While plotting my current series novel I toyed with the idea of having the heroine find money hidden in the walls of the family estate. I did a search on google and was surprised to learn that many times people make these kinds of discoveries. Not only money but other things. One of the most unique was bottles of booze. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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| Do you have the funds to buy an old house of your own, check out the Facebook Page "For the Love of Old Houses" for gems like this one that are on the market for you to drool over. https://www.facebook.com/ForTheLoveOfOldHouses/photos/pcb.3048019615464071/3048013195464713/ |
People have hidden away their treasures for years, but especially during the Great Depression, when the practice took on greater proportions because people no longer trusted banks. Nowadays, as Depression-era homes are coming on the market, people are snapping them up to restore them into modern-day homes. And the new owners are finding money and valuables stashed away behind plaster walls, under floorboards, and even behind fake heating vents.
Outside the home, a variety of hiding places, including a hole in the ground, exist. One website I found told of how a dog dug up hidden cans of coins worth ... wait for it ... over several million dollars! If there are old trees on the property, digging around the base of the tree might reveal old coins dropped there even centuries ago. I can't promise a million dollars worth, but you never know!
It's not just money that is sometimes hidden away. One Canadian homeowner found old movie posters in pristine condition under the floorboards. One of the posters netted almost $78,000 at auction.
It's strongly suggested that if you can get your hands on a metal detector, you can run it around the bases of trees and other places people may have congregated in the yard of an old home and find quite a number of coins dropped decades ago and worth a lot today.
Have you ever found "hidden treasure" behind a wall or other places in an old house?
Below is a video showing all the possible hiding places in an old Victorian home. After watching this, I wish I had the money to buy an old home and see what might be lurking behind its walls or under its floorboards
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She makes her home in northern Illinois with her two rescue cats (named Jack and Meggie after her characters from her book Surprised by Love in Lake Geneva). She loves reading and crocheting and is very involved in her church as a Bible study leader.
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Thanks for posting! It's a fun idea to think of treasure in the walls or floors. In the two old houses that we owned and renovated all we found were scraps of newspapers, evidence of a fire, and a carpenter's penciled note on a board..."worst bathroom I've ever had to put into a place"!!! That one gave us a chuckle!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fun post, Pam. I love old houses, but not for the treasure reason. To me, the treasure is the lives that were lived in the house. Indeed, if the walls could talk!
ReplyDeletewhat a fun post. ohh but this house is lovely. couldn't live there now with my knees, but in the day for sure. Years ago my mom and dad bought an old farm house. My sister and her family and my family were all over there helping to fix the place up so it was livable. The men/boys were all outside. Us ladies/girls were inside. We moved into a unique room. Kinda like a half oval where the round part was all windows. Really cool. Across from the windows was a closet. Above the closet was a medium sized hole in the wall. So my sister being the curious one who always has to check different and funny things out, got on a ladder and peered into the hole. She let out a screech saying "there's a dead body in there" Ok, I suppose I am the practical one and my thought immediately was "if there was a dead body, wouldn't we smell something?" LOL But no, she was not convinced. Now mind you mom is standing there watching the whole thing. My sister proceeds to make the hole bigger (much bigger) so she could get the dead body out of the wall, because, well, mom and dad didnt want a dead body hanging around now would they? LOL So in no time she had the hole large enough to pull something out. I looked at mom and she is sitting in a chair just watching with a smile on her face. That was my clue that this was "A-OK" and nothing unusual was happening. LOL When my sister pulled "it" out (she put huge gloves on) it was just horse hair, with a bit of cob webs etc. Wow what a deflated look my sister gave. LOL But way back when, they would use horse and cow hair as insulation on farms. Yea we still talk about her finding a dead body. LOL quilting dash lady at comcast dot net
ReplyDeleteThat would have startled me as well!
DeleteOh, Lori, what a great story. I love it. I agree with Ane. The stories that could be told in those old homes if the walls could really talk.
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