My parents found a newspaper with the date of their wedding in the wall of an old cabin in the rocky mountains.

Milkman list, ads and postcards that had slipped behind a cabinet in the 1920s, numerous runs of Victorian wallpaper behind partitions, an anti prohibition cartoon on newspapers used to cover some boards in the basement from 1919. Original 1880s doorknobs, and most recently, after three years of hiding in plain sight, I discovered the original 1885 door to my library repurposed in a closet in the back staircase. Just to think it only took me three years to notice the odd size of it when I was restoring the entrance hall from behind partitions.

Amazing finds, everyone!

Our most notable finds:

A tonic bottle

A corncob pipe

Some coins from the 20s (no value)

The usual bonanza of razor blades

And the most amazing find of all so far: a violin that was hanging between studs in an attic crawl space. I guess someone really didn't want to practice!

Fun thread! A mummified chicken in the rafters. A "Get to know a Cancer" novelty token in the front flower bed. A dozen or so Mrs. Butterworth's glass syrup bottles in the basement. A dozen or so bat carcasses in the attic.

Oh, my neighbor would go nuts for those Mrs. Butterworth's bottles.

I found my share of dead animals in my house. Dead cat on the balcony in a box that I almost pulled out thinking it was a toy--miscellaneous dead squirrels and birds so long dead that they were completely flat. Ewwww.

Everytime I dig up a new garden bed I look for bones, but no such luck.
I live in a 100 year old cheese factory. the previous owners told me that it is originally insulated with broken china, garbage and everything you can image. I did tear one ceiling down and found all sorts of tins with the labels still on it, old cigarette packages, and one ladies lace up boot with the stocking in it.
When we gutted the upstairs, underneath the wallpaper were newspapers from the 1920s.
We did meet someone who said his grandfather was the cheesemaker there and his mother gave us a picture from the 1940s when she was a little girl and they were all dressed up to go to a wedding and standing in front of the cheese factory.

I found a red rider bb gun (alas I think it's not working) in the rafters of our basement in our 1932 farmhouse. Probably from the 50's/60's and was put up there when Jr. misbehaved.

Found inside a basement wall an intimate love letter from a single female in the military to a married male officer written in the early 1950s. When I mean intimate, I mean very intimate. It also detailed everyday life in the military in the 1950s. The man apparently lived in our house at the time. No envelope or last names. Fascinating to read, but my wife made me destroy it.

Civil war guns wrapped in an old rug. We were young and poor, and my husband sold them for about $50 apiece.
Fast forward to many years later. Now divorced, I had roommates living with me to help me afford to stay in my house. I come home one night and my roomie is watching a new show called Antiques Roadshow. He calls me over to "check out this cool, new show." One of the first things they show is a civil war gun. Yup. Worth THOUSANDS.

I was hoping to find some great things but nothing significant so far. The previous owner had pictures of the house (1880's), the original owner (built the house in 1825) and original owner on his 100th b-day on the back porch so those pictures were part of our purchase and sale agreement.

When remodeling the bathroom I think we found the original wallpaper). There was 2 layers behind the old water pipes. The house got city water/sewer in 1877 and our plumber said our pipes were much older than that - probably 1850's - 1860s. He thought there was a cistern in the attic and the servants brought the water up for the gravity fed toilet. So the 2 layers of wall paper were before that time. I will probably frame it.

The previous owner lived here 50+ years and his son buried a time capsule under the outdoor oven. It's coming down this summer and the son will bring his grandkids to dig up the time capsule. We put in a time capsule under the stairs.

Anytime my contractor had to take out wood and there were square nails, he saved them for me. I'll eventually make some type of sculpture.

applesandshanana - we have two working old potbelly boilers in our 1929 2 family. It was originally coal, then oil but now gas. They still work and almost never any issues (OK - maybe once in 10 years I have to call the plumber LOL) but extremely inefficient. My tenants have to manually fill them. They don't make boilers like that anymore!

