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Antiques! => Antique Questions Forum => Topic started by: talesofthesevenseas on July 07, 2009, 11:02:07 AM
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Have you ever found something surprising inside an antique? You hear stories about someone discovering a valuable painting under junk art, or finding an antique pistol hidden in the wall of an old house. Twice I've found unexpected things and I figured that there might be some interesting stories about finding something unexpected.
Not long ago, I purchase a stitchery made of old tabacco silks. I wanted to replace the backing with an acid free backing and when I took off the old backing, inside was a perfectly preserved 1940's-ish tissue embroidery transfer showing Mother Goose scenes. Nothing valuable, but still a surprise!
My best one was in this old violin coffin case at the bottom of this post. When I purchased it, it had been lined with fabric, but not padded so that it still allowed the violin to slip around loose inside the case. I wanted to protect my violin from damage by adding foam forms to hold it securely.
When I removed the liner, I found writing underneath. at the top of the case in faded pencil were a list of the names of the family who were the former owners of the case. (It was like an ID so that you'd know whose case it was) I researched the family on Ancestry.com and found out that the kids were born in the 1850's and 1860's. Written in bold printing in the center of the case, was a note saying "This old fiddle case restored by Ken (surname omitted for privacy) and then a series of numbers and the name of a town. I did a little research and found out that the numbers were an old-style phone number. I realized that this guy had sent out a "message in a bottle" and wanted whoever found it to contact him. So I decided to give it a try.
I looked up town name and found that a person with the same surname still lived there and the last four digits of the phone number matched the ones in the case. So I called and left a message on their answering machine, saying that I had found the note hidden in the violin case.
Later that day I got a call from Ken's widow. It turned out that he had died a couple of years after restoring the case. He was a volunteer rescue worker and was swept away in a flood on his way to help someone. His widow said she had no idea about the message, but said that it was just like him to do something like that, and he must have been inspired to do it when he found the children's names hidden under the lining of the case when he restored it. How strange that must have been for me to call her out of the blue like that, more than 20 years after his death!
(http://www.talesofthesevenseas.com/ViolinCase1.jpg)
Anyone else have a "hidden treasure" story?
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I have a "hidden treasure story" worthy of printing :) Before I was even born, my grandparents moved to the United States from Italy. With them, they freighted hundreds of antiques and even more furniture. They collected marble furniture from Italy and France and had some of the nicest pieces I have ever seen, almost all worthy of Sotheby's. During the Depression, my grandfather hid thousands and thousands of dollars worth of gold coins (his family came from little money and he was more than scared of loosing what he had worked so hard for). At the time, he owned a winery and was a huge investor, and about five years before the Depression he bought the gold (at least I was told five years, but the time could be different).
Anyway, I got sidetracked :) He buried half of the gold, during the Depression, on his Vineyard (in Napa Valley, California) and most of the other half in his house. Eventually, he died, and had never unburied his gold (it is there to this day) and my family sold the Winery. My father and his brothers got the gold hidden in the house, but no one wanted the furniture (I can see those gasping faces of yours :) ). The furniture was taken by who knows whom and the house was sold with the winery. But that's not the treasure story. I was visiting an old friend of my father's (his parents had also been friends of my grandparents) in California a few years ago and we were sitting, talking, when I noticed his dining room table, which I had never seen before. It was an Italian piece, marble top, and I instantly recognized it as my grandfather's. My father had apparently given the table to him. I got to looking at it and noticed the legs were really strange, they were actually straight, not like the tradition style most of their other pieces were. The straight leg style I believe is also more French, not Italian. So anyway, we started examining the table more and were able to take a leg off (it was hand carved and the leg could sort of "slide" out if a fair amount of pressure was applied. Imagine our surprise when we found that the table leg was firstly, hollow, and secondly.... FILLED WITH GOLD COINS! There were five legs on the table, one in the center, and they were all filled hundreds of gold coins! It really makes me wonder what else was hidden in his furniture, I know that habit has definitely passed down through our family!
