He bought an abandoned grain elevator! We get to explore it! What will we find?!

hi I'm Alex Archbold and I've been buying and selling antiques since I was nine years old from basements to scrap yards I'll look just about anywhere I can to find lost antiques and collectibles and sometimes I'll go big and buy everything I never know what's going to happen or who I'm going to meet this is our life this is our adventure and this is curiosity Inc [Music] good morning everybody today me and Jason are headed on sort of an Epic Journey we're driving 11 hours possibly today um All In Search of treasure I got a phone call from somebody said they had an estate they're clearing out and what did he collect Collectibles it's a 9 000 square foot property full to the rafters with Collectibles and they need our help to clear it out well and they want me to buy it but that's fine uh so we're gonna hit the highway and uh go look for some treasure you ready kiddo yeah all right here we go [Music] thank you [Music] oh my gosh after five and a half hours of driving we're here I don't know if we're going in this building or not but it looks promising does it an old uh kind of factory I don't know what these bricks are falling out of the wall here fireplace or something yeah maybe a chimney that's fallen through anyway Apparently one of these buildings around here old factory building is completely packed full of collectibles in Antiques and I get the joy the fun of going through it today and so do you guys too look at all this stuff this is what are we looking at here this was an old Grain Mill yeah this was an old green out here yeah and it was built in 1916 you can see like this half here yep it was so popular they built on this Edition in 1923 and like I've got pictures taken from that power pole over there yep shining at this building and there's two horse and Buggies Crossing in the road in front of it wow and I was I was saying to my son like this whole neighborhood that's around here a lot of these people must have worked at the Mill I would think yeah it probably would have employed a lot of people yeah I talked to a lot of guys that said they worked here okay yeah one guy told me this absolutely hilarious story they used to live in the flats over there when the overpass was like one lane like this and his daughter who was four years old rode her tricycle over the overpass and a cop stopped right in the middle and stopped all the traffic right until she got off that's afraid somebody was a runner over you know well it looks like you've got some ax some stuff going on in here well I got three two of them are actually still on the farm you gotta bring him this one I pulled the engine out the mice have got up in the bell housing and the throttle bearing was seized right onto the input shaft the transmission I couldn't separate the engine and transmission so I had to pull them out of the truck all in one piece well it looks like you got a pretty good layout with the Hoist and everything here was that here or did you bring that with you oh actually I bought that voice at a garage sale I paid 75 bucks 75 bucks for that hoist yeah and it's got a nice uh rail you can slide the side of the chain along and everything that was they were basically paying you to take it away at that price somebody hand made that thing it is HD oh yeah yeah well let's do if you're up for it let's do a little tour sure and what's funny is that my son and I were at the subway grabbing a sandwich and you ran into us and said uh hey since you're in town so how how long ago do you buy this building I bought it in 2007. okay and been making changes ever since well I've been there's been a ton of work and filling it up it looks like too oh man I just bought a sea can and I'm just this truck is coming out of here Yep this is going to be my workshop area and I want to build a mover press well how did you get the truck in here it's all concrete it threw that tiny little through that door oh I see and it's on dollies so you could pivot it Brown in here it's going to say yeah there's no garage door but it's funny like like I was telling you though like when they brought the green trucks in right with that 56 mercs Park so the grain truck would back in here yeah yeah and down through the floor so this was open and there was a big bin here before huge ginormous bin okay scale upstairs sure well yeah let's let's do the tour so uh what what happened is the truck would come in dump the green down through the floor it would go over on a conveyor over here up behind this door there's a bucket wheel left it would go upstairs all the way upstairs to dump down into the bin which was right there and then once they weighed the bin the guy would come over here speak into this thing and tell the guy upstairs okay put it in bin 43 and the guy upstairs would be standing there like this just wait 43 you know wow that's old technology and is that moving anything right now or is it disconnected okay I was gonna say that I took out so much rain handling equipment from this place it's unreal how many mice were in here I bet there's probably lots of grain residue and yeah well let's go this way then we'll go okay oh we're going up through the the big door big door all right hey Jason have you ever been inside of an old grain elevator before have you ever met a guy who owns his own grain elevator before well today is the day crazy people yeah I seem to know most of them there's