Lost and Found

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
In the matter of losing valuables, how many of you have labeled or added a tag to your valuables? I have not for too many. It occurred to me when I found that phone on Friday, that the person whose phone it was, was able to remove the protective case and show it was theirs. I had never thought about inserting a card in there with contact information, but that is going to happen. As I continue on my deep house clean, I am organizing and labeling things. One of the things that I have started labeling are the antiques that are in my home that are family heirlooms with a card that is laminated and has a hole punched out and tied to the item: Gg grandmother's wash stand, wash stand from my grandparents ranch, grandparent's oil lamp, great grandmother's spinning wheel, made by her brother in Wisconsin, grandfather's meat grinder (he was a butcher), on and on. Because I grew up around grandparents, I know much more history than my cousins and other family members. This information would be lost without these labels.
 
When my SILs Grandmother passed away it took my SIL months to go through all of her stuff.
As the only surviving blood relative everything was left to her. She found things she had no idea about.
Looking in the old roll top desk she found a stock certificate for 1800 shares of stock in an oil company, one of many certificates in that company. I don't remember which company but it was worth a lot.
Her Grandmother lived through the depression so she had no love for banking and kept all her funds in stocks and bonds. She had safety deposit boxes all over town and most were full of $10,00 mature certificates.
SIL hired an appraiser to go through the house and he found some very valuable things. She told him before he started that nothing was for sell and if he tried to buy anything he was fired. Months later he did try to buy a small painting that was in the attic and she said no. Turned out to be worth a few thousand dollars.
There were book shelves full of really old books, most first edition. I have no idea what the final tally was but it was more than anyone will ever get from me.
Mable was quite the woman. She had lived through most all major events in the US and remembered them clearly. She had no use for fools and would let you know if you were one.
I liked her.
 
Bacpacker said:
Mo that lady had it going on. I love hearing stories like that. When my grandma passed, she had told my mom to go thru her chest freezer very well. Mother found several plastic containers marked Mixed Greens that had several thousand dollars in them. They were mixed in stacks of actual mixed greens she had frozen. Had to check each tub in the freezer. There was other stuff to, but that was the best story.
Click to expand...
Thank you she was a pistol.
 
My biological father wore many hats. One of these was coroner. Once in awhile someone would die without a will or any relatives. It was then his job to get rid of what was mostly junk or at least had little value. In one case he found a number of old stock certificates from some old companies. Since they were quite artistic his first plan was to frame them and hang them on the wall of my bedroom. With some research he found out that they were quite valuable so I missed out and the certificates were shipped off to the State and wound up in the General Fund. There are two lessons here. First, all sorts of stuff is valuable. Second, have a will or the State gets everything if no blood relatives are found.
 
Important papers are kept in the floor safe in the shop. Dad put the safe in when he built the shop. Only immediate family even know it's there and only 2 or 3 can open it.
When it comes to protecting your assets from the state the best advice is to hire a good lawyer. Mom did that and the state got nothing. She had one shyster lawyer try to cheat her out of everything by telling her just sign it over to him and he would protect it for her.
She sent him packing and hired a good lawyer. The first lawyer that tried to cheat her was caught cheating other seniors and disbarred.:D
 
I thought long and hard about posting this. All my life I’ve gone out of my way to return items I’ve found to the rightful owner, with one exception.

I was attending a military school. One of my classmates had a beautiful classic car but lacked the tools for regular maintenance. I had tools and gladly loaned them to said classmate one weekend. He and his buddy were rather large young men.

They accidentally put a greasy hand print on the car parked next to them while changing oil. When this was pointed out by the angry car owner, they immediately cleaned it off. This weasel/owner was afraid to take his full anger out on the large young men.

He was a fleet returnee rotated back for shore duty and was assigned to admin duty in my barracks. Since I loaned the tools and wasn’t as large as my two other classmates, he decided to take “his wrath” out on me.

This was early December, being a training command almost everyone was going on Christmas leave including me and the weasel. He was two ranks above me. He filed false charges for made up barrack offenses on me. He jeopardized my leave. It was made clear to me that if found guilty my leave would be canceled and I would be confined to barracks. With plenty of witnesses I was cleared, thankfully.

The weekend before my leave was to start, I went to a small party at a bar in town. The weasel was at the bar but not part of the Christmas party. I wasn’t there but an hour or so, just wanted to wish local friends a happy holiday. I had packing to do. The weasel left before me. When I left, I saw a homeless man out in the parking lot take money from a wallet, toss it on the ground and walk away.

