Featured Things left behind in books....

Years ago I used to sometimes visit a website that included pictures of things found in books. Now there are quite a few of them. This site from the Oakland (California) Public Library was recently publicized in quite a few places. Fun to look through!
https://oaklandlibrary.org/found-in-a-library-book/

I have saved things found in books, but through several moves I seem to have misplaced most of them. I also used to save small items that I found on the ground, if interesting, and pinned them to a bulletin board in my office.

Never found money in a book, but once when I was about 12 or 13 found a pack of cigarettes on the ground in front of a factory as I walked past there. There were still some cigarettes in it, and also some money folded inside the cellophane cover of the package. Not much money but that got me started on rescuing things found on the ground.

 

Love this!!

 

My top find on the ground was an earring that had been rolled over by one car too many. It was an 18k earring. Not too shabby.

 

I found a hoop earring......solid 14k ..

& a baggie of pot, outside a medical clinic..

 

oh.....and a 14k stickpin....on my street.....when I was a tween...

 

Not the worst. Hope you disposed to the green burnables.

 

they went to a good cause !!!

 

Haha. Exactly. I find money that I stashed all the time. Recent move I found like $800. I have found it in books, cds, movies, and jacket/shirt pockets all that I stashed at some point. Pretty sure if I went to my HS room at my folks house and checked some of my old architectural hiding spots I’d find some wacky tabacky or something.

As far as finding stuff in other peoples books I don’t think I have got anything other than notes and bookmarks. I have a big genealogy set that’s filled with notes. Well there was the time a month or so ago I found J.P Morgan’s bookplate. That was pretty awesome but not an unexpected thing to find in a book were it not a famous/infamous owner. Oh one time I did find a confederate civil war banknote in a book. I was at the sale and hadn’t paid yet. I got so excited and hurriedly slammed the book shut. I couldn’t wait to check it out later. I kept searching through the house though. As I dug through a file cabinet I found a whole shrink wrapped pack of souvenir repro confederate notes. The shrink wrap was broken and I sadly realized my book page treasure wasn’t such a treasure, it was just a bookmark. That’s what I get for keeping it to/for myself I guess.

I did find $40 in gas gift cards in a thrift store jacket pocket once. Found a 35mm camera in a dormitory hallway after kids moved out. I used the camera for years. After several years I noticed a little pocket on the case I hadn’t noticed before. Inside was $20-$40 or so. The gift that kept on giving.

I am excited about the day I do find cash or other treasure in a book. I won’t lose hope!

 

The stamp is a cool idea. There’s a website where people do tasks for people for $5 or something. It’s kind of a for fun thing I think. Somehow must know the name. There are a lot of graphic designers and illustrators on the site I think. I’m sure you could get someone to make an original bookplate for you there. I think you can even have a bunch of people submit designs. I’ve fantasized about having one once or twice too.

 

I love to find random things. Years ago I decided to cheat and bought a metal detector. I had quite some spectacular finds! Some examples:

 

One time I bought the book collection of a retired Math professor. Is was donated to a thrift shop, I must have bought at least 30 book. Carefully grading, as I try to do, I took off the dust jacket to grade the book and jacket thoroughly. I found two $20 bills taped on the inside of the dust jacket.

I think a similar event was in Canterbury's Tales, about sweeping under the rug.

 

I found this book mark in an old book from an estate sale.
It's in amazing condition.

 

Oooo, I love that.

 

Thanks INH!
That's a great resource about Vantines!
Here is a similar bookmark from that website.

 

Ah, what HAVEN'T I found in books.... I always flip through as I'm going through a buy to check for underlining or highlighting, and all the inserted stuff shows up, too. Family photos, letters, and cash I hand over to the offerer, most other stuff I keep or bin. Unless I'm at a library sale, then I keep it all, including a sheaf of $100 bills in a pocket paperback. Lots of leaves, including marijuana, once a tiny packet of white powder; condoms (still packaged, thanks be), lots of bookstore bookmarks, which I kept until an employee took them home to make herself a decorative collage, other bookmarks including those leather ones I dislike, once a fancy sterling silver one. A nazi armband with some facsimile Hitler portraits - yecch. Cartoons, newspaper clippings, once easily over 100 notes on paper scraps throughout the book, sort of a dialogue by the reader with the author. One guy used dozens of sticky notes and those little metal 'page pointers' in each book instead of writing in them, which I appreciated, but it was still some work removing them. Strips of cloth, ribbons, campaign paper, a scarce Columbian Expo Blarney Stone card I got over $100 for on eBay, startling myself. I've heard stories of strips of bacon and banana peels, but never personally encountered those, at least.

 

Great memory you have! It was fun to read.

After this conversation started, I remembered that once when I was working in a university library I found a pile of textbooks that somebody had stacked on a half-empty shelf. They had taped a note on the front of one book saying that the library should keep them and do what they want. Our library didn't keep textbooks, and I thought it was pretty unusual that they hadn't approached library staff.

 

Once I checked out a historical book from a university library and inside found a brochure from 1926 about a tour of historical homes in Salem, Massachusetts (After several years I ended up donating the brochure to the Peabody Essex Museum archives in that town.)

 

A new find in a book: some kind of shopping list, written in Dutch. The books belonged to a priest named Petrus Josephus Wappers. He was priest in the Saint Stephens church in Heel in the Netherlands.

the list contains coffee, thee, snuff, sugar and a hat(?). The prices are in stuivers and guilders.




The book itself with the ownermark (1808)

 

I've never found any treasures in old books as of yet. I do always look, though!