a pair of gloves for you you're going to need them I'll keep my hands uh you're gonna need a dreadlocks okay well maybe I should uh here you go I'll believe you I like that you come prepared like if I feel like I'm on a school field trip all right kids stick together we're going to the peat moss Factory where you all have jobs if you graduate I'm getting my glove on my one glove the old steps so Jason when you're walking back down just be careful because there's stuff on the steps too how much junk so there's the old scale okay yeah and it's pretty cool you know like it's got gold pinstriping all over it down here that's neat these Grecian columns look at the Pinstripe thing on here oh yeah they went to the detail putting nice little columns on it there I could see that in a brochure at the time you know like get our fancy yeah this one does 60 tons that would have been so expensive too yeah I see that I see you've got a porcelain Ogilvy flower sign a few other ones there's a seven up one right there what oh yeah and there's a North star oil can yeah yeah so that sort of stuff around yeah that's earlier it's got the green stars on it so that's 40s cool I didn't know that yeah uh Northstar became uh was also William Penn was also I think Texaco later oh we're going to secant I'll show you I got some some like buckets with North Star on them oh gosh and and you're willing to sell do you want to sell a couple things today sure okay hmm this is right out Jesus so right where this wood floor is yeah that's where the bin scale was and that scale used to sit right here so David this thing was huge it used to attach to that deal well I'd imagine because it goes up what like eight nine stories or something like that or well it's 90 feet to the floor upstairs and then there's three stories above that and you've got wait is this an elevator sitting right there or man lift so one person can use it it's got oh is that the that's the lock thing that's your safety there's you take the brake off yeah hold the little stopper with your foot okay and up here you go oh look at that wow and then it just lowered it it doesn't come down too fast I guess hey uh well if it did come down too fast let's say for example the cable broke yeah you let the brake off and it will stop it will stop yeah wow that's pretty neat you look the part two with the coveralls on and stuff I know they're Carhartts but yeah when I come down here I come down that's right yeah I'll just show you the office here oh there's an office here so you had to cut this out of the concrete that must have been fun oh it was a lot of work and I had to cut the hole in the concrete wall for this window and for that window as well I got an old Iowa license plate yeah it's early stamped there's an Alberta one in 1918 that's a pair oh really match set that's hard to find and the the one slightly before that the porcelain ones are really difficult to get but a match set is nice I've got a 1912 Saskatchewan porcelain song oh cool looking at your view out the window here yeah it's pretty funny when when I'm up here and people walk by they never look up here and they can hear people walking by you can hear everything they say oh I bet yeah the concrete probably the sound travels this is kind of cool this is a judge's wardrobe mind you that's not supposed to be in there hey that's it don't don't anger the man in the judge's wardrobe yeah that's pretty cool it is super cool there's a shipping label on the back and it says ship to I won't tell you the guy's name Medicine Hat Northwest Territories so that's pre-1909 kind of 1905. wow so that was in his chamber judges Chambers at one point so we need to grab grab his uh robe and his gavel and stuff his it basically like his Superman kit do some justice today that's right and I see you've got some old woodworking tools oh my God this is just an apple there's a uh Angry Hunter who's telling the the bathing beauties to get out there's another one here Harvest Moon oh you got it that's a little cheeky yeah a little cheeky those are one of the most early model with the stamp oh yes yeah yeah we're in medelter country here aren't we yes you know when it's funny when I first moved to Medicine Hat in 87. you could go to garage sales and find the Delta at almost every grad show oh I bet too many people work there and they all brought home pieces and there were some unique stuff to be found I have many many pieces I was asking how he got all the stuff up there because there's just a ladder which is why we have gloves we're going to climb up there he said he just hauls it up with a rope and there's a lot of big stuff up there too you crazy man is anybody watching you to make sure you don't fall or anything oh no I'm very careful okay well I used to work in Fort McMurray and you can't even do anything without all the paperwork being tipped and blah blah safety was number one well Jason you want to be the first to go up yeah I'm not sacrificing you I just want to film from down here so when you get up just go off to the side right okay and I'll I will follow right after antique furniture here so all this stuff you just look at this thing is that the grain uh sifter called an indent and what it is it's got 12 big huge cubes inside here right behind each of these sprockets is a tube that rotates and it's got all these little indentations in it and as it rolls around the grain gets caught in those indentations and as it comes up to the top it