What’s the Coolest Thing You’ve Found?

I love free. I’m always finding tools, tarps, scrap metal, and etc etc. Found the biggest I-Phone made a few months ago. Not a keeper though. So far I’d say a sledge hammer someone discarded. The fiberglass handle was cracked but is good as new with some Epoxy.

 

Found one of those 70s model Honda 750 4's back in the woods back in the late 70s. Missing the back tire. I was to scrawny back then to try and drag that thing out of the woods. It had to be stolen , damn thing looked like it was just waxed up.
I've found tools on the side of the road, pulled an old hand saw out of a dumpster about 2 months ago. Back in the late 80s, I found a brand new looking push mower in a dumpster while I was throwing away some trash. Pulled it out , got it home and couldn't get it fire up ,pulled the cover off the top and it was full of grass , had the governor pinned closed. Cleaned it out , put the cover on , fired up 1st pull. Kept that for quite a few years.
Back in the mid 80s , I found my wife , thought that was a keeper , ,,, I was wrong.

 

Last year my brother found a bag with $900 cash. Like the I-Phone it was returned to the rightful owner. Instead of a reward he got a hug. Lol.

 

Coolest thing I ever found, a pair of cars buried in the black berries behind my cousins old family farm! My family had owned the place since 1909, and don't remember ever owning those or even knowing they were there! My brother and I spent a week clearing out the bushes and cutting out the stuff holding the frames to the ground. Turned out to be two complete cars that may have been stolen and driven into the brush and left for later, only later never came! I kept the 1950 ford coupe, and my brother kept the 1939 Buick! Both cars were in really good shape, and with a little tinkering e got the Buick running, and the ford was close to being a runner, but the engine was toast! We both still have those cars, my brother runs his all summer, mine is sitting behind my shop under cover awaiting it's turn in the shop for hot rodding!
I have two perfectly good lawn tractors that some one had abandoned, both are high end Bolins, and both only needed minor work to get running, one has a very nice and valuable rototiller and front push blade, the other has a snow thrower and drag blade. I restored both and use them all the time! Figure I have about $10000 worth of tractors in those two.
Found a ShopSmith deluxe multi tool at the recycling yard, paid $25 for it and all it needed was a new pair of drive motors, runs perfect, and we use it all the time!
Found a McCormick &Deering hit and miss 4 horse for free, haul it off. took a few weeks at the work bench and some machining, and it too runs like a top!
The very best "find" is my 1938 Caterpillar 2 1/2 ton crawler! Came from an old abandoned logging company out in southern OryGun, took a week to clear every thing out around it, tons of blaster penetrating oll and a weed burner to free it up enough to winch it up on my trailer. took a year to rebuild and restore it, and it needed a bunch of heavy machining, but it is better then the day it was made, and has three ultra valuable Chelsey hydraulic winches, and a skidding notch. I added the bull blade once I got it running, and we use it near constantly!, About the most useful tool we own! Starts up first turn, idles right off with out any fiddling, and runs for days unending, only needing the fuel tank topped up now and then!
I always seem to "Find" needful thing, but I have to hold back, before long, I will be over flowing with krap that I will never get to!

 

I found a 1kt diamond stud earring in a pool while learning scuba diving in college.

After a month unclaimed in the lost and found I ended up with it. I had it put into my wife’s wedding ring when I commissioned it.

 

During my parents' exercise walkabout in the neighborhood years ago, Mom found a nice little Benchmad autoknife worth $150 retail, an old IJ starter revolver, and Dad took the van back to a trashpile that had a discarded office chair, it's only fault a small white paint smear on the black vinyl. I ended up with them all.
A pair of trashpile wrought iron patio chairs went to my sister.

 

A Snap-on wrench. It was laying in the road. Looked almost new. We found a two person saw that is rusted but still cuts. We use it when we cut down trees. It is a family treasure.

 

Back in the early 1950’s my dad and I found a High Standard HD Military beside the highway. Worked fine, good shape! Mom and I suggested telling the Highway Patrol, now dad wasn’t a criminal type but he was a charter subscriber to Disturbed Loner Monthly so mum was the word.

 

Back when I was doing some running I found a $100 bill laying in the parking area by the old paved over RR tracks I used to run on.
I kept thinking about how I would feel loosing that kind of money. I turned it in to the Police station. The cop on duty said if no one claimed it in 90 days it was mine.
91 days later I picked it up, added a few dollar to it and purchased 3 1/0 oz. gold Eagles for my granddaughter.
Now the Eagles are worth about $450!

 

My Dog Lizzy been with me pretty much every minute of every day since I pulled her out the dumpster she was dropped and closed in.

 

Got one like that, The only time she's not causing trouble is when she's sleeping!

 

Maybe Shake-Rag, Tn...loved the blue grass music and hanging out eating a spread.

 

Nickel Slot Machine, found in the "woods" after the big raids by the Texas Rangers and DPS in Galveston Texas.

Old Man wouldn't let us keep it, took back half way and left it in Delaware Creek.

 

$2600 spear gun and all the goodies must have slid out of a truck or bounce out of a boat 270 rifle that a guy left on his dog box it was returned fishing poles tools

 

Probably the more interesting thing I’ve found was a 105 mm artillery round laying in the middle of a dirt road. Inert. Figure it fell off an ARNG truck towing a howitzer that passed by a bit earlier. Makes a great door stop in the shop.

AT

 

A full cord and a half of black walnut. The guy wanting to get rid of it said it would make 'great firewood'. I agreed that it would and hauled it off. It sure does carve up pretty:

 

The wife was born and raised about 2 miles from there. Have been there lots, still is cool. Lots of little places like that in that area.

 

I used to look for overlooked things in pawnshops when I was in NC . One time I was looking through the 10 dollar ring box they had on the counter and found one labeled PLAT 18. Sometimes I feel bad for buying it for the advertized 10 bucksand then selling it to another shop for over a grand. But then I remember that the guy who ran that place was really crooked.

 

The saw we call a Passe Partout, Takes two to make a pass!

 

A big patch...