Cameras. I’ve found three cameras. Not by the side of the road, though.
The first two were in a “broken camera bin” at a camera store that was going out of business. I got them both for a dollar each. It turned out that one of them (a Kodak Tele-Ektralite [a kid’s camera]) wasn’t broken at all. The other one, a Canon AF35ML, was broken, but I took it apart and managed to fix it.
The third camera is a really nice Pentax Honeywell SP500 with a 250mm zoom lens(it’s about a foot long!). I found it in a box in my basement. The box hadn’t been open since our family moved from California about 16 years ago.
When I was about 12 or 13 I found a star sapphire ladies ring in the bushes of the house we just moved into.
I still have it.
$500
I was working for a gas station about 13 years ago and found in the till (as I was counting it out for the night) a $1 U.S. Silver Certificate. It looks like a dollar at first glance but the longer you look at it the more you start seeing things that are different about it. I replaced it with a regular dollar and have held onto it ever since.
I have no idea what it’s worth now (Probably $1 in U.S. Silver) but it is still a great conversation piece.
Back in 1961, I was walking into town when I happened to look down.
A pile of about 50 baseball cards were on the sidewalk.
I had picked up a few in 1959 and 1960 – about two packs each year, but I saw this as a sign and started seriously collecting. It’s worked out well – I did my collecting from 1961-1969 and never threw anything out, so my cards are quite valuable.
On a hospital stay some years ago, I was in a unit that had apparently been just recently converted from the booby hatch to a cardiac care unit. Coiled up on the shelf in the closet was a Posey “transport belt” that’s now in my collection.
Over the years, I’ve found a handful of tools along the road - some of them have even been Craftsman and exchangeable for new tools at the local Sears. 12" adjustable wrench missing its “jaw?” No problem.
Once found $65 or so in wadded-up bills at the grocery store. After confirming that nobody else in the store was looking for it, I headed right to the meat department, then left that $65 at the checkout.
Animal bits.
Skulls, vertebrae, teeth, claws, misc bones, feathers, etc. I have a pretty good collection which horrifies the majority of my friends.
I have a $5 one of these, or something like that anyway. I received it as change at the grocery store one night and notice all the extra writing on it. I’ve still got it, tucked away in an envelope.
Many years ago when Goodwill still had unattended drop boxes, I stopped at one to get rid of some stuff. A box of stuff was sitting on the ground and I took a look to see what was inside. It had a bunch of kitchen stuff and old towels. On the bottom was a wooden silverware box full of Reed and Barton silver flatware, service for 12. It was missing a couple of teaspoon and a desert fork but everything else including the serving utensils were inside. I still have it, we only use it on Thanksgiving.
When I was ten or eleven, I noticed something sticking up out of the ground out in our backyard, near the shed. I dug it up, only to find a purple, strawberry pattern carnival glass candy dish. I gave it to my mom who told me about how gas stations used to give it away in the thirties and how it was a collector’s item. Really makes me wonder about how it got out there. Had it been lost? Did someone bury it on purpose?
My mom once found an exquisite opal ring. She wore it for years and years and then lost it. I suppose it’s someone else’s great find now.
My friend lives near an underpass where there’s a lot of construction equipment but no actual construction going on. One night I went in, grabbed one of many “detour ->” signs that were lying around, and took it home.
One time when I was about 16 I found brass knuckles in the grass on my way to the movies. I traded them for a knife with my boyfriend’s best friend. It was a butterfly handled knife that I could not get the hang of opening quickly in a cool, hoodlum-like manner and I was scared I would chop my fingers off with it so I wound up actually trading the knife to another guy for something else, I don’t remember what.
I never really find things.
I found a denim bomber jacket in perfect condition while digging through a box in my aunt’s closet. Neither my aunt nor anyone else in my family remembers how it got there. It fits comfortably and it’s my favorite jacket. Everyone loves it.
I found a $100 bill at LAX once.
I’ve found 3 different Leatherman tools.
Countless wrenchs and sockets (damn near all of them 9/16 for some reason. Go figure. Did find one very nice ratcheting metric box end from Snap-On. Bonus!)
I find lots of cool crap, but can’t think of any one really great thing now. I’m still waiting to find “Inner Peace”. I’ll settle for a case of beer.
A plastic horse, about two feet long.
When I was in college a couple of people i knew bought yo-yos and were having fun with them. I was walking along campus later that day, and was thinking to myself “Hmm…it would be kinda fun to have a yo-yo”. I took a shortcut to my dorm on a whim, and underneath a tree I found–A YO-YO. What are the chances?
I think I still have that thing somewhere.
Muttering “Thief… we hates it forever.”
Unless you went to Goodwill’s thrift store and bought it from them, I’d call that stealing from Goodwill, not finding.
About 300 km west of Sydney, Australia, there is an absolutely fascinating place called Hill End. It’s where Australia’s big gold rush back in the 1860s happened.
Some of my Aussie friends took me to Hill End when I was in Australia in 1984. We were setting up the campsite. I drove in a tentpeg next to a rock that caught my eye. I dug up the rock and wound up holding a chunk of quartz about twice the size of my two fists held together, and it was absolutely shot through with gold. Needless to say, I was bitten by the gold bug and paid my A$5 to get a fossicking license so I could pan for gold. I found some, too.
I understand that these days, you are no longer allowed to pan for gold except in one area of the historical site. Pity. I always dreamed about going back and striking it rich. 
Not terribly neat, but when I was in high school, I was walking to school one day when I realized I had forgotten lunch money. Just as the realization hit me, I noticed a crumpled five dollar bill in front of me on the pavement. I like to think that God bought my lunch that day. 