Buried Treasure

[Big Man]

Have you ever dug-up, uncovered, or just found a long-lost, misplaced, forgotten, or hidden away item? Not necessarily something that just has a dollar value (like in real "treasure"), but just something interesting from years gone by?

While working in my garden today I found this:

I think it may have been mine when I was little, but it could have been my Dad's when he was a boy. Whoever the owner, this little toy Policeman (it's about 3" tall) has been in the ground between 50 and 80 years.

My grandparents bought the house where we live in 1917, and the family has been there ever since. I am always finding pieces of broken dishes, old buttons, etc. around the place. I've found several old marbles, which I know belonged to my Dad when he was a boy over 80 years ago. But this little Policeman toy has been the most interesting find so far. Just think how many times that garden plot has been plowed and hoed over the years. How many times it has been walked over the years, and just now this little toy was found.

So, with that in mind, have any of you ever found something interesting?

 

[Chainsaw]

I remember doing a job for someone, when I was a teenager. I found a old leaded glass bottle, maybe an old medicine bottle, or possibly a small mickey.

 

[Kopf-Jaeger]

The property that my house sits upon was a farm from about the 1850s-1959. The rear of my property has a hedgerow that marked the perimeter of the farm. Whenever I am cleaning up out there or moving stumps I tend to find some neat things. So far I have found several very old bottles amazingly unbroken as well as horseshoes, bridles and several cowbells. When I used to work a rural area of the county I used to ask the construction companies that were tearing down old farms if I could look around in the old tractor and tool sheds. I found numerous old oil cans as well as boxes of old ammunition. The companies let me keep the stuff as they didn't care about it at all.

 

[LizzieMaine]

While pawing around in the dirt behind my grandparents' house when I was about nine, I found an 1831 Large Cent. I would have rather found a $10 gold piece, but one takes what one can get.

 

[jamespowers]

While pawing around in the dirt behind my grandparents' house when I was about nine, I found an 1831 Large Cent. I would have rather found a $10 gold piece, but one takes what one can get.

Those aren't exactly common. I would keep that around if I were you.
My mother used to collect them and they aren't cheap now.
My finds at my other house were interesting as the land it was on was once the back 40 of the old Marshall place----my great grandfather's neighbor.
They used to burn trash out there and that site encompasses four yards now. I found old nails, paper, glass bottles for various products and even a ten gallon oil drum! I wondered why my tomatoes on that spot never grew very well. It only took about an hour to dig it all out in one piece. :eusa_doh:

 

[GWD]

Being in the underground construction business, it isn't uncommon to dig across old dump sites. Old bottles are pretty common as are old car chassis. The trick is to spot them before the backhoe breaks them. A few years ago, while digging in West Covina, CA. we found about 100 old bottles, everything from old Coke bottles, bleach bottles, cold cream jars and apothecary bottles.

Marbles are probably the most common item I find.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My great grandparents used to throw all their garbage into the gully behind their house, and after that house was torn down, we neighborhood kids used to play in the rubble. The gully was a favorite spot for excavations, and over the years we found a ton of Listerine bottles, Ingraham Shaving Cream jars, old shoes, ancient light bulbs, and on one occasion the jawbone of a horse. After finding that, we decided not to stick around to see if the rest of the horse would show up.

 

[Fletch]

I think it was Ingram's

Ingraham (pronounced Ingram too) made clocks.
Ingram's was the first mentholated shave cream.

Ad from the American Magazine, April, 1934.

 

[Big Man]

My great grandparents used to throw all their garbage into the gully behind their house ...

My grandparents had the same kind of trash dump down the hill behind the house. I've found all kinds of interesting things in that old dump, from a pair of old eyeglasses to the internal parts of a 1936 model Gurnrow radio. There is so much history in old trash dumps.

 

[Big Man]

I went out to the garden today to work. I'm going to try a "Fall garden", and was in the process of setting out some squash plants. I pushed the shovel into the dirt and noticed something shiny. Upon inspection it was a 1906 silver dime.

My grandparents moved into the house in 1917, and the area that is the garden has been there (and worked as a garden) every year since then. I wonder who dropped that dime? Did it fall out of my grandfather's pocket? Was it lost by someone my grandmother had plowing the garden after my grandfather's death in 1932 (I remember when she had a man with a mule plow the garden)? Or did the previous owner of the place drop it prior to 1917? Who knows ...

 

[scotrace]

Neat finds, Big Man - and more so because you know the history of the place.

Any house older than... ? 1900?1910? that has seen relatively little development on the property will have at least one trash pit or filled in privy. If you can find it, it will get you (typically) LOTS of interesting medicine bottles, pottery pieces, toys, orphaned shoes, bent up forks, etc. There are hundreds of them in any town across the USA.

I found mine hears ago and dug till I was tired. Pulled up tons of interesting junque, most of which was just re-interred in a landfill. But I saved to unbroken items including an inkwell, Moxie bottle, and a match holder.

Similar thread here.