I went and picked it up. You’ll never guess whose military ID and out of state drivers license was in the wallet… the weasel’s! I tossed the wallet in a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot and drove back to base.

The Marines provided base security, just inside the main gate was a security office. I noticed the weasel’s car parked in front of it as I drove through. I guess he was trying to get on base without his military ID.

I don’t know if he got to go on leave but if he did, he drove more than 1000 miles without a license.

Now, I felt bad about what I did the next day… and still do. What would you have done?
 
Peanut said:
I thought long and hard about posting this. All my life I’ve gone out of my way to return items I’ve found to the rightful owner, with one exception.

I was attending a military school. One of my classmates had a beautiful classic car but lacked the tools for regular maintenance. I had tools and gladly loaned them to said classmate one weekend. He and his buddy were rather large young men.

They accidentally put a greasy hand print on the car parked next to them while changing oil. When this was pointed out by the angry car owner, they immediately cleaned it off. This weasel/owner was afraid to take his full anger out on the large young men.

He was a fleet returnee rotated back for shore duty and was assigned to admin duty in my barracks. Since I loaned the tools and wasn’t as large as my two other classmates, he decided to take “his wrath” out on me.

This was early December, being a training command almost everyone was going on Christmas leave including me and the weasel. He was two ranks above me. He filed false charges for made up barrack offenses on me. He jeopardized my leave. It was made clear to me that if found guilty my leave would be canceled and I would be confined to barracks. With plenty of witnesses I was cleared, thankfully.

The weekend before my leave was to start, I went to a small party at a bar in town. The weasel was at the bar but not part of the Christmas party. I wasn’t there but an hour or so, just wanted to wish local friends a happy holiday. I had packing to do. The weasel left before me. When I left, I saw a homeless man out in the parking lot take money from a wallet, toss it on the ground and walk away.

I went and picked it up. You’ll never guess whose military ID and out of state drivers license was in the wallet… the weasel’s! I tossed the wallet in a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot and drove back to base.

The Marines provided base security, just inside the main gate was a security office. I noticed the weasel’s car parked in front of it as I drove through. I guess he was trying to get on base without his military ID.

I don’t know if he got to go on leave but if he did, he drove more than 1000 miles without a license.

Now, I felt bad about what I did the next day… and still do. What would you have done?
Click to expand...
You know, Peanut, I totally get this. There are people who are cruel, because they can be. They have power and they lord it over those they can. I believe military schools and academies have a problem with this. Maybe the military has these kinds of problems.

When I was teaching I learned about 4 levels of misbehavior. 1. Attention seeking, 2. power struggle, 3. revenge, 4. apathy. I learned when working with children, whom adults really have power over, it is how you deal with them wherever they are at, that determines the outcome you get from them. It is easy to get into a power struggle with children and adults. They lack a feeling of having any power, so giving them choices helped them. It is how you handle it that makes them stop, OR takes them to the level of revenge. Also, children who often lose in power struggles at home, will take out revenge at school.

So if the weasel had been a decent person, you would have returned his wallet to him. He got what he earned. I knew a teacher, called Hitler by some, who had her eyes poked out with a pin in a photo. She went ballistic. No one ever fessed up. She got what she earned. There was not a kind bone in her body.
 
Dad was a perfectionist. Drilled into me to ALWAYS put things away as soon as you where done using them. And when you put them away, they ALWAYS go in the same location!!!!!!

Adult, married, children and broke when my Stanley knife (box knife to you city folks) came up missing. Several years later I found it laying on the back side of the chimney on the roof. I remembered laying it there when I was replacing a few shingles. Yep it was rusted beyond salvation.

Remember finding some paper money laying on the floor on my side of the check out counter. I gave it to the cashier with the explanation the owner maybe back looking for it.
 
backlash said:
...When it comes to protecting your assets from the state the best advice is to hire a good lawyer. Mom did that and the state got nothing. ...
Click to expand...

We done it a bit different. Dad and mom's name was on everything they owned "either/or". Joint wills and I'm the Executor. When dad died we added mine and my sister's names to the all assets. When mom goes no estate to settle.
 
Peanut said:
I thought long and hard about posting this. All my life I’ve gone out of my way to return items I’ve found to the rightful owner, with one exception.

I was attending a military school. One of my classmates had a beautiful classic car but lacked the tools for regular maintenance. I had tools and gladly loaned them to said classmate one weekend. He and his buddy were rather large young men.

They accidentally put a greasy hand print on the car parked next to them while changing oil. When this was pointed out by the angry car owner, they immediately cleaned it off. This weasel/owner was afraid to take his full anger out on the large young men.

