In this thread, Frank told us of a concert ticket to some band that he found in a book.
As there are some interesting objects coming up I thought it may deserve a thread of its own.
I once received a Bible recovered from a dump. It was from the mid to lat 19th century and had clippings relating to a long forgotten King of Sweden (seemingly the previous owners had been immigrants from that part of the world). There also were pressed leaves in there that I would guess would be over 100 years old.
An old girlfriend of mine once brought a book back from the charity bookstore where she worked. Someone had dropped off a book published in the 1840s. Inside there a Penny Black stamp, and a letter that looked something like this.
I bought a copy of Dragonriders of Pern at a yard sale one time, and found tucked inside a picture of a male-female couple he’en and she’en through the back door.
Once I borrowed a copy of “God-Emperor of Dune” from the library and found scribbled in the back cover of the a book a note which stated that how the spice clearly represents oil, that the book was an attack against Islam and how Allah will punish anyone who read it.
All I ever find in library books are old check-out receipts. One time, though, I used my 7th grade school portrait (a 5x7) as a bookmark, forgot it, and the librarian recognized me and returned it. This was in a very small town, though, and I was a regular.
Not if it was a hollowed out book. That would not be something I would hide in a book, but I can’t speak for everyone.
The slice of cheese was american cheese. I apparently stuck it in this book when I was very small and didn’t open the book again until two years ago when I was attempting to donate a box of books to a charity.
In my great-grandfather’s bible, I found a piece of paper on which my grandfather had written down a genealogy of sorts. It was quite helpful, if not entirely accurate.
I’ve found a fair number of coins tucked in the spines of books. Seems this was one of the popular hiding spots circa 1860-1900 or so. A lot of times I’ll offer to go through the “total rejects” after a church sale or library sale with a security wand just to see what turns up.
7th grade biology book. I must have been at least the 5th kid to have the book, but inside was the most awesome assortment of squashed bugs- someone(s) have been smashing bugs in the book. I would say that throughout the book there must have been 200+ bugs smashed. Flies, mosquitos, gnats, spiders, water striders, a lady bug, beetles, etc.
Some were placed in order to add emphasis (two gnats for nipples and a fly for pubic hair on a organ “cutaway” picture of a human. A bee in a flower (my addition), mosquitos on big animals like elephants and cows. Ironically no butterflies. But the coup de grace was on the blank page near the beginning of the book, at least 12 mid-sized cockroaches lined up in marching formation.
Most seemed to be stuck with their own “juices” but a few indicated glue being involved. Many were missing legs, wings, but the amount of time and effort involved was something to be recognized. I added a few more and turned it in at the end of the year (it was old enough that they didn’t do the check for damage routine anymore). Oh for a digital camera or a scanner to have recorded it.) It was a thing of envy among my friends. I think there was one exploded fly that seemed to have started it, it was not as well done as the other and really nasty so I think it served as the inspiration for the remainder.
One of the sites that I read daily is Forgotten Bookmarks. The person who runs it works in a rare books shop, and they see a lot of interesting (and old) things.
My mom was cleaning out some old books from our house. One such book was a dictionary stolen from her high school. The checkout name was her brother. Inside the book had a perfectly preserved marijuana plant. It looked exactly like the stereotypical 5/7 leaf shape/design you see on loser clothes.
It wasn’t actually a surprise to my mom to find such a thing, but the plant was like I said, perfect.
EDIT: We gave the dictionary back to him exactly like he left it.
In a 19th century King James version of the Bible, I found:
A clipping (probably out of a newspaper) listing current market prices for grain.
A pledge card from circa WW1 stating that the pledgor had pledged $5 toward the renovation of a specific listed church(I think the church was in Illinois or Indiana), $2.50 payable now, $2.50 payable in either 6 months or 1 year (don’t have it in front of me). The pledgor was a married woman who signed as “Mrs. <Husband’s first name> <Husband’s last name>”
A clipping (possibly from a church bulletin) about supporting the orphanage.
The copies of Patrick O’Brian’s novels I used to check out from the city library in Turku always had had corrections on the nautical details written in the margins, always in the same hand. Considering that they were translated into Swedish and the Swedish-speaking population in Turku is between eight and nine thousand out of 177,000, it felt almost like having a secret friend.
All I ever find in library books are old check-out receipts. One time, though, I used my 7th grade school portrait (a 5x7) as a bookmark, forgot it, and the librarian recognized me and returned it. This was in a very small town, though, and I was a regular.