My uncle also used to tell me a story when I was fairly young about my grandfather's gold cane. The stick of the cane was solid cherry, but the top was a small round gold piece. Whenever you shook the cane, something in the top would rattle. My uncle inherited the cane, and temptation finally overcame him. He pried the top off, and inside was a diamond. This diamond, cut in a unique brilliancy, was the diamond my grandfather had received in a trade for a very large chunk of Telegraph Hill! See, the diamond was actually the dot on the end of a gold question mark. I really wish I had known my grandfather better, and I really, really, wish we still had his furniture and antiques.
So anyway, back to the table. He (the friend of the family) decided that he would keep the table as it was, not removing any coins, for some future treasure hunter to find.
Just thought I'd share, as these stories always have interested me. Do diamonds have any historical value?
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Oh... my... God... I'm stunned!!
Now that is like something straight out of the movies! Have you ever considered contacting the present owners of the winery about this? Sounds like they could enlist assistance from a metal detection club and perhaps locate some of your grandfather's coins. I wonder if it would be possible to track down the present owners of the furniture? I wonder how many people are going to read this and start pulling aparty their antique furniture!
It is strange that your grandfather gave away the table with the coins still inside it. He must have been very fond of his friend, or maybe it was given to him in his will after his death?
GREAT story!
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Oh, sorry, my father, not my grandfather, gave him the table. No one knew about the gold coins. As for the winery, I haven't contacted them about metal detecting, but may visit the current owner next time I'm down there. I thought about it a little while ago, but just never got around to it. Anyway, yeah, I thought it was a really interesting story. I have inherited his love of hiding things unfortunately as well :)
I have one more story, not as good, but still pretty neat. So again, in Napa, a friend of my father's owns a recycling/dump center. His wife is big into antiques, and sometimes the plant is payed to go empty out peoples homes- many times the person who has died didn't have any relatives or they just wanted to get rid of everything without a hassle. So anyway, one day they went and emptied out a house, and brought everything to the dump- including a ton of antique furniture. The wife, however, was more interested about what was inside the furniture, not the furniture itself. In one trunk there was a set of really beautiful porcelain, dating to mid 19th century, and a gold leafed moser vase (which I have now). I'll upload a pic in just a second, I need to go take it first though :)
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Here's a picture of the Moser vase:
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Have you ever found something surprising inside an antique? You hear stories about someone discovering a valuable painting under junk art, or finding an antique pistol hidden in the wall of an old house. Twice I've found unexpected things and I figured that there might be some interesting stories about finding something unexpected.
Not long ago, I purchase a stitchery made of old tabacco silks. I wanted to replace the backing with an acid free backing and when I took off the old backing, inside was a perfectly preserved 1940's-ish tissue embroidery transfer showing Mother Goose scenes. Nothing valuable, but still a surprise!
My best one was in this old violin coffin case at the bottom of this post. When I purchased it, it had been lined with fabric, but not padded so that it still allowed the violin to slip around loose inside the case. I wanted to protect my violin from damage by adding foam forms to hold it securely.
When I removed the liner, I found writing underneath. at the top of the case in faded pencil were a list of the names of the family who were the former owners of the case. (It was like an ID so that you'd know whose case it was) I researched the family on Ancestry.com and found out that the kids were born in the 1850's and 1860's. Written in bold printing in the center of the case, was a note saying "This old fiddle case restored by Ken (surname omitted for privacy) and then a series of numbers and the name of a town. I did a little research and found out that the numbers were an old-style phone number. I realized that this guy had sent out a "message in a bottle" and wanted whoever found it to contact him. So I decided to give it a try.
I looked up town name and found that a person with the same surname still lived there and the last four digits of the phone number matched the ones in the case. So I called and left a message on their answering machine, saying that I had found the note hidden in the violin case.
Later that day I got a call from Ken's widow. It turned out that he had died a couple of years after restoring the case. He was a volunteer rescue worker and was swept away in a flood on his way to help someone. His widow said she had no idea about the message, but said that it was just like him to do something like that, and he must have been inspired to do it when he found the children's names hidden under the lining of the case when he restored it. How strange that must have been for me to call her out of the blue like that, more than 20 years after his death!
