14, but also mention your best score from trash.

My stereo microscope came from a dumpster. It didn't have a stand, but I built a stand and I use that microscope all the time. It was a a phenomenal score - an expensive device for free, that I use extensively.

From element14, I got to road test a 4 channel R&S scope, it is now my main scope - the highlight of the decade ...Heart

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    This is not dumpster diving per say but around 5 years ago my wife and I were at Walmart and we were price checking some toasters by running their bar codes under the scanners that they have scattered throughout the store.  A particular toaster caught our eye but we could only find the display model.  There didn't appear to be any boxes of this particular model on the shelf.  My wife noticed that there was a bar code sticker on the plexi glass that the display model toaster was mounted to.  We ran it under the scanner and the price came up as 1 cent.  We grabbed a display model for a different type of toaster and tried scanning it but it's price wasn't available.  Whether we were right or wrong, at the time this convinced us that the one cent price was intentional.  Maybe they wanted to get rid of an old discontinued model.  In the end we found the nerve to bring it to the checkout.  The person working the cash rang it up for one cent and cautioned us that this is final sale and they won't accept any returns on the item.  I assured him I wouldn't miss the one cent and we went on our merry way.  Since this toaster was a display model its power cord had been cut off.  I replaced it with the cord from our faulty toaster.  Five years later and our 1 cent toaster works like a charm.

  • 0 in reply to dang74

    Wow! Great story. The last time I bought something for 1 cent was about 1960 - some candy. (a bottle of Coke cost 5 cents)

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