What strange, old or interesting objects have you found?
I was watching Time Team on the television, plus the other day some people were walking along a beach in Tasmania (I think) and found the jaw and tooth of a prehistoric animal.
So what amazing things have you found? It could be a first edition in a book store or an 18th century bottle in your garden. Did you have it valued or do you just like to look at it? Or did you give it to a museum?
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I found a pink tie-dyed parachute which I guess I technically stole. It hangs over my bed like a canopy. It is very hard to inconspicuously cram a small parachute into your backpack in broad daylight, but not impossible.
I collect a couple of antique things: metal baby cups and educational books. I have many of each, but every time I come across one in an antique shop or a used book store, I get excited all over again. I don’t pay much for any of them, and I’m sure they’re not worth much either, but I buy them because I like them and I have them on display in my house.
I also came across an awesome table in a shop that I just had to buy, even though I had no room for it. It’s an old enamel top table (very art deco looking design on the top, in muted colors) that can change from a rectangle to a square by sliding out built-in leaves, with very elaborate wood trestle legs. I’m pretty sure it’s not the original top… I think someone combined two different tables to make this one. I’ve never seen another one like it anywhere, and I love that thing! It was a steal, too.
A toy whale.
Some sort of ancient crab but I guess a toy whale’s much more interesting.
Every time I dig in my yard for any reason at all, I find something. A piece of broken glass or pottery, a square cut nail a coin, something, every single time.
I have found household items from the past and lots of just junk. I don’t get rid of any of it, even the glass shards are saved and I clean them and put then in a jar and enjoy their pretty colors in the light from my window. I feel like they are part of my homes history and I can’t get rid of them. Perhaps I am crazy.
I have found an old rain barrel, very old shoes, whiskey bottles, and other bottles and jars under my house.
There used to be a blacksmith shop on my property, so I’m always digging up iron. Horse harness parts and tools etc.
I have also found Indian arrowheads and a stone hammer, lots of fossils and small old toys. China dolls heads and broken jewelry, an ocarina, canning jar lids perfume bottles, medicine bottles. All of this very old.
The strangest thing? probably a hand made mechanical sex toy.
We found a collection of powder horns in an old secretary.
My dad has a metal detector and is always find cool stuff. We also live in an area that is famous for Roman settlements so it is not uncommon to find bits of old pottery whilst out walking the dogs.
My grandpa and I used to drive out on the prairies looking for abandoned houses. Most of these were 1800’s temporary homes for families as they moved from place to place and over the years they’d be left to rot or taken over by hobos. One time when we were digging around, we found a small hook with a longer bone handle attached. It seemed strange to me and a treasure but my grandpa thought it was junk, recognized it as a tool women used to hook their button-up shoe-boots with. I kept it into my teens but lost along various moves.
@tedibear Does he fall into the “Strange”, “Old” or “Interesting” category? or all 3?
I frustrate the heck out of my wife with the rocks, sticks and other assorted natural objects I bring home if it catches my attention.
Right now I have a nest that was built into a straw hat that I had left hanging on the coatrack outside. I had to wait for the original builder to get through with it though before I retrieved it,
And a fossil that I cannot decide if it is plant or animal. Looks like something inside something else, like a horn bone encased in keratin.
In the warmer seasons, working in the garden, I find a lotta stuff like old peices of interesting looking glass (not broken, just glass),rocks with words etched on them, tiny plastic toys,occasional jeweller , and have found an awful lot of marbles. I also found an antique jewellery box in my gran’s cupboard, after she died, and it contains lots of old scent bottles.
I have found some amazing crystals hiking around my area, also have had quite a few interesting/strange wildlife encounters, including coming across mountain lions, hawks eating rattlesnakes, tripping over rattlesnakes, a deer that got it’s antlers stuck under my deck between the planks.
I also have some very interesting antique family memorabilia and I was the laughing stock at an asian night market in Taiwan when I purchased an antique buddhist house blessing amulet that I choose to wear as a necklace. lol
Oh, how could I forget ” naked headhunter guy.”
A wooden carving of a headhunter with two severed heads, one hanging from a string on his hips and another being held high over his head in victory while holding his spear in the other hand.
He is well endowed and I joke about rubbing his penis for good luck. haha
I found him at a yard sale for $20 dollars and he spends his winters indoors in my bedroom, and his summers under the shade of a potted bamboo on my deck.
He is quite the conversation piece. lol
^best 20 dollars you ever spent.
@rojo – Mostly strange and interesting!
A couple things. Once, my family went to a yard sale at the house of a guy who just died and his kids wanted to sell some of his junk. My dad got this thing that they said it was a cabinet, but they weren’t sure what was in it because it was locked and they couldn’t findd the key. He paid $40 and when we brought it home, we found out it was an old 40’s radio with a record player built in. Inside was a old atlas from the same era and some records. We kept them:)
In the woods near my school, we were clearing a trail and found a bunch of old glass Coke bottles. Pretty cool.
This thread makes me wanna watch the History Channel…
Here he is! In my avatar the one and only naked headhunter guy!
^Well, you’re right about the well-endowed part…
A few years ago I was able to purchase an antique book from 400 years ago for a reasonable cost through Hay on Wye bookstores in the Uk. ( Addeyman books) and other websites that deal in old books.
It is a great feeling to hold a very old object !
I often wonder about its original owner? And If he could even guess that in the future that I would be holding his book in my hands 400 years later?
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