Finding Random/Valuable Things

good thing the kid is smarter than her daddy.

I found a bifocal lense from a pair of glasses last week.  It is probably worth $35 to the owner.  I turned it in to the company lost and found.

TW

I found about $35 cash floating down the street one time on a run. I still think about it every time I run by that house.

I also found a child with Downs Syndrome wandering the street. I threw my bike in someone's yard, scooped him up and went door to door till I found where he lived - that was a super weird situation. He had slipped out the door while Mom wasn't looking. She had a little break down, vaguely alluded to an abusive ex-husband she was scared of... I sat with her for awhile until she seemed to pull it together. I still think about them every time I pass their house, too.

Smart kid.  She wasn't born yesterday!

Probably 5 or 6 dogs over my lifetime so far.  I contacted their owners via collar tags and kept them at home until they were picked up.

Have found several wallets and a purse and contacted owners.  One had $350 in cash in it!

Nothing random that was valuable.

When I was a kid and had my paper route I would find random valuable things all the time. At one point I found a money envelope with several hundred dollors in it (don't recall exactly). It had a name on it luckily so I was able to track it down to two nice elderly sisters who lived a few houses down from where the money was found and return it to them. By way of thanks I got a giant pan of brownies and a little baggy full of coins. The baggy of coins, they said, belonged to one of their deceased husbands. It had several in it that turned out to be a little rare. Back then they were worth about 3x face value of the coins. No idea what they are worth now but I still have them tucked away with my silver dollors and rare paper bills that my great Grandparents gave me.

Weirdest thing I ever found was several giant metal plugs, could not figure them out until I was talking to one of the guys on my paper route working in his garage when I delivered his afternoon paper - turns out they were his. Two of pure lead and a few mixed ones that he melted down to make his own fishing gear. The next day I got to help him melt one of them down in a crucible over a propane flame and watch him poor the molten metal into molds for large fishing hooks.

This year while I was working at the Iowa state fair I found $60.00 rolled up next to the beer garden on the ground. It was late, around midnight, I looked down and saw a $20.00 bill.  Then when I picked it up there was 2 more $20.00 bills rolled up inside. So who do you ask while your babysitting 5000 drunk people, "who lost $60.00 cash"?

You don't ask you put it in your pocket and consider it hazard pay working the beer garden. But it did make my night better getting a $60.00 raise. It made it a little more tolerable dealing with drunk people at the fair.

Found a wallet on a ride once. No cash, but had military ID and a debit card. Turned it in at the ranger station, and also contacted the regiment listed on the military ID.

Found a dog on a run out in the woods. It was following me... No tags. We drove around the area (a LARGE area), but no signs for a lost dog, no reaction from the dog). We ended up finding a home for the dog a few weeks later, where they'd lost a dog JUST like that one a couple weeks before to cancer. Turned out to be worth a whole lot more than money.

I've found some trinkets on rides and runs that were worth small amounts, more by being useful than the $$ cost.

Not exactly on topic as described, but I was going through today's mail and there was a letter that looked like junk mail, but it had an interesting return address, so I opened it. Looked like a scam - i.e. "You may have valuable unclaimed property," but on the second page it listed a bank account I used to have. Rather than call these people and pay their fee, I called the bank.

Sure enough it's legitimate. There was an account that went into escheat in the State of CA. for $1,082! I call the state to confirm and to start the claim process and guess what? Another $999 of unclaimed property tax refund!!!

This must have happened when life was going to sh*t and we were splitting up and fighting, but that's all water under the bridge now. Being the honest guy that I am, I called my ex and told her the good news.

So today is my lucky day

When I was a teen, I had a summer job with a demolition company that had a contract to tear down a local farmers market. This building was built in the around the mid to late 1800's and all the floors were made of wood planking. (I remember as a kid going there with my parents and sound of the creaking floors as you walked on them).

We were at the stage of ripping up the floors when we discovered money that had slipped through the cracks through out the years. Myself, I found about $5 worth in coins that some dated back to the late 1800's and most were early 1900's
I still have coins but have no idea what they are worth. 

I had a similar experience yesterday!   I was tearing down a very old building when I found a metal box.   I opened it and inside was a SINGING FROG.  It knows all the old classics:  "Hello my Baby!" and "Michigan Rag."  I'm going to be RICH! 

Found a 5 dollar bill in the curb outside my elementary school when I was about 12 years old - that was a lot of money to me back then.

I found and still have someone's class ring from a rival H.S. (found it when I was in college, I believe).  I have to locate it and decide when to track the poor soul down finally.

Glad you had a very good heart and helped out that kid, Reeeeee saaaaaaaah!

I was walking into town with my hubby on a dark night. We at the edge of a small town (pop. 3000) and there are no lights on our street. We carry flashlights and use them if a car comes by to alert people that we're out for a walk. Well, some dog decided to walk with us and wouldn't leave us. He just kept padding along, happy as can be. He had a collar but no ID, and no leash. We held him close when cars came by, and he was good about that. Every time a car passed by, we shone our light on the dog to let people know we were with a dog. We decided to walk to the fire/police station and see if they had a leash we could borrow, and we'd walk back along our street and try to find the owners.

But first we'd go into town and get our ice cream. So we "borrowed" the dog a little bit longer, then started to walk back home. This minivan that we remembered had passed us before slowed down and drove alongside us...then sped up and went away. Then 1/4 mile later, the minivan passed us again. Slowed to a crawl. We shone the light at the dog and the driver stopped.

"Hey! You've got my dog!!" the woman said. We explained that he had joined us and we had gotten the leash from the police station. She said she had seen us earlier but couldn't believe it was her dog because he was actually on a leash. Heh. I'm glad she didn't really think we'd stolen her dog, sweet pup that he was.

So other than that dog (and cats, too, but they don't follow me for very long) I haven't come across anything! (I do wish I could steal some of those cats.)

My wife and I were snorkeling in the Bowron River (central British Columbia - near Barkerville) when I found a human fibula in amongst some sticks laying on the bottom.  That had to be worth something.  I turned it in to the local RCMP detachment.

Same river different day my wife spotted a $10 bill on the bottom.  She's not a great swimmer but she went down to the bottom for the money and came up sputtering but clutching the money.

I've also found some really old pop bottles worth a few bucks each.  

Over the course of several years up there I cleaned out literally hundreds of brand new fishing lures that people had snagged on sunken logs.  At $3-5 each they must've been worth hundreds of dollars and we're still using them.  I also found the largest fishing hook I've ever seen, about 10" long.  I suspect someone was fishing for sturgeon rumoured to live in Bowron Lake.

It's sad how few people will get this joke.

Proud to say my 6yr old sings Hello my Baby song regularly. Looney Tunes rock.

I've been indoctrinating my kids for many years.   When I wash their hair in the bathtub, I whistle the Barber of Seville Overture.