I stumbled upon this article this morning: Woman Gardening Finds Rare Penny and wondered whether any of you guys have ever found anything valuable lurking below the surface of your garden? I think we covered this on the forums before but as we have many new faces I thought it would be good to revisit.
I haven't found treasure myself, but my Grandfather did. During the Depression, he was tilling a newly cleared part of the farm, a bit nearer to the tree line than he had ever done before. The tractor's till blade broke in half. He thought it was a big rock, which happens often when tilling new ground. When he went grumbling over to the back of the tractor, there was a now broken wooden chest. In it were a bunch of silver spoons, along with some paper (English) money and some coins. Apparently someone had used this as a safe place for their valuables sometime back, using a tree as a marker. Poppop never found out who's it was, so after a few years, when times were tough...(11 kids to feed), they sold the coins and all but a few spoons.
Chitweed, what an awesome story! Just think, it would have been a cool find at any time, but to find it during the Depression.... very wow! Found a "bottle dump" in the backyard of the house I grew up in. Mom tossed it all, but for a 9-year-old kid, it was buried treasure, lol!
I dug up all kinds of old bottles and dishes at the old house. I saved the bottles...some of them were really cool! At the new house, I constantly dig up rusty farm fasteners of all kinds, old square nails, broken glass and dishes. Maybe I just haven't hit the good pile yet...this house has been here since at least 1935! A friend of mine recently dug up a 1898 dime in her veggie garden. I thought that was cool, but nothing as exciting as your grandfather's find Chitweed!
That was a pretty amazing find Chitweed and it was also in a treasure chest, how cool! All I have ever found lurking below the soil was the occasional clay pipe like these: http://www.carf.info/education/projects/robert/
Guess that's the downside to living where noone since the dawn of time ever lived before, nuthin here but rocks! Guess I'll have to stick with garage sales... hey, it's friday, gotta run!
The first small gardening attempt I made in the backyard was when Amanda was about 2. I started trying to dig up a flower bed along the back wall but it was summer, no rain for several weeks and the black clay we have for soil was so hard I got discouraged. But I did find this man's ring while I was out there. It is a small black sapphire stone, in the sun you can see the 6-ray star in it. The ring is 14k gold. We haven't had it appraised but since the stone is so small we don't imagine it is worth all that much, but Randy enjoys wearing it now and again.
Thats beautifultoni.My Uncle was discing and hit a black stone corn grinding pot.We live near OSR (Old Spanish Road).We think its Spanish or Indian .They used it to grind up corn to make their bread.
I dream I always dream I find stuff .Never happened. Glenda ......I am going to send you a penna rock. barb You can treasure that one.....Pretend it is a gem..;o0
for about 4 years, every season in a place I had converted to garden, I found one or two very old marbles. They sat on my mantle for 3 years, a visitor offered me 25.00 cash for them..I refused... didn't want to lose my marbles
ha ha ha Bet that turned you on...... Actully I found a old cross and a religious medal.. Too rusty to disguise. b
We bought an old house that was over 100 years old. We found all sorts of bottles and stuff when we were digging a garden. One bottle was labeled Professor Parker's Pleasant Worm Syrup. Ugh! We still had it. There were a lot of old patent medicine bottles. We kept a few and sold the rest. We've found old coins and arrowheads. Nothing really valuable but some pretty glass things. dooley
