What's your favorite find?

[SeaCat]

All of us have at one time or another have found something. Most of us find things like change or jewelry and pick it up without thinking about it. Sometimes we find something that really sticks with us.

So what are your favorite finds?

Me? I have a couple of them, all found during dives.

#1) A large, as in Extra Large Hardrock Cafe New York Sweatshirt in black. I found it on the bottom in 15 feet of water. At first I had just tossed it on a bridge abutment to get it out of the water with the intent of throwing it away. When I looked at it later I saw it still had the price tag on it. I picked it up and tossed it in the waterproof tub with my dive gear and brought it home. Multiple washings later it no longer smelled like dead fish and is now used when I go out on boat dives to keep me warm between dives.

#2) A six inch across Silver Keepsake Box in the shape of a heart. On the top it has the name and life dates of a child engraved. I found it under a bridge in a heavily trafficed area. I tried to return it. I put ads about it in all of the local marinas, in the local papers and I wrote to the several companies around that make things like it in the hopes of finding the owners. I never did so now it sits on my wife's dresser.

Cat

 

[DeeZire]

Back in the late 70s, on my first full-time musician job, I had to work Christmas Eve. Of course, the club was dead, but the owner wouldn't think of letting us out of our six-night-a-week arrangement. During the last break, I found a $20 on the floor of the bathroom. Back in 1979, $20 was a lot of money.

My other fave was finding women's panties under my bed - and trying to guess who the belonged to - but that hasn't happened in a long time. I definitely know who they belong to these days.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Probably the most important thing I found was the battleflag of the 2nd Florida Infantry Regiment, CSA. The state gave the flag to my 2nd great-grandmother after her father was killed in action at Williamsburg VA. The flag then vanished.

A few years ago I came across a distant cousin whose ancestor was the sister of my ancestor. His ancestor inherited the flag and the silk flag rotted away to nothing. The rags were divided among several people and an ex-wife of someone stole the flag staff.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I found my mom's wedding band when I was about seventeen. My parents were divorcing when I was very little, and my dad, in a rage, had thrown the wedding set way out into a corn field. So, I was planting some tulips for my grandma and found it when I was digging. We figure it gradually washed down into the yard over time. It's not exactly a cherished item, for the bad karma it represents, but one of the few things besides myself that remains of their doomed union.

 

[oggbashan]

A copy of the complete works of Shakespeare.

It was a school prize awarded to my paternal grandfather for winning an essay competition.

I didn't inherit it. I found it in a secondhand bookshop.

Many of the pages are still uncut/unopened. My father told me two things:

1. All my grandfather's possessions including that book had been lost to looters when the family were evacuated from their bomb-damaged home in 1916.

2. The reason that grandfather's prize book was unread was because he already had two complete works of Shakespeare when he won the prize.

Og

 

[john-the-author]

A copy of the complete works of Shakespeare.

It was a school prize awarded to my paternal grandfather for winning an essay competition.

I didn't inherit it. I found it in a secondhand bookshop.

Many of the pages are still uncut/unopened. My father told me two things:

1. All my grandfather's possessions including that book had been lost to looters when the family were evacuated from their bomb-damaged home in 1916.

2. The reason that grandfather's prize book was unread was because he already had two complete works of Shakespeare when he won the prize.

Og

That's really terrific, Og. Cool!

 

[penandpaper]

All such cool finds. I have nothing that compares, unless you count the time I found a sailboat. But, it was a co-find. My family and I found it. Well, my dad spotted it, I got to it, and we all did the repairs.

A little unnamed island in the Caribbean, south of the Abacos. It was a twenty eight foot Morgan OutIlsand, abondoned and sitting kilter onshore. We anchored and waited three days. She had a huge gouge in her keel, a cracked mast, and was filled with two feet of water. We pumped her out, fixed what we could, and I sailed her for the next six days following my folks around. A good adventure for a fifteen year old.

 

[oggbashan]

Helping someone else find...

One of the services I used to provide from my secondhand bookshop was Booksearch.

If you wanted a particular book, I would try to find it through the secondhand book trade. Now there is little need for that service. Books can be found by searching the net. But then...

