Have you ever found anything interesting?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

The recent story about the fossil find in the Cotswolds got me thinking about a similar thing that happened to me.

As a kid, during the school holidays I used to work as a gardener for an old man, who lived in a lovely old former rectory. No matter how many hours I worked, he always seemed to pay me much the same each week. One week I was feeling particularly hard done by with my pay packet as I was weeding the kitchen garden with the garden fork. Suddenly a flash of light caught my eye as I turned the soil. I reached down and couldn’t believe my eyes: it looked like a fairly large fully-formed cut diamond. Astonished and with a certain sense of karma about my wretched salary, I popped it in my pocket and took it home without telling the home owner.

I showed it to my parents and my dad agreed to take it to a jeweller in Hatton Garden to check it out, as he was working in London at the time.

I was so excited when he got back that evening. How many thousands was it worth? Well none to be exact. The jeweller instantly dismissed any chance of it being a diamond. He did another more detailed check and informed that it was worth roughly the same as the amount of wages I felt had been underpaid!

So if it wasn’t a real diamond, what was it doing buried in a 200 year old village rectory kitchen garden?

Anyway I never did sell it and have since lost track of its whereabouts after several house moves. Maybe someone else has since found it and suffered the same disappointment! Or maybe it was a real diamond after all…

[Bibs]

I found a football on the beach when I was about 7 or 8. Took it to the local Police Station and handed it in as lost property, they gave me a receipt and everything. A couple of months later a Bobby popped it round my house and said I could keep it as it was unclaimed, I remember being very chuffed at the time. Not sure what it would have been worth to a Hatton Garden jeweller but I thought it was priceless to me, a free football! 

[ChrisJ]

@Bibs - I found £5 on the street in Cambridge when I was about the same age, my Dad insisted that we hand it in to the Police station. Funnily enough, it was not returned to me as unclaimed.

[march]

My father and I went out on the Medway marshes when I was a mere stripling with some people from Duxford air museum hunting crashed 2nd world war aircraft parts. After a while I got a bit bored and wandered off looking on my own, amazingly I found something, a 2nd world war 4.5 inch  (or such like) live shell. Impressed with my find I lugged it back to the group an showed them my prize. Unfortunately the bomb disposal chap was less than impressed with a young lad grinning from ear to ear holding a lightly fizzing live explosive shell in his arms. The shell was quickly stripped of it's detonator thingy and I was told in no uncertain terms I could not keep it, it was rapidly returned to the gloopy Medway mud. I was not impressed.

On the way back someone tripped over something only to find it was the undercarriage from a Messerschmitt BF 109 - some people have all the luck. I also was not allowed on any more jaunts with the group - most unfair.

[Kimbers]

I've had a couple of finds in my time. Apart from buying job lots of Jewellery and finding things of value way beyond what i thought, such as a Georg Jensen Ring and Necklace I found last week or a Tiffany Solid Silver pen.

When I was 7 my older brother and I lived next door to Kettringham hall. Now we all know its history and being used by American airmen in WW2. we were walking through the woods adjacent to it looking for sticks to use as swords etc and I kicked something hard. We moved aside 30 years of crap to find, wrapped around tree roots a full belt of shiny pointy things all wrapped in what was left of some sort of green cloth.. Now we didn't know anything about them at the time, so spent the next hour digging the whole belt out and proceeded to knock several loose ones, like nails, into the old rotten tree stump using pieces of wood. Getting bored with our game we both pocketed a couple of the shiny pointy things and went home. So, getting home my old man exclaimed a rude word very loudly and took them away from us. About 2 hours later some men in Khaki turned up and took our toys and the whole belt of Shiny objects from us to "Make them Safe". it was a belt of 50 Cal, obviously, that we had been hammering into the tree. 30 years to destabilise them we were lucky we didn't lose a limb!

My second story was a couple of years after when we had moved out into the countryside. In the middle of nowhere up a long drive we had full roaming of miles of woods and fields as Mom worked for the local farmer and we helped out. We knew all the best places. At 9 years old I can honestly say I was naive and not at all worldly wise. If we cut across the field we lived in the middle of we came to a hard standing area, normally with hay bales or sugar beet on. it backed onto woods and had a hedge alongside the gate so we often saw cars parked there. Don't know who they were or what they were doing......some may have been rocking! Now one thing I did see was my Grandad and mom smoking and people were often smoking on the parking area. So one day I was walking down to the farm and I remember a City looking fella looking about him and putting something into one of the Hay bales. I waited till he left and put my hand in there to find, disappointingly, 2 packets of cigarettes. Oh well, I suppose I could try one. So I opened the packet to find a big roll of tightly wadded money, counting it, it was about £150. the other one had not as much but about £30.  Quite a lot of money in those days. 

