With the stay at home orders in place, it's given a number of us the opportunity to get to some chores and renovations that have been on the 'list' to do for a long time. One of those items for me was to pull up some of the remaining baseboard and replace it with materials that have sadly sat for a couple of years on the shelf in my garage. When I bought my home almost 20 years ago, it was a foreclosure requiring plenty of attention. And as we did the repairs on our home, I found that the previous owners/builders? stuck money in various places. The largest gains were in the kitchen: coins were put under every installed lower cabinets. And when I refinished the floors, the drum sander vibrated up a few more coins. Most of what I found was quite common: house built in 1981. But there were a few wheat back cents in the mix. And as time passed, the finds became fewer and fewer. But whenever we start a project, I know to keep an eye open. Here is what I found stashed in an open spot between floorboards. Nothing too special, but interesting that they left behind 'treasures' to be discovered at some future point. So this got me to thinking - What coins/items have other CT members found in their homes left to be discovered? I'd like to see (or hear about if you don't have a picture).
When we moved into our house, it had been on the market for about six months. There was a pile of debris in the front yard. At some point someone had used the downstairs toilet, and apparently the Realtor didn't know how to turn the water back on at the main valve, so the downstairs smelled... off-putting. (My wife found the valve, turned it back on, and flushed the toilet; if we hadn't bought the house, that alone probably would've raised its market value by $5K.) The previous owners left that pile of junk in the front yard, some oddities in the crawlspace, and some rather ugly window treatments in the master bedroom. When we moved in, tearing down those drapes was one of our first tasks. When we pulled down the first set, two $20 bills fluttered out of them. We very carefully examined the other set, and everything else we cleaned out of the house, but that was the only windfall. No, actually, there was a 1963 quarter (I think) in one of the medicine cabinets. I wasn't collecting at the time, but I did know about silver coins, so we saved it. Since then, I've cut holes in the drywall to access the return-air plenums upstairs and downstairs. The downstairs plenum connects to a larger space under part of the stairway, and there were some scraps there left by the builders, but no money.
Well now you've gone and done it! All those coins you've found and are removing were not dropped by accident. They were out there on purpose. They are shims used to hold everything in the house to be plum. Lol
Well, you did far better on the money than I did. I learned from some folks that it was good luck to put change under installed items/inside walls. I'm not superstitious so picking it up and reviewing it for collectibles is more meaningful. It was kind of funny this go around, since when we moved in, most of the baseboard and toe-kick was missing. So accessing coinage in the floorboard cracks was apparent. But in the area I'm tearing out now and replacing, everything was intact. So some virgin territory to explore!!
Ummmm...let's keep that between us then. I don't want the wife to create a new list on replacing the 'shims'! I'll convince her to take off a shoe or tilt her head instead.