This is such a fun thread!
We have a 1912 craftsman home. We're the third family in the home, and one of our neighbors has filled us in on lots of history (she's 78 and has always known the families here).
-cistern in basement with a pump, the inspectors have all been really excited about this
-we purchased in Dec (in WI), and in the spring we found a headstone in the backyard. We're told by a neighbor that the headstone was moved from the actual burial site for some reason.
-a fragment of china with the mark that we read to find was a piece of Johnson Bros white granite, and the mark was used on pieces from 1883-1913
- three original base cabinets for the kitchen are in the garage. I was kind of excited about trying to use them again until realizing the mice liked the garage. Now even with the mice gone, I have a really hard time thinking about bringing them into the kitchen!
- this wasn't so much a find, but with the sale we received keys for all the interior doors and a folder of the history of the property. And again, not really a find, but it's fun to see the previous paint/wallpaper and door/window placement as we're remodeling. In most cases, our changes are closer to the original even before we knew what the original was. It doesn't seem so odd with layout, like we talked about opening a wall and after breaking through teh dropped ceiling, found there used to be a door there, so of course we had to open it again! The similarity in paint colors does surprise me, though.
-In the yard, we planted some plum trees in the back, and the neighbor told us there used to be plum trees there (in the same place! on an acre, so there's more than one place for the two trees), but the previous owner pulled them out because the deer would just attack them. Also the previous owner's mother lived here and kept the gardens, so we've found stone steps down to a creek(now more of a ditch).
- an old breadbox and 1936 GE icebox in the basement

My house was originally a church parsonage. We bought it 19 years ago from the church. It was built by the congregation with oversight by "supposedly" a professional contractor. I think the contractor was a crackpot or drunk! Every time I start a project I find the most bizarre way things were built. My dad IS a professional developer/ custom home builder. He just laughs at how people cobbled this house together!

In the attic I found pew bullitens from the 1950's (house was built in 1954 - same year the church was built). I found the original wide Venetial blinds for the living room and dining room windows in the attic, too but they were too gross to use after being up there for decades. I've found bee hives in the walls, a wasp nest in the ceiling. The front sidewalk has a tiny baby hand and foot print in it. The "baby" stopped to see me one day while I was working in the front yard. Her father was the original minister and her family moved into the house when she was a baby. I've met 3 other people in the last 19 yeras that I've owned the house whose fathers where the minister & they lived in the house growing up. They told me stories of church picnics in the back yard, complete with pony rides, Bible study classes in the basement, one of the minister's wives who insisted on wearing heels 24/7, climing ladders in heels and gardening in heels.

I had great hopes of finding many interesting things in my 1919 home, but have found very little. We believe they renovated in the 1970s when the remodeled the kitchen/1st floor bathroom and added a staircase and upstairs to what was previously merely an attic. They also used seemingly little thought before adding the addition since there are other layouts that would have utilized space better. Oh well.

I found some baseball cards from the early 1990s in the attic; the previous owners (who inherited the house from their parents) have a child currently in college. There were also newspaper articles from the same period.

The most interesting piece was a newspaper from the 1950s that I found propping up a shelf in a closet. It was mostly advertisements. It was cool to see the 50s cars and they advertising techniques used then. There was also an add for night school at the University of Cincinnati.

I have to get the rest of my fix by purchasing period appropriate pieces from estate sales.

Wow, great story, lazypup! Any newspaper stories?

My husband found a substantial diamond in our attic. Since it was not ours, we called the former owner who said it must have belonged to her deceased daughter. We gave it to her.

We have an addition on that back of our house, the size of a bedroom. We have to go out onto the back porch to get in there, as that is where the only door is. The walls and ceiling are not plaster or even drywall (we think it was added in the 30's). Its more like a really dense cardboardish kind of material. Anyway, we decided to pull the walls off and ceiling to drywall it. And in the ceiling was a complete 3/4 heavily carved bed. Had everything to it, massive tall headboard, footboard, and rails. Political fliers, a whole big stack of them for someone running for local school board, and someone running for office in Cleveland. It was odd, why would anyone seal up a bed and political items in a ceiling??

I was digging up an area next to the back porch to plant shrubs. I dug up a bone, a long bone. To long for a pig, dog, sheep, etc. Our neighbor was a nurse so I asked her. She said she thought it was a tibia or femur and couldn't say that for sure if it was human or animal. And to perhaps call the police if we found more bones. I set it in the garage, but that week, DH put it in the trash and it was taken on trash day. He said human or animal, it's gross and doesn't want it around. Me being the more curios one dug further down in that same spot and hit cement. It was down about a 18" and I couldn't break through it. Perhaps this spring I will dig more and have my oldest son help me break through and find out why the cement is there. There is an old cistern, about 10 feet away and an abandoned well by the garage. It may have something do do with either one of those.