(http://www.talesofthesevenseas.com/ViolinCase1.jpg)
Anyone else have a "hidden treasure" story?
Wow, thats really something!
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Fun reading!!! The adventure continues......
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Wow, both stories are amazing! The gold coin one is just crazy.
(I write my name and email address all over the place hidden os stuff that comes and goes my way.. I still have not been contacted yet.)
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Yey, I love these stories! ;D My Nana was big into antique pewter and collected all types. One year she bought a set of candlesticks. One of them rattled... hmmm... so she kept them for many years finally her curiosity got the better of her. She took the rattling candlestick and cut the cloth off the bottom and out fell these beautiful earrings! Who knows why they were put there and who wanted to hide them??? Just one of those questions that will never be answered. I have worn them many times and can't help but tell people the story. I've never had them appraised and there are no maker's marks. I've wondered if they are some sort of colored glass or amethyst? Mind, they're in need of a polish, they're meant to be silver! Any guesses on how old they are? They're terribly dirty, sorry!
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr213/ayashe_sammie/antiques/IMG_9612.jpg)
(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr213/ayashe_sammie/antiques/IMG_9613.jpg)
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How cool! They must have been very special to someone to be hidden away like that! Where did your mother buy the candlesticks? They don't look terribly old since they are pierced, I wonder what the story is with them!
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I never asked my grandmother where she bought the candlesticks. I'm sure it was from an antique store somewhere. She & my grandfather commissioned a couple of antique dealers to bring them things direct from Europe which is where they got most of their furniture so perhaps the candlesticks came to her that way. Not sure. But I thought perhaps they were made around turn of the last century, maybe 1900 or so, given that they are pierced like you said, and also straight posts not hook earrings. They both have cracks in the bottom of the glass, perhaps from her shaking the candlestick! :D
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Hi, We had a similar situation recently. My mother in law passed away and as we were going through her things we found these little containers in a curio cabinet. When we opened them there were three small stones inside that looked like diamonds. I took them to a jeweler to look at them and sure enough they were real diamonds, about a quarter carat each. You never know.
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We knew that my better halfs' great grandmother loved to "hide away" money and valuables. When she died she had a small tidy home that the family went through everything (they thought) to see where she hid items. She even had money behind electrical switch plates, ceiling light fixtures, etc. The family sold the house to a mutual friend who was going to renovate. To their surprise when they knocked out one of the bedroom walls to enlarge there was $$$$$$$ in it. She had put a hole in the wall placed the money in it and re-plastered/painted. After this they painstakingly searched the walls and found 2 other places money was hid. They let the family know and insisted on giving it back....after refusing several times...the family convinced them to split it with them....after all it was the new owners who found it!
Unfortunately, (or fortunately), I am a hider as well! My family dreads the day they have to go on a treasure hunt!!! :) :)
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I guess an old house would be an antique. We have some friends who live about thirty miles away. Martha, the wife, has a brother Bob who was a heavy equipment operator. In a very old section of Kansas City, Kansas, Eminent Domain had taken some raggety old houses and ordered them demolished. Bob, as an independent contractor took his bulldozer, it may have been a backhoe, I can't remember, and started pushing in the walls of a section of houses slated for demolition. He spotted something gold in color on the ground and got off and looked, it was a large coin, he said larger than a silver dollar, and on the back it said Fifty Dollars. It was octagon in shape. He found six more in the vicinity all like the first.
After work he stopped at a pawn shop that dealt in coins, took one in and asked the dealer what it was. The dealer said he didn't know but he would give Bob five hundred dollars for it. Bob rented a safety deposit box at his bank and put all seven there, until he could find more information on them. I talked with Martha, his sister two or three years ago and asked about them. She said Bob was pretty tight lipped about them. Sounds to me like some commemorative coins. Would be interesting to know the story.
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I love stories like those, where the oblivious guy comes walking along and finds something that could literally change his life (well, not exactly change his life, but seeing as gold is now $915 an ounce... that's a good chunk of change)! I wonder why they were scattered around the neighborhood? I bought a medal detector last year and so far haven't got a lot of luck, but I still live for these stories!