falls out and while it's falling there's a big huge fan used to be attached to there right yeah and that fan would blow through here and blow all of the like the husks and bugs anything that wasn't green gets blown out chunks of mice yeah fall down right and there used to be a Crippen um uh air Shaker below here so it would do all this vibrating and then all the green would come out all one size and I can't imagine how heavy that thing is and I'm looking at this sort of rather thin metal grade I'm standing I'm thinking there's like 10 000 pounds of whatever this is oh probably yeah it looks like this looks like one of the Titanic boilers that you got up here but it's probably a similar era I guess they weren't building anything small in those days were they well this is relatively old but they still use this same technology today and this thing you can still buy all the bearings oh really so for old elevators that are still in use you can still service it I want to sell this thing um I've had a guy offer me fifteen thousand but I know that when I bought this building the guy who owned it and who did a lot of the renovations and the guy who brought this in and had it placed here he went through with me and told me everything that he spent money on and how much yeah he paid 40 000 for this thing but still if the guy's willing to pay 15 and and haul it out your roof and put it all back together again well [Laughter] maybe it's just me but if you're not making grain you may as well make money true are you see he's got the he's got the fun way up all right Jason be very careful and watch your head up here Mr six foot four they were only like three feet tall back in the 20s so look he's I got that going on next to me right now this is like the weirdest Willy Wonka experience I've ever all my friends say this would make the meanest spooky movie in uh of this is a very narrow staircase holy Crepes it goes way up goes way up to the top oh my gosh you know what this reminds me of Jason you weren't with me but I went with Auntie Heather to the that the castle and org uh Colorado is a guy built it mind you this feels safer than that but it had similar Vibes where you're like I'm gonna die today oh yeah oh well I'm getting our we're getting our leg workout in yep well I guess even you had an arm workout Jason right here yeah it's very low so this is where the guy at the other end of the the horn was hey right here holy there it is he'd be standing here waiting to hear the guy downstairs hey you want to go for a beer later [Laughter] so this is the main sort of workspace the main platform what there's a phone booth up here how did you get a phone booth I got a green I built on the Roof oh geez and I saw the big like Snap-on looking toolbox over there like you got to be doing something to get all this stuff up here handling equipment there was a huge pile on you got it was just piled up here and I didn't know how to get it out of here so I built a crane and had a crane come in and lift it up and put it on the roof and then one piece at a time out this door person downstairs were the doors there the doors were there so they must have had a similar system from the looks of things there um they just had a wooden beam sticking out and there was like a cable upstairs that held it down to the oh so like a barn pulley system almost yeah yeah that's a long way to go with heavy equipment that was what they used was not real that roof well it's probably good rope well there's nothing wrong in fact I used it to bring these two church pews up here those are some big pews well because I wanted to build the truck oh geez well hey if you can make it up the stairs to the what the closer to God are thee you can make it all right I'll get all the get everybody up the staircase there somebody get Granny by the ankles and pull her up she and her Sunday best [Music] well this would be a pretty cool this seems like um when you watch those movies and there's like a secret agent who has a loft and he Parks his car inside and you could have like a fireplace you've got your own fancy little elevator system there it's pretty cool oh yeah and the trains that use the tracks used to service this building there must have been another line that oh no there is it's still there you can see there's a that roof there yeah you've got a dock goes right underneath there do they ever put train cars on there no no they don't they they only use those ones over there now right but you got your own train track so you could get you could get like a boxcar or Caboose and have like or you could buy a diner car with the living facilities and live on the track yeah then scoop me yeah if you annoy your neighbors they'll just hook onto their drawn to your tractor and pull you out of town he's been giving us a hard time again hook on to that it's pretty it's pretty those storage facility down there oh yeah yeah there used to be a great big building there I don't know what it was for but uh there's a story about a woman who was coming home and never made the corner and smashed into that building and she was inebriated right so she ran home phoned the police and said that her car was stolen oh in the meantime the police were already here the building caught fire and burnt down oh and she was charged for the whole thing well they figured it out I imagine when uh when she phoned in they could probably tell them there's somebody stole my car yeah my my car is missing wow