Our home is a 1915 Craftsman bungalow. Over the years, we've made some interesting discoveries.
-During our first winter here, we noticed that the snow always melted in a perfect circle in the middle of the flagstone patio adjoining the house. The following summer we discovered a cistern under the patio, with a round metal lid. Mystery solved! We use the cistern water (with the aid of a pump in the basement) to water the lawn and replenish the fish pond.
-Inside one of the built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace is a small hidden door that opens when tapped, revealing a cavity that extends behind the masonry front of the fireplace.
-There is another hidden compartment in a basement room that we've been told was used as a hiding place for liquor during Prohibition.
-Several years ago, a gentleman came to our door and introduced himself as the youngest child of the original owners of the home. He grew up in the house and has shared many stories with us, and has given us several early photos of the house and yard.
-One of the photos shows his family posed in front of the fireplace, which has a large mirror over it. We had always known that something had been removed from the mantel, but thought it was probably some kind of molding. After seeing the photo, I realized that what we had thought was part of a mirrored door attached to a basement wall was actually the missing mirror. We had the red (!) paint stripped from the frame and restored the mirror to its rightful place on the mantel. We framed the photo and it now has a place of honor next to the fireplace.
-Since our first summer in the house, I have wanted a wooden arbor in the back yard. Photos of the long-ago yard show one exactly where I wanted to place one.
-We have long wondered about a large circular patch in the cement basement floor, and were amazed when we were told that it had once been a cement-lined hole that was filled with ice in the summer for cooling beer!

I love hearing about everyone's old house finds!

Our house was built up on tree stumps in the teens.....
I think at one time it was farm land.......I found glass,glass,more glass,coal,rusted nails,a glass bottle with a Collie on it,2 plow heads,a horse shoe,rusted door knob,baby diapers,a cap gun,an Empire State building souvenir,a few old wooden spindles,an old rusted tire tool,a yo yo,a wooden domino,and a few rotten playing cards....
At a house around the corner it was a tragedy....
The house was built in 1892 and the old man had owned it since the 1920s.....Over the years,he ruined it with cheap remodels....The house had only 4 rooms when it was built....
Even the bathroom wasnt original....The old man had added on flat roofed addons and yellow aluminum siding....
He died and his son in law redid it.....
I was hired to help friends of his redo it.......We tore off the sheetrock to find 18 holes in the wall where rodents had nested in there....It was originally plaster and lathe....
And he lowered the ceilings and sheetrocked it in the 40s......
When we ripped out the old cielings I was amazed.....the old wallpaper was still on the cielings and the trim wallpaper....
I could see a timeline....A beautiful Gothic Rose paper was first,then an Art Nouveau floral,a tacky Art Deco,and then a late 30s crappy one.....And a beautiful floral trim paper....
When the old screened in porch was taken out,an old condom tin was found with decaying condoms in it!
When the siding was taken off the side,there was a date in pencil of July 13 1892 under it.....
Sadly the house was covered in gray aluminum siding,a red metal roof,and ugly cedar posts...It looked like a barbeque shack.....

wow everyone has such interesting finds!

My husband and I just moved into a house built in 1937; it's a small 2 bedroom 1 bath bungalow style house. The lady that owned it bought it in 2006 but hasn't lived here much (she stays at her boyfriends house). We were excited to see what we could find since quite a bit of things were left lying around.
In the garage/shop I found the usual;
-old square nails
-really old flat head screw driver
-old newspapers hung on the wall. (I decided to leave them there)
- Behind a lot of junk we've found 2 doors into the garage that have been closed over. One is right next to the door that enters to the shop it's boarded over but still has a door knob in plain sight, I don't know how I missed it at first! It has glass on the inside but some has been broken out. The second door is through the garage between two windows but has been built over with wood but you can still see the outline where it was.
-We also found a hayloft door to throw out hay. We think that it was originally just the shop that they had some hay in and when they added the garage onto it the sealed it up. Even though the shop doesn't have any way of getting up to the hayloft door. All that is up there is some old rafters that don't look like you could walk on.
-and probably the greatest thing in the shop is the old wood burning heater. It looks like it was left in the shop for heating during the winter but the ventilation system has been torn out and you can still see up at the top of the ceiling whats left over from the chimney that they didn't rip out. It's a shame it's gone it would be nice to have it for this winter out there. The old ash scooper pan is still sitting on top of it too.

