Last week, while walking down the street, I saw what appeared to be a folded dollar bill on the sidewalk, picked it up and realized there was another single, as well as a twenty, folded inside it. It was right outside of a newsstand/coffee shop where I’m a regular. I brought it inside and gave it to the owner who also works the counter most of time (who I’m friendly with and trust 100%) and asked her to keep an eye out for anyone who appeared to be looking for lost $$, and if she still had it by the end of the day to put it in a collection jar for the local chapter of the humane society that’s next to the cash register. The next morning she informed me that the money ended up in the jar, and sweetly but firmly refused payment for my coffee and bagel. 
I found a million dollars in the lobby of a casino in Las Vegas once. They claimed it was a display and not lost. Yeah right. Who leaves a million dollars on the floor?
As a teenager, I found a hundred dollar bill in my Mom’s purse once.
75DM in front of the McDonald’s in Frieburg, Germany, c. 1992. My brother and I both found it more or less at the same time/together… my parents still made us split it 3 ways with my sister, even though she wasn’t around when we found it. SO UNFAIR!!1!1!!
Snerky Snerk?
(He obviously didn’t need it)
I found $40 in the main entranceway to my high school. Nobody was around when I found it, so I kept it.
My mother found a dirt-encrusted ring at a jogging track next to a hotel she was staying at in Baltimore. She told the front desk, and they said that nobody had claimed they lost one. It had likely been lost for a while. She kept it, took it home, and had it cleaned and appraised. Appraisal came back at $4,000.
I found a $50 bill lying on the sidewalk a few years ago; other than that, I have found a few $1-5 bills (no wallets or anything with ID so I kept all of them). More unusually, I sometimes find coins inside of electronics put out by the curb; just a few weeks ago I found a computer that had apparently been used as a piggy bank. Well, it had 5 coins in it, including two quarters; the computer itself likely was just thrown out because it was obsolete (Pentium 2).
I found a nickel once. A 5-cent piece for you Aussies.
What’s with all the people finding $50s? Do that many people really carry them around? I see one about twice a year.
I always keep an emergency fifty stashed, hidden in my wallet. Never touch it unless there is no alternative. When my daughter left for college, I told her about the idea and gave her one to secret away.
Other than that, twenties are more usefull, yeah.
I found US$100 on the floor at work, a day after the boss came back from a trade show in Vegas. Hard cheese, boss.
Back in the time when I was a shameless junkie, there was a coke dealer who’d come by my place from time to time. He was a complete douche, even for someone in his line of work, but he was friends with my boyfriend at the time so I tolerated him.
One night, he shows up rabid. He had just spent a couple of hours in jail, which was bad enough, but he said during the traffic stop that nabbed him one of the cops pocketed the $2100 he had in the center console. When he asked where the money was the officers said they didn’t know what he was talking about. He was livid.
Now, this guy also had a wife who he beat pretty regularly. Every once in a while she’d sneak over and get high with me while hiding from him. So she shows up one evening about a month after the douche had lost his money. She and I are in her car, broke, bored and desperately needing a cigarette. She was all tweaked out as it was, so she starts poking and prodding at the dashboard, the glove box and the floorboards, thinking she might find a forgotten half pack somewhere. As she’s messing with the center console, she jostles it hard enough that it gets knocked off its base. Everyone see where this is going?
In the empty space between the console compartment and the plastic around it was a little hidey-hole her husband had obviously created and then, completely blitzed, immediately forgotten about. The $2100 was right there.
We got a hotel room and binged for a few days before slinking back home to our respective pissed-off men. I did a lot of shit I’m not proud of back then, but I never regretted that. Watching that girl with her black eye and the cluster of bruises on her collarbone from where he always poked her spend that money was a beautiful thing.
I found €20 more than once out in public. After my dad passed away I found an envelope of his with over €400 in it, on a shelf in the house.
I found a $50 bill blowing in the wind in front of me during a snow storm while I was walking home. I lived in Toronto then. I was 17 years old, broke and living on my own.
Me too.
As i said above, i found two $100s and two $50s.
In the last ten years, i think that those are probably the only $100s and the only $50s that i have had in my possession. Most of the time, i use credit cards, and when i get cash out, it’s always in $20s, so i never have anything larger than that in my wallet.
Stopped at the local Holiday station while on lunch a couple of years ago, waited in line behind several other people. When I was next in line, I dropped something and looked down. On the floor and stuck in the magazine rack was a LOT of money. Like $600+ in various bills. I grabbed it all rapidly, wadded it up and when it was my turn at the counter, gave it to the clerk (talking to both him and the manager) telling them where I found it. Checked back later and the owner had reclaimed it - they kinda knew when someone came in rather desperate looking all around and asked them if anyone had picked up any money off the floor or seen anything.
These found bills also seem to be rather faded, worn and beaten, but I guess that is why they are known as $50 shades of grey.
My dad taught me the same trick when I left for college, except with a twenty. It didn’t last long, and it didn’t get spent on ice cream - although I had the munchies so bad I really could have gone for some afterwards.
A friend and I found about £400 in cash in an envelope that was just about to be trodden into the mud at the Glastonbury Festival about 15 years ago. Based on the itinerary written on the envelope we figured it was cash for somebody to get the train and ferry home to somewhere in Europe. We did the honest thing and handed it in to the information desk, where, I am more or less certain, the attendant put it straight in his pocket.
Previous thread.
For all of you. Great story.
My feeble entry:
back around 1975 I was cleaning out an old junk upright piano and found a coin buried under about an inch of dust under the keys. The coin was bronze-colored, about the size of a nickel. On one side, a Star-of-David type figure, with interlocking sides; on the other side, arabic-looking writing, and four numerals: 1366.
I stuck it in my pocket and whistled a happy tune for an hour or so, then called a coin dealer to find out what this treasure was worth. I described it to him, and almost instantly he told me it was a French Moroccan (something) piece, 1366 was the Moslem calendar date, and it was worth about fifty cents.
Balls.
I kept it anyway, because it makes a pretty good (if very short) story.
Note: All of the fine details in this tale are from memory, which isn’t saying much. I still have the coin but don’t feel like digging it out to refresh my memory. The story is essentially true, but I don’t guarantee 100% accuracy.