Found Money (Coins and Currency) Thread

I tried searching for a thread that contained found money, whether it be coins (from dryers and so forth) to currency (perhaps stuffed in the pages of a book or a sofa seat cushion). I didn't find anything, so I thought I'd add this thread.

Today I went through a golf bag that I found about a week and a half ago. It had three left-handed clubs in it, but also had a velvety Crown Royal bag with tees, ball markers, etc. I found the following coins in the bag (no really good dates):

6 half dollars ($3.00)
20 quarters ($5.00)
2 dimes ($0.20)
6 nickels ($0.30)
10 pennies ($0.10)

That is a total of $8.60 found in the bag. Also there was a Canadian quarter and another couple of foreign coins (Belgium and Dominican Republic) and a couple tokens.

I'll take it.

Please post your coin and cash finds on this thread.

An old fellow that taught me alot about scrapping, told me that he enjoyed taking the back seat out of scrap cars. That is where the coins were.

Haven't done it myself, but I'd take his word for it.

It wasn't while scrapping, but in 1990 I was stationed in Norfolk, VA. I always went to a barber off-base to get my hair cut since the Navy barbers were such hacks and I'm so good looking... *ahem*

Anyway, the barbershop was in a strip mall that had a Bank of America branch.

I stepped out of my car & stepped on an envelope. I could tell there was something in there. I kick-scooted it with my foot... it had some weight to it. I picked it up.

Lo and behold there were 17 crisp new $100 bills in there. No name, no account numbers, nothing else in the plain white envelope but the cash.

I looked around for the candid camera, but there was none. I pondered a moment and reluctantly headed for the BOA branch.

I asked to speak with the branch manager. She checked with all the tellers, no-one had had any transactions like that that day. I gave her my name & told her I'd be back next week to check with her. (This was way before po'folks like me had mobile phones!)

The next week she met with me and let me know that no-one had been in looking for it.

It was an epic party at the barracks that weekend. :))

I always check under the seats in every junk car. Not just money but knives and jewelry too. Found a 100 dollar bill under the spare in an old Cadillac once. Found a rifle in the trunk of another . Another thing to check is birthday cards and the like. More than once I've found money that was forgotten in them.

I occasionally buy storage units. Flipping through a book one day from one of them, I found a $50 bill. I checked every other book after that but it turned out to be the only one containing cash. Another unit had over $200 in various uncashed gift cards.

I showed up at work one day and found a $100 bill laying in the parking lot. It was folded in half and wet, as it had rained. I decided not to tell anyone I worked with figuring they would all claim it, but waited to see if anyone complained about losing it. Nope. I decided it must have been a customer and used it to buy groceries.

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Originally Posted by dsroten

Another thing to check is birthday cards and the like. More than once I've found money that was forgotten in them.

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Funny you say that. I found a birthday card that I RECEIVED (roughly 10-12 years old) and it had a $50 bill in it. I can't believe that I forgot to take that money out back when I received the card!

I was in a 7-11 and looked down in the candy bins and there was a $50 bill there. It has totally ruined standing in front of the register at a store for me.

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Originally Posted by jimicrk

I'm not sure what you are saying.
I'm sorry, it's still early for me.

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I have to scour every container as I wait in line for the cashier.

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Originally Posted by t00nces2

I was in a 7-11 and looked down in the candy bins and there was a $50 bill there. It has totally ruined standing in front of the register at a store for me.

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SAME!!!!!!!!!!!

Except I found a C-note folded up & dropped into the Skittles box. Every time I wait in line at the gas station I have to look over every box they have down there!

I have found plastic containers, a M&M one & a Wrigley's chewing gum one, different places & about 2 months apart.

But as soon as I saw it, I 'Knew' there was money in it.
It was just the neat surprise of the confidence of knowing it, and then leaning over to pick it up to find out how much $ is actually in it..
$9 + coins & $15.
I do this with cigarette packets too, I know if its empty or partly full as soon as I see it.
Because of that, I do pick up the ones I'm not sure of as well, but its about a 50% chance of getting something.
The bonus is that I don't smoke & I can give them away later on.

I found a twenty in a parking lot 2 weeks ago. I pick up pennys and other change all the time but the 20 was a sweet surprise.

I was out hunting yard sales and I pulled out of a street making a left and as I looked right to make sure the lane was clear to pull out, I saw money in the median. It was a ways away and I was moving, and I really didn't "look" at it, but I knew it was money. I turned around and went back and it was a $20 bill. It is funny how you just know money when you see it.

I once pulled a silver plated bank in the shape of a childs block from a dumpster. It had a slot in the top to drop change into it. I shook it and it made no noise but for some reason I felt compelled to open it anyway. Someone had folded a $10 bill and stuck it inside and the owner may have never known it was there.
ALWAYS check banks and objects used as banks for bills if you cannot see inside them !

Several years ago we got a dryer from a guy that sounded like a maraca. We got $30 in change out of it.

Our best was a supercharged Nissan Frontier pickup. I was getting it ready to sell ( I got it for scrap title and all and it ran, but it was wrecked). I saw it had huge wires going under the passengers seat so I unbolted the seat, after digging through change. When I pulled the seat off it was level with change - and an amplifier. We took the change straight to the banks coin counting machine - $218. I only paid $150 for the truck, I sold it for $800. Too bad every deal isn't that good.

I have taken the seat out & looked in every old car I have scrapped.

