250? Thats it?
Like many others, I also dive dumpsters and ransack lots and other poorly maintained/looked after storage facilities, but to this day the best find I've gotten...ok, maybe the 2nd-3rd best find I've gotten (just remembered getting a ton of old Apples, Commodores and the like)... was found in the trash in Japan.

As I was coming home in the morning one day after copious amounts of boozing the night before, I noticed in the pile of trash (on the curb for trashday) a few sacks that are oddly square in shape. I peer through a small opening that I made with my handy hand, and lo and behold, they are all videotapes- but who would throw out these videotapes? What the hell are they?

Back safe in my home I open the one bag I took with me- all the videotapes were caseless, and looking at the labels....e...ro....ero! porn! Someone just threw out their porn collection! Cue me running (well, shambling) outside to grab the other 2 bags worth of rain-drenched trashporn. All in all, about 70 tapes worth, and me without a VCR.

I looked throuh what I had, and was lucky that about 30 still had their retail cases. It being (standard) Japanese porn means that it is censored, so I figure I can turn a quick yen by selling them. I toss all 30 of them in my backpack and set off to a not-very-local used book/cd/video/dvd/game chain store (Book Off), fill out the necessary forms, and give the very nice attendant a stack of 30 porn VHSes. It was probably one of her weirder days, as this location was smack in the middle of a very popular location for shopping (Harajuku), which means that your normal perv wouldn't probably have the balls to get rid of his porn there, it was coming from a foreigner, and it was also a rather sizable collection to be getting rid of all at once. Probably shouldn't have smiled so much as I handed it over the counter to her, should have cackled and winked.

10 minutes later my number gets called- and, in broken English, I'm told that of all the tapes they only want 2 of them, and they are willing to pay 250 yen (probably quid and a half). Alright, I knew I wasn't going to get anything for them anyway, but I was at least expecting maybe a tenner for the lot- only about 50p per tape. But, seeing as how it wasn't my porn, I said, yeah, sure, 250 is fine. Then they asked what I wanted to do with all the other tapes. If you've ever carried around 30 tapes in a backpack, you probably know the answer- "naw, fuck that, you can keep 'em." 250 yen didn't even cover the train ticket there.

At home, I now have 30 tapes left, so I toss some in a bag and head over to my GFs house to see what the hell they are- most are just your standard fare crappy porn, one video had some good actual voyeur stuff. Nothing at all worth hanging onto. Not wanting to toss them in the trash so they can be landfilled, I come up with a brilliant use for them.

My time in Japan (that time) was coming quickly to an end, soon my visa'd run out and I'd have to piss off, but I also needed to thank everyone that I had come to know by then. I figured I'll kill two prostitutes with one baseball bat by holding a send-off party at a local nightclub, do a little djing, and give everyone a fabulous door prize on their way out. A trip to the local everyman's store to buy plastic bags and a little candy, and I've got 30-odd gifts that the whole family can enjoy.

---------------------

2 months later I was back in Japan, and met up with a Japanese couple that attended the party, and swiftly got a punch in the arm from the lady of the pair.

"denki! What the hell? That videotape you gave me..."
"Yeah?"
"It wasn't porn! It was some rock concert!"
"....sorry?"
"Why didn't I get porn? Everyone else got porn!"

I have yet to make it up to her.
(denki, Fri 7 Nov 2008, 4:30, Reply)