Great finds on the street.

In My Humble Opinion
1

In high school there was a Burger King just across the street that we would sometimes go to for lunch. One day, coming back I found a book in the street. It had been run over several times and had no cover. I could still make out the title on the spine Misinformation. It was like Snopes, showing that some commonly held beliefs were wrong. The most amazing was that the Wright brothers did not invent the airplane. They were the first to perfect manned powered flight. Some French gentleman had successfully operated a powered flying machine, but it was unmanned so, his name is obscure at best.

That was a great find and it was just in the middle of the street. Is this an odd occurance? Is this commonplace? Have you found really cool stuff just on the street? Would you pick up something you found on the street? Where do you draw the line (combs, hats, money)? Just curious.

2

My dining table.

Shortly after moving to the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, over 15 years ago, my girlfriend and I were walking along a side street at twilight and ran into a man and a woman lugging an enormous carved oak dining table down the brownstone stoop.

As the next morning was garbarge pick-up, I said “Uh…are you THROWING THAT OUT?”

“Yeah,” the guy said. “It’s broken.”

My girlfriend and I picked the table up (with their blessing) and lugged it back to our new rental, about half a block away. We turned it upside down in the living room, I went for a couple of tools, and fixed it in about ten minutes. And I’m not even handy, in the hammer-and-screwdriver way.

We’d been eating off a card table for the previous couple of years, and wondering when we could ever justify the enormous expense of a dining table…and this one fell right into our laps. It’s gorgeous, visitors comment on it all the time, it’s served us well through our relationship, marriage, and child-raising years, we’ve served many festive holiday dinners (for ten or more people) on it as well as ordinary family meals and solitary midnight snacks.

And it was FUCKIN’ FREE. Still can’t get over it.

3

Beautiful Edwardian floor lamp, that someone had tossed out. Worked, too. Gorgeous marble base, elaborate metal pole.

I also used to go Dumpster-diving when I was a college kid in Baltimore. Sound some so-so furniture and some good books and 78s.

My Mom found a fifty-dollar bill once . . .

4

This only counts if $1,000 is considered a “great” find (sorry to one-up your there, Eve).

My wife came down with chicken pox and was really itching like crazy. It was a Friday night, pouring rain, and the first of the month. She asked me to go get her some Aveeno or some such. I remember it was the first of the month because I pulled my sorry ass out of bed to go to an all-night pharmacy in the rain and as I approached the door I noticed that laying on the sidewalk was some cash. I looked down and OH MY GOD - a $100 bill (folded in half). I picked it up and there were 9 more folded around a pay stub. The pay stub had been hand written and with the rain and mud the ink was obliterated and I couldn’t id the name. I went to the manager and I said, “One of your customers dropped something very important in front of your store. Here’s my name and phone number. If they can identify what it is they dropped I’ll return it.” I never heard anything further and the $1,000 paid for a very nice trip to the beach for a week.

5

There was this old box with a lid and a little latch (and a handle) sitting on the curb in front of this house, ready to be taken out with the garbage. I took it and I love the little box. I keep pictures in it and other little knick-knacks that I find important for nostalgic reasons. I couldn’t believe someone would throw the box away, boxes are always useful, especially for someone who’s a pack-rat like me.

That’s the only great thing I’ve ever found. When I was little I would find those little bouncy balls all over the place, and I found a kick ball and a tennis ball. When you’re little and love to play outside, those are great finds. Or I’d leave toys out in the backyard and they would get sort of buried in the dirt. A few springs and summers later I would find them. Stuff like that.

6

A $50 bill in high school. Went to see Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden, bought a T-Shirt and a bag of weed. Great find.

I found a Canon AE-1 Camera with a telephoto lens in a box full of books that had been thrown out. This was a great find, because I also found a copy of “The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin,” which I have thouroughly enjoyed reading.

7

About a decade ago, some company in Northwest DC was evicted and all their office equipment was moved curbside. A large crowd soon formed and proceeded to pick through all the stuff on the sidewalk. All the commotion also attracted a photographer for the Washington Post. The paper ran one picture of this event: my brother putting some computer equipment in his motorcycle’s saddlebags. With the picture was a quote, “I love junk.”

8

I got my sofa that way. On one block I found a couch - in good condition as far as frame/stuffing, but ugly upholstery. Then a few houses down, the owner must have bought new curtains, because there was a dumpster full of GORGEOUS silk brocade drapes, yards and yards of thick, expensive fabric.

I got about two more blocks before I put two and two together and ran home for the truck. A few hours with the sewing machine, and I now have a totally bitchin’ couch.

9

Hmmm… the best thing I ever found was a polaroid pic of some guy’s nekkid butt with a big dildo stuck in it. I swear to God I’m telling the truth. A friend and I were taking a walk and she spotted it in the gutter. I kept it for a few years just so I could pull it out on occasion and say “Hey, honey, come look at this!” to my ex. He would come over unsuspectingly, and get grossed out every time.

10

Hmmm, I found $20 in Beaner’s Coffee, right in front of the cashier. They said they weren’t short so I had my coffee money (and then some) for the week.

