Inspired by the largest amount of cash you’ve carried thread:
What is the biggest amount of money you’ve ever found? For me, it was approximately 80 dollars in quarters. It was in an unmarked bag (so I couldn’t call and return it), and I was a starving college student.
That bag bought a LOT of Ramen Pride 
Ten dollars, below the water fountain when I was in elementary school. I took it to the principal. I guess I was feeling moral that day.
$120, all new bills, lying folded in the parking lot at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. I figured it was money someone was going to gamble away and lose, so I kept it. Bad of me, I know, but instead of getting swallowed by the coffers of Caesar’s Palace, it became a steak and lobster dinner for us.
Years ago I was at a local nightclub. I was right up against the stage, enjoying the band. They launch into Metallica’s Enter Sandman (always fun to see The Nerds play that one), when I get shoved out of the way by a bona fide movie extra – the massive, drunken, loudmouth jock asshole from the background of every bad movie party scene.
This guy spends the entire song pogoing right on top of me, arms flailing, screaming his moronic head off, and generally acting like they were hosting a douchebag contest in front of the stage. The song ends and he stumbles away through the crowd. I glance down to the floor, and see that Capt. Dickweed’s pogoing seems to have lightened his pockets – there’s green all over the floor.
$240 later, all his transgressions were forgiven.
Most I’ve found was a $20 bill on the bar floor near closing time. Bought a round.
Most I’ve lost? $400, fell out of my carpenter-pants pocket when I was doing about 85 on the freeway on the motorcycle. The money was in four bills neatly folded and was payment for an electrical side-job. About 8 hours worth of work. Shit. That one still hurts. I was *this * close to having enough for a laptop.
That was just a couple weeks ago.
I’ve found $100 bills twice–one in the gutter and one in a trashcan.
A “friend” of mine once picked up an umbrella at a busstop. When my “friend” opened it, a baggie filled with white powder and $1,000 in bills fell out.
I set off for the local pub on my trusty bicycle.
A stone’s throw from home I rounded a corner and noticed a few £20 notes lying in the grass. I searched further and discovered a wallet and more notes. I took them home.
I checked the wallet for identification. I found a number to call in the event of the wallet being lost and found. I called the number.
A few minutes later the phone rang. It was the owner of the wallet, who happened to be lunching at the local pub. I gave him directions to my house. A car pulled into the driveway and a man knocked on the door. I explained the circumstances of my discovery, and that I had searched the area thoroughly to make sure I hadn’t missed any more cash.
I returned the wallet to him with credit cards, miscellaneous other items and £120 in cash.
He looked at me and walked away without a word.
$100 bill. Actually, my wife found it. On the ground in the vast, rolling plains of the parking lot at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. We actually stood there and talked about how we might find the owner of the $100 bill. The best we could do was wander back and forth in a general line between where we found it and the shuttle bus stop nearby, assuming someone would come back looking for it. After about 20 minutes of this, we said “the hell with it,” and kept it. It made for an interesting discussion over dinner a few days later, about the morality of it all.
I once found two $20 bills in a parking lot. I didn’t know whose it could be since it was a busy parking lot at lunchtime on weekday around Christmas. I looked around for someone, didn’t see anyone, so I took it and donated it to charity. I couldn’t get it out of my head that these two $20 bills might have been intended to buy some poor child Christmas presents so I tried to at least make some good come out of the situation.
20 dollars near a golf course when I was 8.
I bought King HISS and Tung Lashor. (Masters of the Universe toys)
The rest was spent in the arcade.
About ten years ago I found a £50 note, lying on the floor in Euston railway station in London.
The *note * was lying on the floor, that is.
$2,000. About 10 years ago, a friend and I left a dive bar in a not-so-nice part of my city. Walking towards my car in the nearby parking lot, we saw a guy staring at the bottom of my driver’s side door. Being drunk and feeling tough, we yell at the guy to get away from the car. We thought he was looking to steal it. As he hastily stumbled away, we could tell that he was obviously drunk or high. Anyway, there they were: 20 $100 bills held to gether by a rubber band. My friend and I split the money. I still wonder why the guy didn’t just grab the money and then stumble away. See what drugs do to you? I never had a chance to thank the guy for saving me $1,000 on my Europe trip the following week.
I once found a wallet that was left at a desk in a testing center. It had $240 in it and I turned it in to the proctor. The guy came for it about halfway through the test and she gave it to him and pointed at me. He looked through it, counted his money, kinda flipped me a wave, and left.
A friend and I found a twenty on the floor in the middle of a crowded hall in high school. Being upstanding citizens and whatnot, we took it to the main office where it sat in a lost and found drawer for about a week before my friend and I got the money (which we split, of course.)
£15. I was once going to see my mate at his house on my bike. He decided to meet me halfway. As I approached him I thought I would show off and pulled a mega skid, fell off and landed next to a five pouind note and a ten pound note lying together on the grass. Pocketed them, obviously, and the next day bought a set of dumbells with them.
I can’t believe you people.
The most I’ve ever found is 5 Deutche Mark, in 1977, while spending my junior year of college in Germany. At the time it was worth about USD $240.
It was a paper note which was already being phased out then.
You’re a good man. Perhaps he was just speechless with respect.
My friend and I found $40 once on the street in NYC. We looked around to see if it was a joke and then split it.
I found £80 in tenners and twenties - on my birthday a couple of years ago. They were mingled in with the fallen leaves (it was Autumn) on the pavement in Sutherland Avenue, Maida Vale near a very ornate boozer called the Warrington Hotel to which I was heading.
Funnily enough, I’d just had a conversation the day before with a policeman acquaintance (who is now an Area Commander in the British Transport Police) about the crime of “stealing by finding”. He said that, technically, you must make reasonable efforts to discover the rightful owner. Well, I looked around but there was abolutely nobody in sight except my mate Kiwi Craig so I handed him half and we had a celebratory pint or 3 in the Warrington Hotel.
Thank you.
I didn’t quite relate all the facts. One of the miscellaneous other items I found in the wallet was a membership card for an exclusive dating agency. (I found this before I located the phone number). He must have known I had seen the card and the realisation embarrassed him.
Hence the taciturnity.
I found a 20 Swedish Kroner note once. Outside a bar in northern Norway.