One of my regular customers had worked in Hong Kong in the 1960s. When he was returning to the UK after finishing his deployment in Hong Kong he sat down to sort out his possessions. He had an allowance of shipping space and more goods than would fit. He decided to weed out his books and reduce his library to just the books he really wanted.

Once he had finished he typed, in triplicate, a list of the books he had kept. He put one list in the trunk with the books, posted one to his parents in the UK, and kept a copy with him.

When he arrived back in the UK all his belongings arrived EXCEPT the trunk of books. It had vanished and was never found. He claimed on insurance for the value of the books but he really couldn't replace the personal associations with each particular copy e.g. given as a birthday present by a now deceased great-uncle, a school prize, etc.

When he came to my book shop he had been looking for the missing books for about twenty years and had replaced about two-thirds of them. Could I help him find the others?

I tried. His list was down to about 100 books. Over a year I had managed to find about 40 but then I had a phone call from another dealer whose shop was about 100 miles away. That dealer had been too late to reply to my earlier advertisements in the trade magazine but he had most of the missing titles and copies of the titles I had already found for my customer. Was I interested?

I telephoned the dealer. About fifteen years earlier he had bought a trunk full of books at an auction of a bankrupt company. He hadn't sold many of them because most had inscriptions.

I put my customer in touch with the other dealer. The trunk was the trunk he had packed in Hong Kong. He drove to the other dealer's shop, bought all the books, and the trunk. He now had completed his collection of his precious books and at least half of them were the exact copies he had lost.

I got 5% commission on the sale but a very satisfied customer.

Og

 

[sadangel]

One of the services I used to provide from my secondhand bookshop was Booksearch.

If you wanted a particular book, I would try to find it through the secondhand book trade. Now there is little need for that service. Books can be found by searching the net. But then...

One of my regular customers had worked in Hong Kong in the 1960s. When he was returning to the UK after finishing his deployment in Hong Kong he sat down to sort out his possessions. He had an allowance of shipping space and more goods than would fit. He decided to weed out his books and reduce his library to just the books he really wanted.

Once he had finished he typed, in triplicate, a list of the books he had kept. He put one list in the trunk with the books, posted one to his parents in the UK, and kept a copy with him.

When he arrived back in the UK all his belongings arrived EXCEPT the trunk of books. It had vanished and was never found. He claimed on insurance for the value of the books but he really couldn't replace the personal associations with each particular copy e.g. given as a birthday present by a now deceased great-uncle, a school prize, etc.

When he came to my book shop he had been looking for the missing books for about twenty years and had replaced about two-thirds of them. Could I help him find the others?

I tried. His list was down to about 100 books. Over a year I had managed to find about 40 but then I had a phone call from another dealer whose shop was about 100 miles away. That dealer had been too late to reply to my earlier advertisements in the trade magazine but he had most of the missing titles and copies of the titles I had already found for my customer. Was I interested?

I telephoned the dealer. About fifteen years earlier he had bought a trunk full of books at an auction of a bankrupt company. He hadn't sold many of them because most had inscriptions.

I put my customer in touch with the other dealer. The trunk was the trunk he had packed in Hong Kong. He drove to the other dealer's shop, bought all the books, and the trunk. He now had completed his collection of his precious books and at least half of them were the exact copies he had lost.

I got 5% commission on the sale but a very satisfied customer.

Og

That's a cool story. To think he got back the trunk finally. Who would have thought.

My favorite find...A first edition Robert Frost Poems for ten cents at a rummage sale. Also a first edition copy of The Diary of Anne Frank at the same rummage sale for only five cents.

Sadly, I have neither anymore, as my stupid ex-husband decided to throw out a bunch of my stuff, including those books, some sentimental things that had been in the family for many years and some of my high school things like my band jacket with the coveted "Letter" that showed I was "somebody" at least for a short while in my life.

 

[AngeloMichael]

I was cleaning out a closet in my parents house when they were getting ready to move in with me. This closet hadn't been opened, much less cleaned in over 20 years. Among the things I found was a tiny bank-safe that had about $400 of silver dollars and some original G1 Transformers that my mom bought for me for Christmas years ago, like in 1984 and she must have put them in there and forgot about them.