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Ooh! Metal detecting is FUN!!
I have a really junkie metal detector, I've only found one cool thing, but I still have fun with it.
We have a ghost town that is in the bottom of a nearby reservoir here. Recently they drained it for a pipeline project. The foundations of the old town, which was flooded in 1952 were slowly coming up out of the muck, so I went down...
Here is the old road that used to run through Lexington:
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington1.jpg)
Just above the current waterline is this slab foundation:
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington2.jpg)
I decided to start at the waterline, just below the slab foundation and made my first sweep. Very quickly I got my first beep and was rewarded instantly with this 1951 Franklin half dollar! (not bad for less than a minute of hunting, eh?!)
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington8.jpg)
Unfortunately, that was my best find of the day, the rest consisted of rusted bolts, nails, pipes, a railroad spike and other bits and pieces of old Lexington. Oh yeah... and a whole lot of beer cans! Here are my finds, you can get a better look at the reverse side of the Franklin coin here:
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington7.jpg)
Wandering around the site was interesting, exploring the old building foundations:
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington6.jpg)
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington5.jpg)
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington4.jpg)
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x124/talesofthesevenseas/Lexington3.jpg)
This is someone elses photo of the bridge that is down there, just around the bend from the foundations:
(http://www.geocities.com/rayhosler/photos/lexington_bridge.jpg)
All of this is underwater once again, for who knows how long this time. I've been meaning to hook up with a local metal detecting club here. I could use some coaching!
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I got really into it for a while, but never had the time to pursue this particular hobby. I can tell you one thing for sure, Tales, that spot is prime medal detecting right there ;) I bet with some practice you could find a nice little collection. It's actually sort of surprising, medal detecting isn't just a point and walk sort of thing, there are tons of factors that contribute to making the perfect find, including a bit of luck. When I first went out, I took an experienced friend with me. We went to a 19th century home and I starting detecting on the lawn under an apple tree. After about fifteen minutes of nothing, I moved on. My friend, on the other hand, who has been detecting for 10 years decided to scan the ground beneath the tree. In less than three minutes he had found 7 wheat pennies, a mercury dime, and a few other coins, in addition to several mis. items like an old tin of toothpaste and a pocket knife! I guess practice just makes perfect!
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Wow- Sounds like I should hook up with the detecting club and learn a few things!!
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Absolutely! It's great fun and you may just find something spectacular! I got hooked by reading stories from people who went out hoping to find a silver coin and coming back with a pile of gold, so to speak :) I wish you luck! You already made some nice finds, keep it up! ;)
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I would love to metal detect someplace in Europe. I love the stories about people finding bags of coins, rings etc. buried by Roman soldiers who never made it back to dig them up again. That just amazes me, seeing things for the first time that have been hidden away for centuries! I did some volunteer mapping and drafting work on an archaeological site in Arizona a few years ago. Even on broken bits of pottery, it was just so awesome to see carefully painted designs on pottery sherds that had not been seen in 800 years! Loved it!!
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I'm planning to go to Bulgaria next summer for dig, and can't wait! If you have some time in the summer, and save a few thousand dollars (I know, in this economy...), you can volunteer on digs even without any experience in almost every country in the world. I was most interested in volunteering in Cambodia, at a smaller temple outside of Angkor Watt, but it was a.) just too expensive and b.) I am not familiar with Southeast Asian dialects. So I settled for Europe, which is no great loss :) (The few thousand, btw, includes airfare thank god).
There's also a dig in Ukraine I wanted to do, and of course there is Italy, and Spain, and Greece, and Portugal, and France... ah, too much to experience! If only we had a money tree, Tales! But hey, maybe with your soon-to-be detecting finds you'll be able to do it! I also think there are trips organized by White's (the company that makes most detectors) every year to the UK and other parts of Europe. Only trouble is, if you do find a hoard you can't keep it!! :)
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WAY cool Lux! ;D I volunteered with P.I.T. (Passport In Time) a program with the U.S. Forest Service. It was quite a while ago, in 1999. Here's a link to some photos and a little bit of write up on it: http://www.archaeologica.org/RoundyCrossing.htm (http://www.archaeologica.org/RoundyCrossing.htm) I don't have a photo of the prize piece that came up that week, but it was a perfectly intact black on white pottery ladle, in pristine, museum quality condition.