As for outside the house; I haven't done a lot of yard work yet since it's the end of summer and I've been busy inside; but with the basic cleaning and mowing and raking I've found...
-An old path around the back of the garage that was once cement but has been broken up but still has these old pieces of glass inside of the cement. I think the glass was used as decoration since it's all really pretty. The pieces I've been able to save I've put into a mason jar and put in the bathroom.
- The first creepy thing I've found was when we were trimming back around the trees wrapped up in the branches and brush was an old "police line do not cross" tape. It was only about a foot long and I can't tell how old it is since it's torn and muddy or if it even was used on our property

Inside the house I've found a plethora of things.
-In the attic we found the remains of a chimney and figured out where it was on the main level. It must have been covered when one of the previous owners remodeled the kitchen/ dinning room.
-the basement has a lot of pieces of history, there is a coal shoot door in a backroom that has been sealed shut and probably won't even be able to be opened again. We also found it on the outside of the house behind a bush.
-There were some old newspapers lining a shelf from the 80's not really anything interesting on them.
-We also found a toilet that is hooked up to work and everything but is so nasty and filled with something gross ( I don't even want to know what) that we haven't messed with it. The toilet was kind of hidden in plain sight also. It was enclosed in what kind of looks like something you would find around a public restroom; except it was made of wood. It was something that we saw but didn't think to look into, until one day I realized I was looking at a door.
-Next to the toilet hanging from the wooden toilet enclosure on the outside are two medicine cabinets. It looks like something a man used to shave while he was down there.
- In the basement "bedroom" it's not really a bedroom it's small and creepy but I think at one time it was used for a childrens room since the walls are painted pink and in a hole in the wall we found some small toys. Including an old whiffle ball. The room has an opening that goes to the crawl space behind the stairs. I haven't gone back there yet (It's still full of spider webs and dead spiders) but I'll have to see if I can find anything interesting.
- If you keep going through the opening in the wall you get to the other side of the stairs and it looks like this was once a room also but the wall has been torn down. This room has some hooks hanging on a wall and on a shelf above the hooks is a picture of the virgin mary. It sort of looks set up like a shrine. There is also a bamboo rolled up screen next to the picture of Mary. These were popular in Asian cultures and usually had a picture printed on them. I haven't looked at what is on it because there is also a veil of spider webs covering the picture and bamboo screen. (If you can't tell I'm petrified of spiders) so until my husband gets down there to clean it up, it will remain a mystery. (the only reason I know that it is a bamboo screen is because my great aunt is from Korea and has a bunch of these around her house)
- There is also a huge old oil container down there. My grandpa stopped by and said it looks like the house was first heated with coal, then oil, and now has electric heat. Since this container is so big I think they decided it would be too much work to try to move it out when they switched to a newer heating system. I've tapped on the metal oil container and it sounds like there might be some oil still in it.
-The creepiest thing I've discovered in my basement is the word Jesus written on paper and taped above all the windows in the basement. I can't figure out why anyone would do this. It is probably the same person who had the Virgin Mary picture. It looks like it is really old and the masking tape is yellow and brittle. I don't dare take it down tho. I'm not religious or anything but someone put it up for a reason and I don't want to know what that reason was.
Has anyone else seen this or heard about this in another house? Maybe it is a tradition from long ago I don't know about? I was trying to research it when I came across this thread. So if anyone knows anything please feel free to contact me so I can maybe sleep better at night?

-Also around the entire property I've found numbers that don't seem to mean anything written all around the house garage and shop. It's in our closet written on the shelf, on the walls in the attic, all over the shop, and in the basement. My theory is that it was man (or a very tall women since some of the places are a good 6 and half feet from the ground) was working around the house and wrote numbers that meant something to him, maybe for building purposes, wherever he could find a place to write them.

