Coins In The Doors Of Old Homes?

I've been carpentering for almost 40 years and have never found an old coin in a house. And with what a carpenter makes I surely cannot afford to leave any behind!

Rick

Great stories. I was stripping the paint off the inside front door of a 1913 house and removed the doorknob plate. There was a 1938 penny inside. When I remounted the plate I added a 1998 (the year I was working on it). This was in Ft Collins, CO.

I think some of this stuff goes back a lot farther than you might think. Stashes of coins are often found buried near doorways at archaeological digs.

Nice find!

I own a construction company, and what I do is custom oak, maple, cherry, stairways. Over the past 30yrs, every time, before I attach the last thread. I put in a presently dated coin, the daily newspaper and a an informal plaque with my name and the date on it.

There will be a day when I am considered one of the most prolific stair craftsman in the northeast ...... lol

While remodeling an old NW PA house, I found:
A glass plate/picture of two people (assuming the original owners) in late 1800s garb;
a Damascus Barrel shotgun (low end of collectability - but great find nonetheless);
a rock with "Lake Erie Beach 1918" written on it (28 miles form the Lake at that time was quite a trip);
an old, flat, leather football;
a red glass vase with gold trim and hand painted flowers on it (but broken off at top :( ;
a 1960 paper with *surprisingly) an advert which pictured one of my Uncles (!);
a navy signaling flag;
an old "Battery Case" flashlight with batteries inside that were not rotted;
a pile of newspapers folded such that the front page were innermost and therefore were able to be read/dated;
some magazines dated 1914 that had the name of the person to whom they were mailed on them.

No coins :(

We left a Gideon Bible and some modern coins/currency (wrapped as airtight as we could) in the rebuilt wall.


A couple years later we were surprised to receive a letter in the mail from an 85 year old woman who had grown up in this house. We were able to return her old magazines to her although she had no recollection of the family ever putting anything in the walls and had no idea who was in the picture we found.