What I liked about PIT was that I could volunteer and my son could be involved too, he was 12 at the time and really into it. They were very good about involving a few older kids and encouraging them. At one point he moved slightly out of the area everyone else was working in, and discovered a whole wall, which was kind of a little shaded cabana type work area! It was a really neat experience for both of us!
I would love to see some photos of your dig when you get back!
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That is so cool! I am going to look into it! Nice photos too-- that ladle must have been amazing to see. I'm so excited for the dig in Bulgaria, I have looked into them, but I haven't ever really done a big, formal one. A little bit here, a little bit there, nothing quite like this time- or PIT for that matter. I actually think I heard of PIT once in some research, I'm going to definitely check it out. I'm not doing a whole lot this summer, so maybe there's an opportunity there!
One of my favorite things to do as a kid in California was walk through the vineyards and look for artifacts from Native Americans. A friend of my grandfather's owned a ranch and I'd go with him and ride the tractor in the field all day and we would find obsidian spear heads like you wouldn't believe. There were also other stone tools, but the blades were by far the coolest. Nothing like pulling out a nice piece of pristine carved obsidian! Last summer I searched for a few hours too, but only came up with a bi-point that was about half an inch. Lots of broken pieces from the tilling. I'd really love to excavate that ranch though... there was an Indian burial on it too I think.
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Sounds awesome! I've only found one very crude arrow point at home, that would be way cool to find them like you did! Here is the Web site for PIT:
http://www.passportintime.com/ (http://www.passportintime.com/)
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Luxetveritas asked: "I wonder why they were scattered all around the neighborhood."
He told me they were all in a twelve foot circle, probably hidden in the wall and were knocked out on the ground.
Stay with searching with your detector, sooner or later you will luck into something. When my kids were in grade school they were studying the Indian Wars and we decided to go on vacation and visit a few of the battle sites. One was famous, not the REEEEAL famous one but famous. The country was desolate and only a monument just off the highway telling the story. At that time all I had was an old cut-down WW2 mine detector I had bought for $50. We looked all day and I hadn't found anything, the kids found some arrow points and scrapers. As we loaded to leave I guess I looked glum. My wife said, "why don't you try down there by that grove of trees?" I said because there's nothing there. She said, "Well why don't you try anyway." I said OK I'll just show you that you don't know anything about metal detecting."
We hadn't been there three minutes, got a clear loud signal, and there was a 1858 Belt Model Remington Navy cap and ball revolver. Never discount what your wife tells you. How did she know that? Your guess is as good as mine.
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That's a cool story, Jondar! I have to say, the wife always knows best!
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My inlaws were REALLY into metal detecting and they would find all kinds of items (several diamond rings, old pendants, money, bullets, etc.) But, they did say if there was an old area of trees versus a field....that the tree area would generally prove more gain. Why? Because people like shade and a place to rest out of the sun whether it was in the older days or newer ones! When relaxed and doing whatever under the shade, people are more apt to lose things than all packed up out in the open!
Just food for thought!
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...and pockets can become horizontal to the ground and much more likely to spill there contents! A paper I read on our little ghost town indicated that just before the town was razed for the reservoir, that there was a bar with slot machines in back. I have often wondered if my 50 cent piece was one that slipped through the cracks in a floorboard or something.
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Another unexpected find came when I sent my son under our house, which was built in 1935. He found an old book titled "Things a Boy Should Know About Electricity" from 1900. The current Abe Books prices on these range from $65 for fair condition to $125, mine would be only fair condition.
He also found a funny, partial set of flat wrenches. By flat I mean ones that look like they were cut from a sheet of metal, that have hanging hooks on the ends of them.