There was a Jet Fire, Shockwave, and Optimus Prime! I was so psyched. They were all in their original packaging unopened. There was a Toy 'r' Us price tag on Prime that said $19.95. I checked on Ebay and a something like that in the same condition were going for $1000.00

 

[Handley_Page]

I won't say I "collect" these books but if I see one at a modest price in a shop, I'll give it serious looks. The books are on Radio. My best find was a copy of Terman, discovered in a pile of old books on a junk stall for twenty pence.

I'd love to find a copy of "Antennas" by Jasic.

 

[oggbashan]

1. I found a battered first edition of Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles in a junk shop for 50 pence.

I sold it to another bookdealer for 80 pounds, giving 39 pounds and 50 pence back to the junk shop. He had it repaired and rebound before selling it to an American visitor for 250 pounds. I, and the junk shop, each made a bigger profit.

The American visitor now owns a book worth about 1000 dollars.

Later I bought a Dickens first edition from the same junk shop for two pounds. The owner wouldn't take any more for it. After the Conan Doyle his book sales had increased dramatically because locals thought that treasures could be found among his massive stock of books.

2. I found a solid silver salt cellar, hallmarked 1897, in the five pence toy box of a charity shop. It was badly tarnished. I cleaned and polished it before selling it at auction for £120. I gave the net proceeds back to the charity, not even deducting my five pence.

3. I collect Viewmaster reels. I had a couple of viewmasters in my shop. A couple of my customers noticed them, said "I've got some of those. Are you collecting them?". I acquired another 300 reels in exchange for some of my books.

4. One of my friends collects Hornby O gauge trains. So do I. I only collect the clockwork trains, which are much cheaper and easier to find. He collects the electric versions which were made up to 1939.

We were at a village fete demonstrating our collections to amuse the dads and children in exchange for donations to repair our village church. We took it in turns to get tea from the tea tent. While I was getting the tea he was approached by an old lady from the next village. She told him that she had some Hornby trains that used to belong to her husband. Was he interested? She just wanted them to be used.

After we had finished the fete he went to the next village expecting a battered clockwork train from one of the cheaper ranges. What he was given was a velvet lined box containing the most expensive Hornby model ever - the electric Princess Elizabeth in perfect condition except that the wheels needed renewing, which he could do for about thirty pounds, and three appropriate coaches, the correct track and controller. At the time the Princess Elizabeth was selling for about 1000 pounds, the coaches at 100 pounds each, and even the track was twenty pounds a piece.

The old lady didn't want any money for the collection, just his assurance that he would show them at future fund-raising events he was involved in.

Twenty years later, he is still showing off his Princess Elizabeth, and I'm still wishing he had gone for the tea instead of me.

Og

 

[Saucyminx]

When I was pregnant with my son, I was walking to my car after work and saw something shiny in a puddle. Being a bit of a magpie, I bent down and pulled out a thick gold band with 3 sapphires, and three small diamonds on it. I put up fliers near where I found it and never got a response. So I wore that ring on my right pointer finger for 11 years.

On a trip to FL, my best friend and I stopped at a rest stop on I95 at about 2 a.m. I took off all my jewelry and left it in the car, just to be safe. Unfortunately, it must have fallen into my lap and when I got out of the car I lost it. (I even heard it hit, but being tired and a bit punchy, I didn't realize the significance of the clang.) Oddly, I didn't get upset. I just figured it was someone else's turn to wear that ring. Still remember it fondly though.

 

[impressive]

I found this guy... hanging out on a message board for smut writers.

And I found a bunch of wonderful friends there, too. Who knew?

 

[vrosej10]

I have to favorites.

Year before last, I found a sapphire and diamond ring in our local shopping centre just before christmas. I thought it must have been someone's christmas present as it had not been worn. I turned it in (to the amazement of the management) and no one claimed it. I am wearing it now and loving it. Two funny things; I don't really like sapphire except ceylon sapphires, which it is and I had admired an identical ring owned by one of my teachers 25 years ago.

My other find is a case of a thing finding the right owner. Years ago, I found exactly the book I needed on a specialist topic without knowing it was a rare and important book on the subject in question, for $5 on a special sale rack. I didn't know what I had found till about six months later and I was amazed as this text had been out of print for years.