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Originally Posted by wwhijr

Several years ago we got a dryer from a guy that sounded like a maraca. We got $30 in change out of it.

Our best was a supercharged Nissan Frontier pickup. I was getting it ready to sell ( I got it for scrap title and all and it ran, but it was wrecked). I saw it had huge wires going under the passengers seat so I unbolted the seat, after digging through change. When I pulled the seat off it was level with change - and an amplifier. We took the change straight to the banks coin counting machine - $218. I only paid $150 for the truck, I sold it for $800. Too bad every deal isn't that good.

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cha ching !

I once found $33,000.00 on a job. No lie. Property was purchased from the estate of a dead woman who was crazy and had no living relatives. The buyer took one look at the hoarder mess and called me to empty it. He told me to take everything, so I did. There was money hidden everywhere, in newspapers, books, vases, drawers, in folded socks, you name it.

Believe me I searched my conscience for a long time to determine if I was within my rights.

This was about three years ago.

I kept a bundle of 100 singles from that job for the longest time...

It's kind of like getting free money ... bought over $150 in unused postage stamps at an auction for $10.
( postage stamps in the US never expire )

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Originally Posted by BurlyGuys

I once found $33,000.00 on a job. No lie. Property was purchased from the estate of a dead woman who was crazy and had no living relatives. The buyer took one look at the hoarder mess and called me to empty it. He told me to take everything, so I did. There was money hidden everywhere, in newspapers, books, vases, drawers, in folded socks, you name it.

Believe me I searched my conscience for a long time to determine if I was within my rights.

This was about three years ago.

I kept a bundle of 100 singles from that job for the longest time...

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that is pretty impressive.........I thought I was doing good to find a few hundred in different clean-outs thru the years

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Originally Posted by BurlyGuys

I once found $33,000.00 on a job. No lie. Property was purchased from the estate of a dead woman who was crazy and had no living relatives. The buyer took one look at the hoarder mess and called me to empty it. He told me to take everything, so I did. There was money hidden everywhere, in newspapers, books, vases, drawers, in folded socks, you name it.

Believe me I searched my conscience for a long time to determine if I was within my rights.

This was about three years ago.

I kept a bundle of 100 singles from that job for the longest time...

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That's a tough one...

I'd have to say that you were told to "Take it all", and that's what you did.

As long as the money wasn't known about, and wasn't part of the new owner's math on buying the property, he really didn't have much of a 'right' to it, either. I think it might be a good idea to edit the fine print on your contract to cover this kinda thing. Something lawyered up along the lines of "All items requested to be removed from the job site become the property of Burly Guys. Any undisclosed readily-fungible items found in the items to be removed also become property of Burly Guys".... or something.

I think I would still have to take a pretty sizable chunk of that dough & "do good things" with it if I were to come across such a situation.

Re: finding $33k- I imagine it would take a good while to go through everything. Can you imagine, if, before you found the money, we had a currency crisis like Mexico in the 1990’s when 1,000 pesos suddenly became 1 peso overnight?!? Your $33k would have become just $33. Yikes!

Found $150 in change from a clean out once.

I found NZ$300 (US$210) in a DVD I bought from a 2nd shop once.
I actually think I know who sold them that DVD (& lost the $300 they had hidden in it)
I just have to find him (randomly, dunno where lives) & ask him the right questions, to get the right answers, to find out if it was his.

Most cash I ever found was NZ$116,000 odd.
I didn't know it at the time & left it there...somebody else 'found it' & stole it. (If I'm correct)

I have previously found a $100USD bill on a children's playground at a school. Other than that, I have found twenties and tens in the trash before. Just the day before yesterday, when I was trash picking through the trash of some newly moved-in neighbors, I found a handbag that had about $5 in change still in it. I always like finding change in trash piles.

I did a post a while back titled "unusual" I found some 2$ bills in a comp tower, I seem to remember there was some interesting comments on that post. You may enjoy reading that one.

Yes, It seems to be a gift to find $$$! My wife swears I can SMELL it! LOL!

$90.00 in a bale of paper getting it ready to head to China

RE: Finding newly moved-in neighbor's money: The thing about this that could be awkward is: If you tried to return it to them, they might ask "Why are you going through my stuff?" On the other hand, if it was a really big amount like $1,000 or more, you'd think they would be very appreciative.

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Originally Posted by mikeinreco

that is pretty impressive.........I thought I was doing good to find a few hundred in different clean-outs thru the years

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I'm not expecting to ever come across a find like that again!

Found a $50 bill on the floor in a strip bar one time. Used to buy storage units all the time. Always found some loose change in about all of them. A few silver dollars one time.

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Originally Posted by xyz1945

Found a $50 bill on the floor in a strip bar one time. Used to buy storage units all the time. Always found some loose change in about all of them. A few silver dollars one time.

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That $50 you found at the strip club could have been Bambi's college savings! :)

I found NZ$40 (US$30) last night. Tonight I found a tiny, ' bout the size of a fingernail, bud of marijuana in a plastic bag on the footpath.
But I don't smoke.. so lol.

Once found 4 silver fil-am coins in a jar of old coins. Ended up selling the 4 coins for 6 dollars a piece only to find out I could have gotten 4 times as much. Well it was still a win cause the jar was something that I just found in an old drawer I purchased. Since then I do intensive research on all coins I find.

Found $10 in the pocket of a ladies bag (Lancome brand) while on Curb Co. duty early this morning.