My only literal one (for that much) in memory: $20 in a bag I used to bring home Christmas gifts that I completely forgot about.
In the form of objects: a PS1 video game, Suikoden II, that I bought for $20 or so from a game store’s used bin in 1998 or so. Played it, forgot about it (did I even finish it?), until about ten years later, when I read that it had appreciated in value a LOT. Dug through my boxes, found it and Suikoden I, bought around the same time. Sold on eBay for about $100+ total.
The second was a Magic: the Gathering card. It was one that had been initially dismissed as “cute, but not tournament viable” when first released. But it quickly proved its worth, soaring in value to $30+. I was looking to sell some old cards in bulk to clear out my closet, and lo and behold, there was a copy of this card, gained in a prerelease tournament when it first came out (back when it was “cute but not tournament viable” - plus I’m a terrible judge of Constructed-worthy cards), and thus ignored all that time! Sold for much more than the pack it came from was worth.
Your stories? (For purposes of this thread, my two non-cash stories may not technically be “found money,” since they weren’t worth nearly as much when I first obtained them, but hey, use the definition you use.)
I once found a copy of “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn. It’s a yellow paperback that was being tossed out in a pile of “free books” by a faculty office. I always wanted to read it, so picked it up. Turns out it is a true first edition - rare because it was first published as a paperback monograph. There are currently a couple of copies for sale on abebooks - $450.00 and $575.00
In cleaning out my MiLs house I found a stash of canning jars in a crawlspace that had been there since the 60s when they bought the house. I decided to bag them for recycling and found around 70 bucks stashed in one. It isn’t much but it was still a cool find.
I’m going to check through the rest of the house before it closes - just in case.
Well, I’ve found the odd $20 bills on the sidewalk here and there, but the best one I ever had…
Years and years and years ago we got something in the mail about a class action law suit against Mastercard and Visa. Something about them charging merchants (of which I am one) too much. I think it may have been an Anti-Trust thing. I showed it too my dad and he told me to toss it in the garbage. Why bother with all the paperwork for the few dollars you typically get from this class action stuff. I tossed it, but a few days later I pulled it back out figuring what the hell, might as well. So I dug out all my old credit card statements and filled out everything just like they asked and mailed it in. Months (maybe a year) later I got a check in the mail from MC for $800, a few weeks later a check from Visa for $900. Hey, score! Then two years later another $800 and another $900 also part of the settlement.
Double Score!!
I was in a parking lot and something on the ground caught my eye. I looked closely, only to discover that it was only a penny . . . not worth the effort of picking it up, but for whatever reason I picked it up anyway. It was a 1914-D Lincoln cent. In that condition it’s worth several hundred dollars.
In high school I found a $20 bill on the side of the road. I used it to buy a slide rule at the University of Pennsylvania (that shows how long ago this was – it wasn’t worth getting an electronic calculator, because you had to spend $395 at the time to get one that would do trig functions. My $14.95 calculator gave me sines and cosines and tangents with three-place accuracy). I used that slide rule through high school and two years of college.
As for “found” items – I found a copy of Fantastic Four#1 at a church sale. It cost me $0.02.
I’ve found money every single working day since December 1st (as well as the occasional weekend too) - I am searching probably a little harder than usual though - it’s my year-long project to find enough lost money to buy everything for the Christmas table this year.
Most days I find no more than a few pennies, but I found a 10 pound note the week before last, which really put a spring in my step.
Back in the eighties, swimming with a friend in the Pedernales river in central Texas. We were snorkeling- we couldn’t see much, but hey, it kept us cool. Anyway, visibility was only about a foot or so, so I nearly bashed my head into a rock at the base of some small rapids… and I saw what looked like a dollar bill wrapped stuck to the rock by the current.
It turned out to be a hundred dollar bill. I can’t even imagine how it got there, way out in the middle of scrub and farmland. I guess it must’ve fallen out of someone’s pocket while they were tubing about twenty miles upstream, at the state park.
When I first arrived in Hong Kong I was stony broke. My girlfriend and I rented a very cheap room in a flophouse with no fan or air conditioning in the oppressive heat, sweating like crazy every night, and wondered what the hell we were going to do.
Both of us got low paid jobs, and when I got my first paycheck, I took about US$100 and stashed it in a box under the bed.
Fast forward a couple of months to our first Christmas there. We were still totally broke, and so as it approached each said “all I have to give you this Christmas is my love”.
We had answered an ad for someone to look after this one guy’s dogs, live-in, for two weeks, so we moved out of the flophouse to save on rent. While I was packing, the box fell open - and there was my wad of notes. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make a Christmas. I spent some of it on making a nice roast dinner on Christmas day and some wine, and split the rest between us, so we could buy each other little gifts. It was a difficult, yet moving time.