That about sums up what I've found thus far. We've only been here for a little over a month so hopefully my discoveries will continue. :)

Re the basement stall toilet, those are normal in houses built in the early 20th century, though '37 is a bit late for one. The idea was that workmen or servants shouldn't use the family toilet. Ours is perfectly usable (boy does it work great!) and gets occasional family use, though the bowl seems uncleanable!

This amongst MANY other things were buried in walls of my parents home. My dad started renovating and found this wooden toy gun, what seems to be a wooden Drill trifle, a negative or maybe the actual pic of the first owner of the house, a baby girls shoes, a real gun, BONES! That were determined to be of a dog, a real gun that the cops took... A lock, diary in polish language, a book where the lady kept track of her purchases, letters going back and fourth to her husband who was at a war, and yellow fever medicine. One never opened. Back in those days (which I believe early 1800s) they believed that if they buried something personal that these things would always make sure that the home would be protected. Also that these things would allow the persons spirit to always be there. kinda creepy I know ... I will be pictures of newspaper clippings I also found in another home we used to own under piles and piles of flooring.

Here is one part of a Sunday Newspaper dated November 26, 1950

Another article buried under piles of flooring for insulation in old home... This article was about a card game that became addictive called Canasta. Apparently no one knew it existed a few years before.

Part 2 of the Canasta article

The other part of the Canasta game article was about the duke and duchess of sutherland who were so into the game that burglars just walked out with the jewels. Oops. Lol.

..and last post for the day was another article from the Sunday News dated November 26, 1950

Used as insulation under layers and layers of floor were these pages of a Sunday Newspaper on November 26, 1950. News coverage- Nellie names her son Howie after a traveling salesman who she planned to sue for a paternity test in Providence, Long Island.

I had always heard rumors that my grandparent's house was haunted. It was a very small town (400 or so) and when I would go to visit none of the kids would play with me once they found out where I was staying. I don't know if it was a subconscious reaction or gut feeling but I always hated the basement hallway that led to the bathroom and two bedrooms. If I had to cross it I ran as fast as I could. Years later I found out, while visiting the town museum, that my grandparent's house was built on an ancient Native American burial ground. In exchange for not seizing their land my grandparents agreed to turn over any remains they found to the Native American Historical Society. The exhibit included several skulls and skeletons, some jewelry, crude weapons, and the full skeleton of a baby wrapped in leather. The exhibit also explained that when there were heavy rains bones would begin to work their way out of the slope that divided their property from the road. Upon asking my grandparents about all this I found out some very interesting things.

-The baby was found in the corner of the property in a very shallow grave while my grandmother was planting flowers.

- The eery feeling I got in the basement hallway was felt by nearly everyone that entered the house.

- My uncle was suspended as a child from school for bringing in human bones for show and tell.

- There is a spot in the yard where nothing will grow. Not even weeds. A Native American Elder claimes it is the grave of a diseased tribe member who was killed and burned for fear that he would infect the tribe.

I am not saying I believe the house is haunted. But it certainly was a strange place to visit.

Hello....Enjoyed reading all the weird things...Found this thread by researching...TRYING to find out if anyone can tell me what would be behind this in an old house I live in ...

Ok so under an addition that was built probably around (guessing here ) ..maybe 1910-1930...ON the dirt near an old half broken down dry cistern...Under the floor in the crawlspace I found 4 very large OLD Portraits that I believe
were of the Original Family of the house.

They were just laying there ON TOP of the dirt fanned out and they are in 99.9 % perfect condition surprisingly. There is a family portrait showing 4 people... the father, the mother, a little girl, and another male quite a bit older then the little girl. This male is the only one that there was NO Separate/Single Portrait of in the collection.hmmmmm.

Plus, only one has a name on the back of the it, obviously the Head of the family...The father... The family name is very historical going back to the earlier settlers of the village.

I have my ideas on why they were there but can't find any answers if I could be right ...So I am asking what , if anyone knows, WHY these would be just laying there under the house on the dirt. Was there some weird ritual or something back in the early 19th century of doing this?? HELPPPPP.....lol It is driving me crazy!!

As for other weird things I found so far have included about 100 plastic margarine tubs in a box WITH LIDS lol....12 coffee cans FILLED with approx. 10"-18" POSTAL strings, (one owner was the postmaster of the village PO) , in a box of junk...one very detailed boney carcass of an UNHATCHED bird just laying there, in a box, no egg shell LOL ..ewwwww, a few old NEW Tupperware items from the 50's...mannnnny old magazines, newspaper clippings and tv guides from back in the 60-80's , some paper mason and eastern star stuff, all in the attic...Thanks lol I had to haul it all out of there lol.