and so that building no longer exists there because of her and that incident you know all the town gossip I I'm looking at you got train tracks up here and that's to move that big equipment right okay gotcha underneath here [Music] with the motor on it yep the conveyor use the rotate like this so while the conveyor was rotating they could stand on that machine and throw the lever and that thing would walk all the way so that if you wanted to put the grade into this bin it would walk its way down here you just stop it like here and it would dump the grain down into this bin that's pretty smart that's a smart setup well thank you very much for the interior tour and you had mentioned or alluded that you might have a sea can with some collectibles in it are we okay to have a look at that oh yeah okay well Jason that means that you and I have to go back down the staircase of Doom trying to get some light here as we dig around I got my light on I'm gonna follow you Jason maybe just hang out here okay that looks almost like the Scotty dog oil lamp they have some that are like that with a little Scotty dog but I've got one of those Scotty dogs they're kind of cute yeah an old cigarette tins drill bits more little handy Oilers and stuff oh yeah yeah see it's so funny oh yeah you've got a nice little uh uh tobacco tin there that is old yeah you may want to have a look at that well that is interesting and I see all sorts of old uh plows and planes woodworking tools I don't know let's have a look hey Jason you want to open that up for me we'll see what's inside let's give it a spin oh it's got old like uh receipts and stuff from way back oh that's cool if is that something you'd sell yep okay you want to add it to the little pile over there Northwest territory in 1959. that would have been on a pretty old car or whatever that was the license plate well yeah jeez probably some old 20s car like I said there's boxes upon these molding planes I I must have close to 400 well you'll do well if you ever you know all this stuff is very sellable people actually still use it too oh yeah well I guess too I build reproductions of antique furniture I haven't for a while because I've been so busy restoring this old truck right well and then also the all the work you've been doing kind of around here in this building I'm telling you there's still hours of phone numbers upon an hour or so work to finish what I've planned for this place oh I could you've you've bought yourself a lifetime project from the looks of things yeah yeah but not many people can say they own their own oh you got an old uh wall phone there it's funny you probably have like the factory correct uh radio for my truck sitting in here somewhere 76 Ford maybe not radio for that okay wow and nothing oil candy here A bunch of tobacco tins but not old stuff well it's still neat well I guess downstairs we go found a couple things so far we've exited out the one door there and look at these old trucks um he said that has a 409 engine in it so pretty good for it hot rodder well look at this you got uh kind of everything a lot of stuff here in fact I just bought this sea can here a few weeks ago oh you've already filled it this much in the last couple weeks if the shop was chalkboard you wouldn't even do anything here what was this giant chunk of glass from or what is that come from the glass the factory okay so that's like a discharge or some kind of well I worked there one time uh when we did the renovation to change it into a fiberglass Factory okay yeah and um they had a bunch of guys in the basement with Jack hammers breaking this stuff apart and taking it out and I said find me a big piece and I'm going to take it home it's kind of cool yeah yeah I see you found one bucket yeah that's cool sure I'd be interested in that William Penn yeah yeah it was um it was no it was red red Indian became the call front and actually became Texaco I can't remember which Way North Star went but it might have they all Amalgamated and went away and became something Jason you want to carry the bucket maybe we can fill it up like an Easter egg basket yeah take a look there's got to be something you're interested in wow a nice old visor here is that off one of the trucks yeah that's a Fulton sun visor what I bought a 52 GMC two ton and this was on it I actually put it on my truck for a while and then when I got it painted I took it off and I never painted this and I I'm not going to put it back on nice nice looking visor though not bad it's missing one thing this little piece of oh the stubby yeah you could probably manufacture something I've got all the parts parts for each of the ends here because it's adjustable you can turn it up and down like that I've got all those parts but when I bought it it didn't have Vox you can almost make something out of wood you make a little I don't think wood would really do especially not for me I mean I'd be like I'd be getting a piece of stainless steel some trim off some cars oh I'm sure you could yeah you're right like this almost looks like old door molding off of the side of a car so if you found another piece like that you could just chop it and stick it on yeah that's great if you got some little uh some outboard motors here too yeah work there's still a couple more I got one downstairs in the elevator little trolling motors are kind of cool like the little tiny ones those are neat I was hoping one day to find them with the brass gas tank oh