Post Your Stories & Pix Of Found Money

@jeffbuckes-

that's awesome. sort of like what I'm doing. sometimes I keep track, sonetimes not (to my detriment, I am coming to understand now...).

nice grab of change, too. a score like that makes my week!

I was a a state fair a few years ago and playing games. I needed more quarters and put a five in a change machine and the machine drained itself. The attendant didn't care enough to check it out despite calling out to him. My pockets were full my wife's purse was heavy and I filled up some discarded beer cups. I never actually counted the quarters but I had a lot more empty beer cups

beachnut, I'm sure more stuff'll come in time. I look forward to it. every story is great. my story is extended, am working up an extension. would be easy to use as a journal page. hm. you just gave me an idea. apart from that your floating money story reminds me of my own story opposite of that... with a gf at the time, she & I had just exited the boat we went out on for a key west sunset sail, dinner & drinks, sunset, blah blah... anyway, as we were paying for the thing my gf had several twenties blown out of her hand by a gusty sea breeze, twenties littered the water in the marina, and some young fella with a net was quick with it- johnny-on-the-spot- and fetched them all for us. hm. you just gave me another idea.

bobverse, that is awesome. lol, find any silver?...nice score

jeffbuckes, thx for the link, ima go read that right now. timely. I think about finding a huge stash of cash anywhere from time to time. maybe it'll materialize one day, manifest itself in the dark behind Kmart one night & I come along... yah, I can dream... I found eighty-one cents tonight despite the rain... wet pavements are generally no good for spotting coins...

I'm going to get into some commentary & minutiae here about my money-finding. this could be a little long and maybe a little boring.

as stated when I started this thread, I go out each night to feed a few stray cats I've befriended over the last couple years or so. in between feedings I walk or bike through numerous parking lots finding loose change.

the parking lots I cruise through are any where people will have their money out. most of the coins I find are either dropped (lost) or just discarded, and it is mostly coins that I find, very little paper. it gets saved in a standard 24oz mason jar:



i keep track of what I find by jotting it down. most of the coins I pick up have at least some degree of road rash on them, so it's a wonder that I find anything remotely collectible, but surprisingly I find good stuff fairly frequently.



each new jar gets a notesheet. that pic is from this past summer. each entry gets logged in right after I return home each night. I count it, inspect it & deposit it into the jar. when the jars fill, they get emptied into a larger jug:



the first 5 jars of change totaled about $325, collected over a span of about 8 months. the jars take anywhere from 30-50 days to fill, but lately have been topping at around 35 days, at various amounts.

i used to take pix of everything I found each night:







i took the pix just to help me see & study the endeavor. now I just get pix of significant finds, like paper money on the ground or wherever I find it:








believe it or not, I found a dollar bill stuck to the top of the same trash can twice within a week outside a nearby Wells Fargo bank. hasn't happened again.

when I first started doing this I wasn't finding particularly much each night, but now I guess my average find is about $1.50-$1.70 each night. it adds up.

last night I found $1.46. the night before last I found $3.49, including 9 quarters. finding more quarters each night makes a big difference in the nightly totals. I find more Lincoln cents than anything. for every silver coin I find (nickel, dime, quarter) I find three Lincoln cents.

(added early sunday morning)

found a dollar bill tonight. lol, I know of a building that consistently leaks dollar bills:



and found an additional ninety-eight cents: 18 cents, a nickel, 5 dimes and a quarter. a buck-ninety-eight is a good grab on the night. made the jar happy. jar 8 is about a dozen days in and has about $21 in it so far, including two one dollar bills. I like to find at least the money I spent on a coffee when I set out each night ($1.79).

the amounts I find aren't spectacular, but I find it every night in virtually the same places. I have a long strip of parking lots, drive-ups & walk-ups that I inspect each night. I have no fewer than 26 areas I can potentially search every night, but most times I don't/can't hit them all in one night. I try to keep my search time at about 2-1/2 hours.

more to come.

jbuck, I have refined it to it's simplest. when I write the amount I find each night I write it as a series of numbers. the date: 2/2/19, the amount found, $1.98, and tonight it was 18-1-5-1-1... that is 18 pennies, a nickel, 5 dimes, a quarter and a dollar... and I list the running total: $20.77.

so:

2/2/19—- $1.98—- 18-1-5-1-1—- $20.77

that's it. over and over again til the jar fills up. I'm on jar 8, going for 10. it took 5 jars of change to acquire the gold coin, so if I want another gold coin I guess I'm looking at a target of no less than $300. I want pre-33 gold, not american eagles. quarter eagles are perfect to aim for. jar 8 ought to be about full by the end of this month. I estimate i'll be looking to purchase another gold coin by early june, I may go for an indian head quarter eagle. lot of time to ponder.

I haven't really found much and nothing really memorable springs to mind but there is a coin star machine at the local grocery store that used to be right at the exit. I checked that thing every time I was in there, found a few odds and ends, foreign stuff and bent junk for the most part but my kids picked up on how I would check it out (they knew enough not to ask unless they wanted yet another eye glazing story on coins). I never really found much of anything any good but once, when my daughter was about 6 or 7 I think, she was leading the way and stuck her finger in there and pulled out a merc. It was just a common date well worn dime but you could just hear karma laughing it's butt off at me.

Very nice!