This is going to sound bad, but my dad (a packrat of the first order!) found a beat-up light-duty flannel shirt in front of his house (he lives on a dirt road). He washed it and thought my sister or I might want it 'cause it was small. I tried it on (I needed a new painting shirt) and it fit well. Turns out it’s light enough for me to wear running if it’s still a little cool out and beat up enough for it to tie around my waist when I get warmed up without any hassle or bulkiness. Just think, I would’ve been mortified if my dad had tried to give me this back in high school.

11

Hanging around college campuses affords a lot of opportunities for free books. Note this refers to the legitimate practice of thumbing through stacks of books that professors leave outside their doors when the cleaning urge strikes them. I can’t count the number of books that I’ve found this way.

The joy one gets from acquiring free valuables is immeasurable. Unfortunately, my addiction to all things free has a downside. When my wife tries to tell me that whatever I picked up is just garbage, I find myself answering, “Yeah, but it’s free!” Like this statement is somehow the end of the argument. Oh well, if it’s free then perhaps you would be interested in this lovely aromatic pile of dog crap.

I guess this “one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure” just runs in my family. I fondly recall the look on my young wife’s face after my Grandfather gave her a two year old calendar and a severely sweat-stained baseball cap, both of which he retrieved from the town dump. Of course since she pitched them out before we left town, he probably found them once again.

12

Well, there was this one, um, working girl up in Ozone Park…:smiley:

Is it just me, or did this thread remind anyone of that Volkswagen commercial from a few years back? The one with the two dudes and an old chair?

13

Amen, Brother!

14

I found a box of plastic squeeze lemons on the NYS Thruway.

There was a couple of lemons in the road, a few that had been run over, and more on the side all the way down the road. I just followed the trail of lemons to an unopened box laying on the side of the road. Evidently they had fallen off the back of a truck. Perfectly good, and usable. Of course the car smelled like lemon, since I had run over a couple of 'em.

The again, years ago my father brought home two upright pianos. Not one, two - and in the same week. One was being thrown out from the local recreation center (missing a couple of keys and very scratched), and the other was from a neighbor who was redectorating the basement (the wife had painted it baby blue to match the decor). The blue one is in the basement, the rec center one is in the garage, and my spinet is still in the living room.

15

I found an action figure on a campus sidewalk once – I can only describe it as a gay Superman. I don’t mean to stereotype modes of dress or anything, but he had on a black leather jacket, tight red pants with what looked like a yellow garter 'round the thigh – well, he just looked gay.

I took him home to keep my Mr. Spock figurine company.

16

When I was a senior in high school, I found a $20 bill lying in the hallway. I was delighted to find it, because I had been saving to buy a pair of dolls for my collection, and with the twenty I had just enough money. I never understood how someone could be so careless as to lose a $20 bill.

17

The typing chair I’m sitting in, which is a great big blue one with a pneumatic up-and-downy thing, and goes round and round, so you can, like, make it go really high then whirl round and round as you come down again… um, came from my mum’s friend’s lane. It is a fab chair. Whirly whirly whirl.

I found a £10 and later a £5 on the ground in London. I think it’s something to do with drunkenness to be honest. I always seemed to find them while on a pub crawl, so others must have been even more drunk than I.

Found a little red pick-up truck when I was about 8. It was very strange to come across, because I had the exact same truck in yellow at home, and the red one seemed somehow to represent another kid’s life… world… vision.
I was a deep and lonely kid ;).

18

I love scavenging!

As a kid, I lived on a dirt road traveled by grove trucks and I found assorted tools buried in the dirt. Once I found a diamond ring that I thought was a fake and, being a kid, lost it. Some years later, I realized that the rather sizable diamond had cut the glass on my Dads car window when I tested it, plus it was a solid band, not a split, one size fits all kids band.
I reluctantly realized the I had pitched a real diamond into the woods, which by this time had a house directly where I think the ring landed.

I found the working part of a single shot rifle that still worked, and abandoned house hidden in the woods with medical textbooks in it, that I took.

Once I picked up a couple of old 1960s grade school desks someone was pitching out, later I found nearly new kitchen cabinets someone had tossed, but my Dad, who was a postman, got one of our greatest treasures; three single drawer desks and matching Oaken chairs that were being tossed out at the summer home of the Dodgers, Vero Beach, Florida. They had been in the barracks from when the place was first built, all of those years ago and had originally come from the Naval base that had been there during WW2.

I’m using one now for a computer desk. :smiley:

In another abandoned house, where half of the roof had fallen in, I fished out a bunch of over the counter medicine bottles, all still containing original medicines and all dated back to the 60s. I would have gotten some intact book cases, but they were holding part of the roof up. I still have them.

In a pile of books pitched out at a dump I got one old book that just turned 100 years old this year and another about Panama that was printed around 1910 on real linen paper.

I know there’s more, 'cause I’ve been a salvager for ages, but I can’t recall right now.

19

I once found a vcr that only needed a new belt.
I found a mission style coffee table that isn’t anything special but is quite serviceable.

20

Found a “Zefal” brand bicycle pump (the type you can carry with you on your bike) that I use to this day.
Found a bayonet.
My best find however, was an original issue of the Beatles “White Album” (the ones that had a serial number on them. It’s not a low number, but an original issue album nonetheless). Can’t believe someone would just leave something like that lying around…