He was a fleet returnee rotated back for shore duty and was assigned to admin duty in my barracks. Since I loaned the tools and wasn’t as large as my two other classmates, he decided to take “his wrath” out on me.

This was early December, being a training command almost everyone was going on Christmas leave including me and the weasel. He was two ranks above me. He filed false charges for made up barrack offenses on me. He jeopardized my leave. It was made clear to me that if found guilty my leave would be canceled and I would be confined to barracks. With plenty of witnesses I was cleared, thankfully.

The weekend before my leave was to start, I went to a small party at a bar in town. The weasel was at the bar but not part of the Christmas party. I wasn’t there but an hour or so, just wanted to wish local friends a happy holiday. I had packing to do. The weasel left before me. When I left, I saw a homeless man out in the parking lot take money from a wallet, toss it on the ground and walk away.

I went and picked it up. You’ll never guess whose military ID and out of state drivers license was in the wallet… the weasel’s! I tossed the wallet in a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot and drove back to base.

The Marines provided base security, just inside the main gate was a security office. I noticed the weasel’s car parked in front of it as I drove through. I guess he was trying to get on base without his military ID.

I don’t know if he got to go on leave but if he did, he drove more than 1000 miles without a license.

Now, I felt bad about what I did the next day… and still do. What would you have done?
Click to expand...

I would have done the same thing except I would have let the weasel know what had happened when the opportunity was ripe. Maybe the day one of us left for good.
Karma has a way of getting even with weasels.
 
Peanut said:
...Now, I felt bad about what I did the next day… and still do. What would you have done?
Click to expand...

Oh that is a tough one...keep his ID and returned it to him...If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you. But I'd be tempted to let him sweat it for awhile.

On the other-hand if I returned it to him he might accuse me of stealing it in the first place...tossing it is a very good possibility. :thumbs:
 
The Lazy L said:
Oh that is a tough one...keep his ID and returned it to him...If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you. But I'd be tempted to let him sweat it for awhile.

On the other-hand if I returned it to him he might accuse me of stealing it in the first place...tossing it is a very good possibility. :thumbs:
Click to expand...
I thought about this some more. This is good, and many people, including me, struggle with this kind of thing, repaying evil with good. I am not a person who ever seek revenge. I tend to walk away and leave it at that, unless the other person keeps at me. I wouldn't have wanted his wallet on my person or in my car, but it would have been kind of interesting to get it back to him after he had replaced all of his identification cards, etc., maybe by dropping it in a mailbox, where the post office will mail it back to you. My daughter had that happen to her, got her wallet in the mail.
 
I bought a new wallet & put the old one up, just in case I needed it at a later date.
A few years later I cleaned out my desk & found the wallet, went though it & found 5-$20.00 bills.
 
Lost and found experience today. I went to the post office to mail a package. As I was standing in line I saw a card on the floor, right by the door. I picked it up and it was someone's credit card. What happens to me is that if I try to do one thing while waiting in a line, the line moves fast. I tried to call the number on the back and kept getting the automated run around about pushing this for this and pushing that for that. Next thing, I was at the counter and said to the clerk, "I found this card by the door and am trying to report that I have it to the credit card company." Clerk looked at the card and said, "That is someone who has a post office box here." I asked him if he would get the card to her and he said he would. He could be a thief and keep the card and misuse it, but somehow, I think it will get back to the owner. If it were my card, I would have gone to my next errand, realized my card was missing, driven to my Credit Union and had a new card in less than an hour.
 
Weedygarden said:
Lost and found experience today. I went to the post office to mail a package. As I was standing in line I saw a card on the floor, right by the door. I picked it up and it was someone's credit card. What happens to me is that if I try to do one thing while waiting in a line, the line moves fast. I tried to call the number on the back and kept getting the automated run around about pushing this for this and pushing that for that. Next thing, I was at the counter and said to the clerk, "I found this card by the door and am trying to report that I have it to the credit card company." Clerk looked at the card and said, "That is someone who has a post office box here." I asked him if he would get the card to her and he said he would. He could be a thief and keep the card and misuse it, but somehow, I think it will get back to the owner. If it were my card, I would have gone to my next errand, realized my card was missing, driven to my Credit Union and had a new card in less than an hour.
Click to expand...
Nice!


Ben
 
Pearl said:
Ya just gotta try to do the right thing! 😉😊
Click to expand...
The Golden Rule! "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

If I had lost my credit card, I would have wanted someone to get it back to me. Of course, I know that if and when you lose one, you call it in and the account is frozen and a new card is issued. Anyone who has ever lost a debit or credit card knows how it can impact your life for a day or two.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top