In the yard so far only real interesting thing was a very old antique lock ...rusted half away but cool anyhow...but I couldn't believe down under weeds and dirt I found a very old newspaper only partially rotted away dated 1952 ! wow can you imagine if that was about 6 inches in the ground still hangin in there able to be read after 60 years what PLASTIC water bottles will be like ??? or diapers yikes !!!!!

Thanks for any comments !!!

AngelWings2900, I would search on ancestry.com for that family. You can do the two week free membership there and then cancel on the 14th day. In your case I would go straight to the family trees and see if someone has the family intact. They may also have stories and documents about each person. You might find some real good gossip! There is also the option to send a message to the tree owner and they can contact you through ancestry if they want. Hint: if you find someone that you want to correspond with, give them an alternate address because once your free subscription expires you won't have access to ancestry email. I THINK you will be able to use one of their previous messages to email back but don't count on it.

I know if they were my relatives I would love to have the pictures or at least copies. And there might be a story. I've certainly pieced together plenty of stuff about my ancestors.

I found this 19th Century Coca Cola bottle under a house I was working on in Wilmington NC. It doesn't have a scratch on it. I figure it was left there while the house was being built. The lettering on the bottle says New Bern NC.

shuffles, you might check to see if coke reissued "old bottles" a few years back as my friend had 2 of them sitting on her kitchen counter about 15 yrs ago or maybe less. They were pretty much straight up & down, I asked & they were some special promotion or something & had been filled with coke & she was going to keep the bottles Not saying yours is 1 of those but check into it.. Anyone finding area where nothing will grow in back yard- might mean that someone used that spot to get rid of motor oil nothing will grow. I know, we did it just once in 1 spot & 40 yrs later nothing will grow , Could be some other chemical or acid ,lye etc. Lot of stuff we wouldn't dream of using today was used & dumped back then.

I was once looking around an old house and found a ton of photographs belonged to the previous owners- every single face was blurred, in all of the photographs. The faces were the only blurred parts. Spooky.

Does anyone on the forum know what this is? Found it in a older home we are remodeling. It is in the front next to the garage door. Is about 4 feet deep with a lid. Curiosity is killing me.

John,

A cistern?

Linda

I think the strangest thing we've found was this wine press. it wasn't exactly hard to find though, as it is cemented into the floor of the basement. We recently met an 83 year old woman whose grandparents owned our house from 1918-1943, she said she remembered her grandmother making wine and root beer in the cellar.

I think the most exciting things we've found are the original shutters from the house. It was built in 1885 in an Eastlake Victorian style and the shutters still have all of their Eastlake latches and hardware. They were found tucked away in a hard to reach corner of the attic.

We've found a few other things along the way too. You can check out our blog here: http://1885prospecthill.blogspot.com/

I've enjoyed looking at the finds posted here. We have a c.1729 farmhouse and have a re-used beam that we are trying to research. We also have some potential 'protection' markings that are interesting. See picture or check out the site: http://thomashyde.weebly.com/beam--markings.html

My husband and I just bought a home that we plan to move into after renovating the kitchen. While my husband was ripping the cabinets out the other day, he found this thing tucked way at the back:

I want to believe it is just some creepy toy (??) but the part of me that has seen too many horror movies wants to sell the house and stay nice and safe where we are currently! If anyone recognizes this figurine from a game or a book they've read, or anything really, please let me know!

We bought our house 35 years ago, with the contents in it. The previous owner was in her late 80's, had been in this 1915 house since 1918, bedridden, and going to a nursing home, so there was a lot of stuff.

No surprises but when we took up the original kitchen floor, the first year of purchase, they had patched a hole in the subfloor (what we call it now, then ?) with a flattened old motor oil can.

5-6 years ago we took up a baseboard in what used to be the dining room. The guy who did the carpentry originally, signed the back or the board. It's still there, we put the board

back.

We know who did the carpentry because we lived next to his grand-nephew.

Mvaghy13, you found a figurine from the Kasli iron factory in Russia. I googled "black iron devil figurine" and saw many like yours.