Needless to say I kept the money and scarpered. Now I realise it was likely a dealer dropping off the suppliers share for him to collect. And I never got knee capped! Needless to say I never saw anything like that there again. I just hope dad never reads this cause I never told anyone apart from my best mate. To say we ate a fuck load of sweets for the next few months was an understatement!

[C8RKH]

I found a wallet on the prom when on holiday. Full of money and stuff. I handed it in to the police and a couple of weeks later a Bobby came around and the gent whose wallet it was had gave them a five pound reward to hand to me. Chuffed as anything was I and went off to the Airfix model shop and if I recall I got a model of a Spitfire to build.

[Chillidoggy]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

I found a wallet on the prom when on holiday. Full of money and stuff. I handed it in to the police and a couple of weeks later a Bobby came around and the gent whose wallet it was had gave them a five pound reward to hand to me. Chuffed as anything was I and went off to the Airfix model shop and if I recall I got a model of a Spitfire to build.

This must have been when you were a young lad, because otherwise you’d have been straight to Tesco’s for a bottle of plonk or a 6-pack.

[Chillidoggy]

I found this in Pegwell Bay. Well, dug it up, actually. Along with the remains of the Typhoon that crash landed there.

[DanR]

Great find.

So where is it now? Loungeroom?

Monster motor for a monster plane.

[march]

Wow - that's some find! That will be hard for anyone to beat.

Although at the age of 8 I did go out to play in the local park with my mates and we did find the Holy grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the Fountain of Youth - all before supper time.

[Dave Eds]

3 hours ago, march said:

 

Although at the age of 8 I did go out to play in the local park with my mates and we did find the Holy grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the Fountain of Youth - all before supper time.

What was her name?

[mg4lotus]

A few years back I was fortunate to stumble upon the meaning of life, the universe and everything. 😁

[Chillidoggy]

13 hours ago, DanR said:

Great find.

So where is it now? Loungeroom?

Monster motor for a monster plane.

As far as I know, it’s still in the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum along with a multitude of other mechanical parts, cannons, landing gear etc. Bit of an own goal, the plane was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire returning from a mission. There’s only one Typhoon remaining, currently in Hendon museum.

 

[DDubya]

On 23/07/2021 at 17:21, Bibs said:

I found a football on the beach when I was about 7 or 8. Took it to the local Police Station and handed it in as lost property, they gave me a receipt and everything. A couple of months later a Bobby popped it round my house and said I could keep it as it was unclaimed, I remember being very chuffed at the time. Not sure what it would have been worth to a Hatton Garden jeweller but I thought it was priceless to me, a free football! 

Bibs, did it have a red face on it, like a hand print? It answers to the name of Wilson😂

[Bibs]

No but I do have a friend with a pug called Wilson who I call a la Castaway so often I suspect he thinks he's now a volleyball!!

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

5 hours ago, Chillidoggy said:

As far as I know, it’s still in the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum along with a multitude of other mechanical parts, cannons, landing gear etc. Bit of an own goal, the plane was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire returning from a mission. There’s only one Typhoon remaining, currently in Hendon museum.

 

Do you know about this one undergoing long term restoration? Now at Duxford.

https://hawkertyphoon.com/

 

[basalte]

In 1987, found a nazi cigarette case at a car boot sale. It was embossed with a map of the Third Reich (including France etc) . That implied that it probably belonged to a senior military member of that murderous gang. Paid 50p for it . Obviously a rarity.

I then felt a bit uneasy - I had no use for it myself,  as (as you might expect), I despise (understatement) anyone who makes it legal to assault and murder innocent people for looking /being different (etc) like the nazis did.

And if I showed it off  it would take too long to explain that I have a jewish background, was being ironic etc etc and don`t smoke ! Eventually I took to a militaria shop where I asked a fiver for it. So , who knows who THAT ended up with !

So, if you want an example of flawed personal moral ambiguity , this is it ! (PS If I still had it today I would donate it to the Battle of Britain Museum ). 

[Chillidoggy]

On 27/07/2021 at 19:04, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Do you know about this one undergoing long term restoration? Now at Duxford.

https://hawkertyphoon.com/

 

No, I haven't seen that one. It looks like one of Sparky's Lego projects at the moment.

£5 million to restore, though. It looks like they're going to be manufacturing most of it from new.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Yes I think that rebuilding an airworthy Napier Sabre engine might be a bridge too far. I know they weren’t the easiest planes to fly and had a bit of a reputation for killing their pilots. Nevertheless my mum’s old boss used to fly them in the final days of WW2 and was a big fan. Having said that, he did win the DFC for flying unarmed Photo reconnaissance Spitfires over the Normandy beaches prior to D-Day.

[yeller77]

48 minutes ago, Chillidoggy said:

£5 million to restore, though. It looks like they're going to be manufacturing most of it from new.

It's amazing. With availability of factory drawings, CAD, and fabrication anything seems possible these days. I have a mate who has a P-51 and is assembling a second one. He pretty much just started with a dataplate...