 

[rumblefish]

Long Island's sand pits are a gold mine for Native American items. My brother and I used to find arrow heads and paint pots. Some where delivered right to our block. When construction started for houses, fill (sand) from the local pits was piled conveniently for us to use as playground at the site. I remember at least a few "finds" were picked up like this.
Our history is still around us, a lot of Long Island is named after the 13 local tribes.
This is how my interest in history started... Which abruptly ended when I had to learn it in school.

 

[Foofoogal]

ah, the policeman looks like Mr. Kilpatrick. A character in my fav book as a child.
http://www.amazon.com/Betsy-Mr-Kilpatrick-Carolyn-Haywood/dp/0688310850

I got to go on a dig at an old plantation once. Loads of fun.
As a kid I found a meter timer thing. I still have it. I will have to put a photo.
Still do not know how it works.

 

[Miss sofia]

I was actually lucky enough to find some real treasure in my old house. I live in East Sussex, at the time i lived in a fifteenth century thatched cottage in a small rural village and while digging the garden over i found a rubbish dump which yielded some old glass bottles and a few clay pipes, roof tiles etc. Just randomly while sifting through i found what looked like a small lump of metal, i cleaned it up and it was a brooch, which on further inspection was composed of four classical style male heads in different coloured stone, that turned out to be marble, set in gold. I took it to a decent local auction house and was told it was actually eighteenth century italian, odd, being that i'm Italian, but i figure it found it's rightful owner ha ha. The theory was,it most likely would have been purchased as a gift, (perhaps like today's equivalent of a souvenir pin or brooch) from a genteel person's grand tour of europe, it is a lovely thing, and i enjoy wearing it immensely, but i do cast a thought every now and then in the direction of whoever lost it and would have lamented the loss of such a pretty brooch.

 

[Brinybay]

The property that my house sits upon was a farm from about the 1850s-1959. The rear of my property has a hedgerow that marked the perimeter of the farm.

If you're up for some research and some (literal) digging, locate where the outhouses used to be. There's an entire nitch of hobbyists who go "privy digging" for old bottles in long-forgotten outhouses. General rule of thumb is that it needs to be around 100 years old for all the "crud" to have long since turned to dirt, also a better cache of old bottles and other artifacts. The advantage you would have is since it's your property, you don't need permission to dig first, and you don't have to split the find with the property owner.

 

[Shangas]

I was actually lucky enough to find some real treasure in my old house. I live in East Sussex, at the time i lived in a fifteenth century thatched cottage in a small rural village and while digging the garden over i found a rubbish dump which yielded some old glass bottles and a few clay pipes, roof tiles etc. Just randomly while sifting through i found what looked like a small lump of metal, i cleaned it up and it was a brooch, which on further inspection was composed of four classical style male heads in different coloured stone, that turned out to be marble, set in gold. I took it to a decent local auction house and was told it was actually eighteenth century italian, odd, being that i'm Italian, but i figure it found it's rightful owner ha ha. The theory was,it most likely would have been purchased as a gift, (perhaps like today's equivalent of a souvenir pin or brooch) from a genteel person's grand tour of europe, it is a lovely thing, and i enjoy wearing it immensely, but i do cast a thought every now and then in the direction of whoever lost it and would have lamented the loss of such a pretty brooch.

Can we possibly see a photograph of this brooch?

 

[Warbaby]

If you're up for some research and some (literal) digging, locate where the outhouses used to be. (snip).

When outhouses were common, even in cities, they were an ideal place to dispose of weapons used in murders and robberies. Shoot somebody, run down an alley, toss the gun in any outhouse you pass and keep on going. When I lived in San Francisco, outhouse pistols turned up on a fairly regular basis (SF was a pretty rowdy place in the late 19th century).

Here's a nice example - I didn't dig it myself, but got it in trade from a guy who did.

I suppose one could chip away the encrustations and find out what sort of pistol it is, but I like it just the way it was found.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Someday, someone in the future will be digging in the yard of my boyhood home and be greatly puzzled when they find a miniature Egyptian tomb, complete with "artifacts" and a mummified gerbil.

Our current house was built in 1932, and was a vacant lot before that. I'm always finding glass and crockery pieces in the yard. Two years ago, when we had to replace part of the collaped clay sewer line, I grabbed old bottles that the backhoe dug up, and then went online to try to identify them. That was the most fun I've had while spending $2300.lol

Brad

 

[de-stressed]

While working in my garden today I found this:

I think it may have been mine when I was little, but it could have been my Dad's when he was a boy. Whoever the owner, this little toy Policeman (it's about 3" tall) has been in the ground between 50 and 80 years.

Big Man, I wonder if this was a vintage Marx toy?? He seems to have the same look as these guys:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Vintage-MARX-Toy...226?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563f61fe92

Had to edit link as previous link wasn't working

 

[Big Man]

Big Man, I wonder if this was a vintage Marx toy?? ...

I guess it could be one. It looks about the same. I know when I was little I used to play with a lot of toy figures like that. I don't know if they were bought for me or if they were my Dad's when he was a boy. That was a long time ago and there isn't anyone left to ask.