Worthpoint had this info:

"The following is a little information on the Kasli iron works.

The town is situated on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, among the lakes Bolshiye and Malye Kasli, Irtyash, Sungul, and Kirety. The Kasli plant became famous for its cast-iron castings in the middle of the 19th century. In 1900 an open-work pavilion was moulded from metal for the international exhibition. It is now exhibited in the Ekaterinburg picture gallery. The art of iron figures making have made Kasli factory well known all over the world. Many of world wide known historical artistic sculptures and figures at Moscow and Petersburg - and even iron made furniture at winter palace - was produced at Kasli factory."

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/bizarre-heavy-black-cast-iron-russian-281783684

Ebay had a listing which sold 35 new ones for around $40-$45. Maybe the factory still makes them.

Perhaps the former occupant received it as a gift, didn't care for it and stuck it out of sight?

Good catch on that iron devil thingy!

The funniest thing we ever found in our 1905 Queen Anne Victorian house was not an artifact. It was a leak. In the early 1930s an extension was built onto part of the back of the third story of our house. We know all about it, because the house has been in my DH's family since it was purchased new in 1905 by his great grandfather. Anyway, they expanded the main bathroom, added an artist studio, and of course extended the roof. Well, fast forward to about 15 years ago. A leak appeared in the ceiling of the third story (first story is a ground level basement). My husband (thank goodness!) is a contractor, so he investigated it, starting in the attic above that ceiling. He came down laughing so hard he could hardly stand up. It turns out that when they extended the roof line, THEY DID NOT CHANGE THE RAIN GUTTER! So, the original rain gutter (wooden) was still intact, running now through the attic! The outside parts of the gutter system on the parts of the house which were not changed just keeps going, as original, right through the attic, and out again! Of course, after 95 years the wood finally rotted and it started to leak into the attic....

Family came over from Germany in the 1870s. Very, very thrifty. My DH thinks someone looked at it and figured that the gutter was perfectly fine, so why not leave it? And it was, for another 80 years. We don't mind the attitude - it is why we still have our old house (they did not like to divest real estate, and kept it as a rental after my DH's grandparents died), and we were able to purchase it from his father and aunts.

Jackie

@John, maybe it's some kind of dog poo composter?

We recently purchased a ~1900 Four-Square that had been turned into a duplex sometime near mid century. While removing the wall that covered the stairs my husband found a 1913 .22 rifle just sitting in the wall. Seems odd since we know the wall was added nearly 50 years later but there it was sitting alongside the trim from the stair treads that someone sawed off (ridiculous) and a can of varnish.

burdean, I have never heard of apotropaic markings - very interesting. I am so curious that I am going to find a book about them. Thanks for sharing.

schoolhouse_gw, We only heard about them a few months ago, it's been fascinating learning more. Please let us know what you find. I link all the research in the 'Resources' tab of the site. I'll keep updating as I learn more. http://thomashyde.weebly.com/resources.html

There are some marks in the beams of our 1820s house as well. I just had chalked it up to bored children. LOL. But, protection symbols don't sound strange to me. It's been a practise for centuries. I have witches balls hanging in several windows, and used to tuck plaited blessed palm leaves over the door for protection against storms. It's where the old kitchen witch effigies came from as well. It's all part of the old lore, and we sometimes do it now and don't even suspect where or why just out of custom. I do know that in an ancient house my SILs folks lived in SW England had hatch marks over the entry door. It represented the deaths in that household when the plagues last came through.

We're starting demo on a house from 1855 and have found a few cool things so far. First, a lot of old newspaper from the 1940s when the first layer of linoleum went down on the parlor floor. It's coming up in full sheets without even ripping! A friend took a bunch which featured ads for some of her favorite classic movies.

We also discovered that our cellar stairs are partially constructed from old wooden "Primo Salted Cod" crates, but I have no idea how old they are

We also found a bunch of your typical old-house stuff, like garbage and clothing being used as insulation and a bunch of marbles in one of our ceilings, which I believe fell in there from the hole near parlor floor radiator on the floor above. Found a bunch of window weights that were never removed, plus a ton of old wallpaper, not sure of the era. We also found some cool old hand-forged nails on in the original subfloor.

