My head is about to explode. There's a word or phrase for a guy who comes to pick up non-worthless junk from your home or business. I want to say it's a more common British term than American term.

It's driving me absolutely nuts. Someone help me out here.

Burglar?
Bailiff?
Rag & Bone Man?

That's seems like the most accurate one. I like the song too.

*edit*
Of course, technically, with your description, that could accurately describe a repo man.

Not "rag and bone man". It's not a colloquial phrase. It says what it means; I just think it's in more common usage in Britain. This might be a misleading hint, as it's probably unlikely for you to think of it as a notably more British term.

Yeah, I meant with your permission. It's the "I've got stuff that I don't want, and it's not really salable, but is valuable enough (to someone else) to make throwing it away stupid."

They were also known as totters or pickers in London, in Ye Goode Olde Dayes. That's a very old usage though, so probably not what you're looking for.

I didn't want to contaminate anyone's thought process, but I'm thinking along the lines of:

"Womble"?

Peter

Generally I wind up taking that kind of stuff to the Salvation Army or some other of that ilk.

Some times the Veterans have a drive where stuff is picked up at your home.

Maybe you are thinking about Norton Sales

Junkie?

Dustman? But I think that's just a regular ol' garbageman.

Craigslister?

Garage Saler?

Renderer?

As, probably the oldest member here, I can clearly remember the rag and bone man coming, but then we also had the knife sharpener, shoe repairer and Breton onion seller call periodically.

Milk and Bread came on horsecarts. My mother could post, with confidence, the grocery and butcher's orders in the morning and a lad would deliver them, on a bike, early in the evening. The greengrocer came weekly in a decomissioned LHD WWII General Motors AWD truck, always with a fag in his mouth, even when talking.

Its only in recent years, with the internet and supermarket deliveries that some service at this level has come back, but then in those days, you couldn't order a hot meal on the 'phone.

Our local council re-housed the local rag and bone man in a council house, but he then got in trouble for keeping the horse in the front room with its head sticking out of the, street facing, window.

Back to the subject: Neighbours of ours had a sign: "No hawkers, circulars or didecoys"(Also spelt didicoi). The Rag & Bone man was usually by definition a traveller or didecoy, consequently that one word might well have been used. Tinkers (Odd jobbers who mended household items) also generally came from the gypsy community.

We could do with a womble revival.

We were brought up in Whitechapel in the 60s, we had parrafin heaters, the Esso man used to come once a week so we could refill our cans. Plenty of knife sharpeners etc. Don't remember seeing anything horse drawn apart from the brewery drays some of which were still servicing local pubs till the 80s (Youngs in Wandsworth were apparently still using horses till the late 90s).

We always knew them as rag and bone men, but they were motorised in our days. Got me thinking of Steptoe and Son now, Wilfrid Brambell, a proper miserable git, born for the role

Au contraire, my young friend. Can you beat April, 1945? I was born about three months before the first atom bomb test, and thus am one of the dwindling number of non-mutants still extant on the planet.



tanstaafl.

You got me by eight months! We've covered this point before, for some reason I'd put you down as just younger not older, in my mind.

We had a paraffin heater that you put under the sump of the car in winter. In the late 40's, we had the first car in the street with a heater, you took it to the garage for them to switch it on in the autumn and off in the spring!
We had gas fires in all rooms, but my father precluded their use until we had at least three sweaters on: If he was away, my mother was open to persuasion very easily!
Ah, now Young's that's a pint I could do with now, to me Tetley, Theakston and the Smiths don't hit the spot, I would only put Shepherd Neames on a higher rung!


"They, asked me how I knew,
it was Esso blue,
I, of course, replied,
With some brands you buy,
Smoke gets in your eyes"

It has just come back to me that we used to be given a tablespoon of paraffin (Nor Esso, out of a medicine bottle) each morning, for our health. Revolting, I wonder what it was meant to do?

Boxer, have you ever tried any St Peters Ales? Not London, but seriously good. There's also a really highly regarded micro brewery in Greenwich (never tried any):

http://www.meantimebrewing.com/

We used to be fed 1 tbsp cod liver oil, I think I'd have preferred Esso Blue.

Scrap Dealer / Scrap Merchant / Scrappie?
Salvage, Surplus or some derivative of?

Get you out of mum and dad's house sooner?

Oh, that'll be why they kicked me out to boarding school, as well!

So did we ever get the word? Some of us are still on tenterhooks here...

Peter

Nope. Gave up. I probably dreamt it.

Knacker?

Though that seems to be defined as someone who buys things like ships and buildings for parts...

I thought the knacker's was the slaughterhouse.

Apparently that's the other definition. It's the best I could get from the two most word-familiar people I know, my mother the National Geographic editor and my uncle the freelance mens' fashion writer.