My mother was visiting Baltimore for a conference, and one night went for a walk at a jogging track that was near her hotel. Something on the ground caught her eye–it was a filthy ring that had obviously been in the dirt for quite a while. She dug it out and realized that it could potentially be expensive, so she spent the next 3 days she was in town calling police stations seeing if anyone had reported it lost or stolen. She even put up signs around the area, giving her cell phone number so someone could call her if it was theirs. She never heard anything, so she took it home with her. After a few weeks of hearing nothing from either the police or the signs, she had it cleaned and appraised. It’s a platinum band with diamonds worth about five or six thousand dollars.
I don’t know whether this counts but many years ago I was going out and put on a jacket that I hadn’t worn for a long time, I put something in the pocket and discovered about half an ounce of blonde Lebanese hash neatly wrapped in foil.
Vacationing in St Martin this past winter, we were hiking up the mountain at Loterie. Maneuvering over a fallen tree, my gf found a little bundle, It was one hundred dollar bills banded together with a hair band. There were 18 hundreds in all.
We had seen one other couple hiking that day, and we thought they were ahead of us. We took a trail that we thought would maximize the chances of running into them. When we found them, they were backtracking, searching the ground. It was their vacation cash.
He hugged us and thanked us. She cried. They bought us bottled water back at the base camp. Very nice day for all involved.
I personally like it most if it’s really my own money. For instance when I take out my summer jacket after the winter and find a ten or twenty euros note in my pocket that I had totally forgotten about. The same when my sister left me an envelope (a month ago) with the 100 euros she had gotten for me for christmas, but had both forgotten about*.
For some reason these make me more happy than finding a tenner on the street.
*I was abroad during this time so my grandparents gave her the money for both of us. She told me over the phone, but by the time I got back we had both forgotten about it. She found the money when she was movinge and remembered she never gave it to me.
I have never found a large amount but find money once in a while on the ground. A one or a ten and a few 20’s. I find a lot of pennies and small change which is good luck.
One day my kids and I walked into the movie theatre and saw a wallet laying under a pay phone. It was loaded with cash. We didn’t want to give it to the popcorn kid but told him if someone came in looking for it we were in the movie. All of a sudden a young man in Navy Blues ran in looking for it frantically. We handed it to him and he saw the money was there and was so happy. Great lesson for the kids too.
We overspent our grocery and restaurant budgets this month (yes, we’re fat, why do you ask?). Yesterday I sorted mail and paid bills, and found $115 in checks to us - two for participating in a study, and one from overpaying our insurance bill. So that more than paid back the grocery budget. Then this morning I remembered my volunteer group owes me $100 for conference fees. So we will be able to go out to eat a few times next month.
I have also been feeling depressed about the smallness of our savings account, but I found we can submit receipts and get $1,500 out of our healthcare spending account, which will bump that up enough to make me feel a little better!
Let’s see
>Pulled into a late night donut place with a friend, opened the door and on the ground was $50 (this was a while ago, and that was a bit of money). I didn’t even have to get out of the car. I looked around, there was no one at all in the lot or inside. We split the money and most likely bought liquor.
>Found a leather jacket outside of a concert a while back. There was a wallet inside but had no ID or anything with a name. Hidden in one of the inside folds was like $75-$100. Again, the lot was mostly empty at this point, and no one was around. Was with the same friend again, and I’m assuming we bought liquor.
>When visiting New Orleans last year, I walked into my first bar of the trip (Erin Rose), ordered a beer, looked down and found $20. There was no one next to me, and no one was looking around. Lost touch with the previous friend, but I’m pretty sure I bought liquor.
>I was with a friend who was driving in downtown Ann Arbor, ran a red light directly in front of a cop and did not get a ticket, then later found $20 walking out of a bar. We had already bought liquor, so I suggested lottery tickets, considering the good luck streak (she saved it).
For the first two examples I was young and stupid, and wonder if I could have done more to return the money. Later in life I became rather honest, to the point where I chased some girl down Oxford Street who accidentally left what looked like several hundred pounds in an ATM (I went and bought liquor, but with my own money).
Drain Bead, your ring story is similar to mine in that my friend was looking through a jewelry box full of junky costume jewelry, bits and pieces from various relatives on both sides of the family. In the very bottom, half hidden by ripped lining, there was a little silvery ring that “I” spotted and extracted. She cleaned it up, had it appraised, and yes, it was an ugly, though genuine, platinum and diamond ring, worth a couple thousand dollars! … My husband bought us both some gardening gloves at K-Mart. I put my pair on and found there was a ring in one of the fingers that must have slipped off someone’s finger when they were trying the gloves on for size in the store. Yeah, it was another ugy, though genuine, gold and ruby QVC special. But still!!!