One other cool thing is the built-in shelving unit on our garden floor. It's about chest-height and, while ugly, we didn't think anything of it until we removed the wood paneling covering the surrounding walls and realized that it was not originally shelving, but was a lot-line window that was boarded up from the outside when the building next door to us went in around 1900. We pulled some paneling back and revealed the foundation of the apartment building next door. Pretty cool... no idea how we're going to deal with it during our renovation, though.

I was lucky enough to inherit my grandparents house and as I have been reading through this thread. It got me think about all the things I found there, most of it wasn't new to us but some of it was.

-My grandfather was a commercial fisherman so I found licenses for him & every member of his crew. Various documents related to fishing in foreign waters. The bamboo poles they used, glass net balls, hooks, net needles for mending a net, catch records, etc.

-The affidavit my great grandfather signed when his daughter (my grandmother) married someone (my grandfather) who wasn't yet a citizen & thier marriage license from the early 20's.

-War ration books with the stamps in them, the really funny thing is that my grandfather's height kept changing over the years, from 6'0 to 6'3!

-War damage insurance policies issued by the federal government. Our house is near several bases so apperently the government insured their home, & probably the whole neighborhood, from damage either from an invading enemy or from defending from an enemy attack.

-Booklets for traveling through Europe after the war while the Marshall Plan was still in effect. My grandmother had a lot of family in Europe (we still do) so they were probably planning a trip back . Propaganda pamphlets from the American government about being quite in public places & just generally being careful because of "spies".

-Various newspaper articles & scrap books form the 1930's to 1940's. A letter from one of my grandfathers to his mother that was heavily censored by the War Dept. because he was serving in the Pacific. I remember one of my great uncles (his brother) telling me that for a few years the family didn't know where grandpa was while his ship was in the Pacific. I still have his pea coat & wear it when it's cold enough.

-One of my great uncles Korean War era army uniform & ID bracelet.

-Coins from all over the world.

-A Disney war bond issued to my mother (she was born in 1939).

- A letter dated 1953 from the County Assessor that explained they would begin issuing Assessor Parcel Number for every property. A letter from the post office dated about the same time introducing the zip code system! Phone bills form the '40's & 50's were the phone number had a location exchange like "bayview123"

-Antique silk velvet bedspreads that were hand painted with Rococo pastoral scenes. They were backed with canvas and weighted a ton. I couldn't image actually sleeping under them with out being crushed!

-Match books with a picture of my mom when she was in her early 20's. I asked her about them & she said she would write her phone number inside & give them to guys she liked! A HUGE box of her shoes from the 50's & 60's, along with the coordinating hats, gloves & purses.

-A black beaded "flapper" slip that must go over an other dress, because it is way to sheer & way to short to wear alone

-The remnants of the living room curtains, I hadn't seen them in over 30 years. My grandmother must have been saving them for rags (whose grandmother didn't do that!)

-Immigration paper work for one of my grandfathers and for my maternal great grandparents.

-Some really beautiful handkerchiefs, including a silk one embroidered with a R which would have belong to one of my great grandmothers.

-Letters from various family members in Europe and possibly a great aunt who lived in Massachusetts. I'll have to do some research on that branch of our tree.

-My mother's first communion vail. A beautiful sterling silver rosary, the beads are open filagree work. Judging by the marks, I think it is from South America.

-My grandmothers salt & pepper shaker collection. There was one set the was just the head & upper chest of a guy, but he's not wearing a shirt! An other really tiny set shaped like pineapple grenades or maybe just pineapples it's kind of hard to tell because they are so small.

And so, so much more

On a different note Burden, those marks might just be the "signature" of the carpenter. One of my grandfathers liked to do wood work and he would always sign the stuff he built, and his tools with a specific design.

Jlc, my hubby says the huge calipers were from leatherworking.

Our house was built in 1880, and there is a small mirror on the ceiling of our dirt-floored basement. Whatever could that have been for? Otherwise, just some shelves for canned goods and misc storage. We just moved in and haven't explore the nooks and crannies yet.

Well, I can guess.

Hello, my sister told me that in their 100 yr. old duplex cellar, there are two 5 inch chains imbedded in the cement wall and at the end of each chain there is a round ring that a hand could fit through. Does anyone possibly know what these were used for? This home is in Connellsville, PA. Thank you!