I’m a heavy equipment mechanic and while at a site watching the CAT 312 escavator dig a hole I noticed in the pile of earth that spit out from the bucket something shiny...and this is what it was...I like finding this kind of stuff that has been buried in the dirt for lord knows how long... What are some of the cool things you have found?
Digging next to the driveway of a house I was renting -- had been in it for three years. Found my college class ring that I had lost "onboard a ship" two years earlier. Guess I actually took it off while working on my car. Needless to say I was stoked.
In the mid 90's I was working as a maintenance tech at a large apt complex. This was about the same time as the Gov started printing the new designed 100.00 bills. Found one in the bushes and thought it was play money. Gave it to a coworker thinking it was fake. Another once upon a time while cleaning out a neighbors garage for her found this "Noon Gun" had no idea what it was but thought it was cool. She said keep what I find so I did. Years later it sold for 2500.00 Picture was after I cleaned it up prior to selling. It was made in the 60's
When I bought a house in 2003 I was going through the attic and found a picture. Normally i would have thrown it away. But, this picture was not something normal anymore. So ever since I found it, its been hanging in my garage.
I had owned my current home for 15 years or so when I found one of those handprint stones in the backyard. Had a boy's name on it. I knew the house was 25 years old and that there had onley been two owners -- one for 5, the next for 20. And i knew the 2nd only only had a daughter. (This is before the internet, of course.) Couple years later I am talking to someone who mentions the first owner's name. He knew the general area the guy lived in -- about 20 miles away. I looked him up, told what I had, he was at my house the next day. His wife was on the verge of tears and unbelievably grateful -- called their kid right then. The backyard used to look like a tropical jungle -- they said they tried to find it on their way out but couldn't remember where it was. Was about 6" down when I found it. Good karma.
A pair of .50 calibre cases when I put the driveway slab in, around 2006. I wasn't that surprised, since I live on Lancaster St, and it intersects with Spitfire Avenue.
While on vacation this year in Tennessee, hiking on some trails near the cabin we were staying in, I saw something shiny out the corner of my eye. About 50 or 60 feet off of the trail and down a hill in the woods my kids and I found a '63 Chevy Impala convertible buried up to the tops of the fenders. We could not get the hood up but from what we could see the motor was gone. the A pillars were crushed down under the dirt and I did find parts of the convertible top frame. Quarter panels were crushed down but you could see the rear bumper and it was in decent condition. The bumper had a South Side Motors bumper sticker on it. Ken
I hunted a farm for 20 years growing up, and in around 1997 I was in an antique store and saw an old 30in. round porcelain Phillips 66 sign for sale for $350, a light bulb went off in my head, I had seen one of these in the ditch at that old farm. So I went there looking and sure enough there it was, along with 48 more and 2 different styles from 1927-28. I made around $12,000 selling those off for the next few years......
When we first moved to our house it was my job to clean closet shelves. The closet in the master bedroom, I could feel something in the back of the shelf. It was a vibrator shaped like a penis......I did not keep it!
Yesterday I had a service call out in the county. Back in the woods a short way off the main road and near the ladys driveway was a old run down little house / shack. I was stiiting at the corner. no one coming so I got out. pushed through the brush and went in. 2 rooms with a small fireplace. Floor had caved in a bit. On the wall was news paper and cardboard. Guessing for insulation. I picked a folded sheet off and opened it up very carefully. was crumbling in my hands. date at the top of the Sunday comics was Jan 1 1950. If it was in better shape Id frame it.
Are ya pretty watchful for fire ants and larger stuff. Some one here said all the wildlife in Florida is carnivorous or poisonous. Sure was that way in Louziana. hmmm ws
I get fire ant bit nearly everyday. For some reason they love to get into A/C units. As far as any other critters its about the same as anywhere else. Been living here nearly 40 years and never had worse than an ant bite.
This is the coolest fossil I ever found. It's a piece of a Duckbill Dinosaur leg bone I found at the C&D canal. If you look at the first pic, I found the piece on the far right end when I was 13 and found the rest when I was 16. At this time I think it is still the only Dinosaur bone ever found in the state of Delaware. Duane
When I was adding onto my house I had to do a lot of digging. The most unusual thing I found was a spent artillery shell, or some kind of mortar. I was not surprised because I knew the kid that lived here when I was a kid. His dad was in the National Guard. We knocked down a cement block wall and I found an orange NEHI bottle of soda and another old Pepsi bottle. I set them aside to keep them. My father in-law put them in the recycle bucket and they were gone. Way to go Dick! Don't be offended. His name is Dick. We also found a 1957 Palm Beach Post Times in the wall that a construction worker must have put there. He also recycled that! I think he is a Dick. While digging up some ground for tomato plants I found an old, metal P51 airplane from the early 60's. My grandson played with that for awhile. What will the next owners find??? How 'bout a '71 Cadillac 472 engine and rear end. A 76 Chevy 350. A '68 Buick 350. A 1980 Mercruiser outdrive. (I might dig that back up to scrap the aluminum. NOT!!! A couple of Buick 2 speed transmissions. (More aluminum?) A couple months ago I buried a BIG oxygen or acceteline tank. When I was digging a hole for that I ran into a bunch of cement bricks. NO, I did not bury them. Previous owner was a contractor. I'll blame him. My original GS400 engine is buried on the side of the carport at the "dumplex" we lived in when we first got married. For you "tree huggers", No offence to you Hugger. I did drain the oil or tranny fluid out of all those crazy parts.
About 35 years ago my Dad bought a small home for himself. After he was in it for a few weeks I was there one day and Dad asked me what this strange looking wooden duct box in the basement ceiling was. It was wood, was square and had a round circle for duct work, covered with a small piece of lauan plywood. When I moved the piece of lauan plywood and looked inside the duct-box there were two small canvas bank sacks each tied with a string. Each sack was full of $20 bills and there was a total of $30K. About two weeks later I found a letter in the house that was basically a treasure map. It told the reader to go into an upstairs closet, through a ceiling trap door in to the attic. It then said "go to the common wall (the house was a twin) and count seven bays over from the back of the house and look in between the floor/ceiling joists" so I did - and found nothing - but when I looked in bays eight and nine, I again found two canvas bank sacks full of silver coins, mostly quarters and mercury dimes that were worth $6K. Dad only paid about $30K for the house.
Another find for me on Hunting land, this one had an old house the guy had died a couple years earlier and we had permission to stay in the house, it was just like the day the guy left it all furnished and everything intact. Well I tell my buddy old people like to stash money places so we start looking, after an hour I lift up the mattress and there in an old ladies cigarette purse was $900 neatly rolled up and tied with thread.
Back in about 1957 I was tearing down a dilapidated single car garage to earn a little summer money. When I stripped the siding off, I found that it was also insulated with newspaper. I found an ad for a 1916 Oakland in one of the sheets of paper. I did save it and I still have it framed. My best find was in the house that we bought in Medway, MA in 1983. The previous residents were well-known to the police. I found a cache of silverware and a 1956 Newton High School Gold ring. I sold the silverware to a local antique shop, and spent the next six years trying to track down the ring's owner (it had initials in it and from it's size I made the assumption that it belonged to a woman). The head of the class reunion committee narrowed it down to six women; I narrowed it down to one. The ring had been stolen during a housebreak years before. The lady and her husband were in poor health and not great economic health either. The look on the woman's face when I gave her the ring was worth all of the effort. She gave me a small reward which I wanted to refuse, but I felt that my refusal would be an insult, so I reluctantly accepted it.