I know years ago I went to Kenora yeah and they had a museum there and it's you know they're right on the lake right and they had a couple in there with brass gas tanks and I was like oh no those are cool those are neat I've I've had some of those actually so if I come across them maybe I'll keep you in mind there's a tailgate for my 46 Chevy oh yeah yep well it's good to keep all the stuff out of the weather yeah that was the need for this the man who owns a giant Factory can't fit it all in well that'd be a lot of hauling stuff up in the crane look at the size of this thing we were up there Jason we were up there what the heck that's my one and a half ton yeah that's the one I want to turn into a vintage Wrecker that would be cool you got all sorts of plans building trucks but I guess getting this one truck is the main priority right now right getting it done the 39 okay that's the reason why this is coming out of here so you can start working here yeah yeah so this is a summertime fun zone out here yeah all right well we found let's going to this other CT oh there's another sea can yeah okay Jason you want to add it to our pile all right I like having you with me Jason I don't get you on my videos all the time it's an old welder washing machines oil or Grease oh yeah yeah from a garage oh I see they came out of a shop and that's a friend in off the Willies it's surprising how it looks like an oversized MGA front end but uh the hood is very pointed like a 40s Ford or something such an odd looking vehicle very rare unusual there's two so you got to go back for the rest of it so they're just waiting on you to go back out there yep you okay over there you're doing good okay this looks like a model a radiator yeah parts for a Model A okay no Model T Model T yeah that's a Model T is that model T OKAY model a radiator looks almost the same lots of oh you got lots of Lids you know how many times people are missing the lid for their crock pot well I picked them up wherever I could so you're the one who took them all every every time we go somewhere they've got uh crock pots and no lids and here you've got a stack of Lids I'm gonna lean this ladder and step up here ever oh okay yeah coffee cans I need an Old National yeah Nash's Gateway tea well you got just a little bit of everything in here Crocs I find with that Indian head stamp the early one she was like 1916 to 1924. yep pick those up I was hoping that was a box of old comic books but looks like it's car magazines and stuff I do buy old comics and those are metal detecting magazines oh okay and it's uh I still do metal detecting and I'm just laying in bed at about 11 o'clock at night and here's I flip the page and there's a picture of this guy with his metal detector over his shoulder and it says we even had entrance come from as far as Medicine Hat Alberta and I'm like what so I read the whole story in this guy from Medicine Hat I it took me two years to track them down he was still alive no yeah and he's a pharmacist here in medicine how he's still alive oh he's still around yeah and so him and I became friends and we still occasionally go metal detecting together oh that's a great story yeah finding a friend through the cover of a magazine let's see air cleaners off of 396 Pontiac yup I owned that car what kind of what was it it was a 67 Pontiac two plus two with the 396 with the 396. it's a 325 horse which isn't the most desirable one still but yeah pretty cool yeah hey and a toilet so if he gets stuck back here like we are right now it might empty out on the floor might create a bit of a mess but these are hogs heads for model T's yep oh yeah you're well well equipped for Model T Parts you know like I said I wanted to build a model T so uh kind of like a Model T Speedster well I'm judging by all the parts you have that's a good possibility yeah so GW thanks very much for having us over and showing us around let me pick a few things you never like we're eating sup lunch at Subway and there you are you never know who you're gonna run into a Subway that I wonder what percentage of people that walk into Subway own their own uh Granary probably not a whole lot I think this is a Wonder so thank you again for being so gracious and showing us around and um certainly all the best with your projects and working on the building here too hey well thank you all right we'll have a good one take care well that ended up being a fun adventure hey Jason yeah we got to climb around inside of an old factory um and made the trip worthwhile now the place that I came out for for all the toys and collectibles we did buy that too but I wasn't able to film in there but this fellow who we just met at the at the local Subway grabbing a sandwich what a great fun adventure that was and I found a few cool oil cans but honestly my trailer is loaded up that means it's time to head home you ready to hit the highway yeah okay let's do this uh as for you guys at home um I will be showing the video of the unboxing of all the stuff in another video so if you want to see the other stuff I actually came out here to buy subscribe and stay tuned because there will be an episode coming out on that but guys thank you very much have a wonderful day we'll see y'all soon and as always bye for now

Channel: Curiosity Incorporated

Views: 112,191

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Id: yal7xeAFLS8

Length: 33min 19sec (1999 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023