When I bought my house about 15 years ago, one of the first things I did was to pull up some of the worn pine floors and lay down hardwood. As I pulled up the pine, I noticed a lot of pennies scattered over the subfloor. The T&G pine had shrunk and there were gaps between boards, so I assumed the pennies had worked their way through the gaps. But as I have done more work through the years, I have found pennies under other floors, and sometimes in walls.
My current project is tearing out a couple of windows and putting in new units. As I pulled off the first window frame, out dropped a penny. I never checked before, but this one was a 1978….the year this house was constructed. So my question, odd as it may be, is whats with the pennies? They are showing up in too many places to have found their way there accidently.
Is this a method to date the house or a good luck charm? Standard tradition or wacky first owners? Has anybody heard of this before?
Replies
I suspect mementos. Someone wanted to leave a mini time capsule to let someone else down the road know when it first went in. I do that sometimes by signing things.
On the humorous side, I think I have to attribute it to Jeff Buck, but I don't recall for sure who posted something they found - I copied it, anyway. I wrote on the inside of a window seat "what did you go and tear this out for - you know how long it took to fit?" then signed and dated it.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
I take pleasure in finding any momento or writing from long ago. With luck, some of the stuff I've left for later discovery will bring the same joy. A couple minutes of effort can lead to hours of history.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
i've found some interesting stuff in some remodels on 1800's homes.
baseballs, books, even a 1854 kids homework in a window frame once.
Also I worked with a guy that would always sign and date the inside of his work. So sometimes I do it too.
When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
I always sign and date the inside of cornice returns. Sometimes I'll leave a coin or something too.
I always sign my name and date on past work I've done - JoeFRenaissance Restorations LLCVictorian Home Restoration Serviceshttp://www.renaissancerestorations.com
i always leave momentos when i work. write i n magic marker my name age the date i wrote it. sometimes put wife and kids names and ages besidemine or some significant political event. i usually do this on the sheathing or the side of a stud right before i cover it.
sometimes i put a tin/time capsule in the wall to. im 38 been doing this for about 17 years. ive already had another carp hand me a piece of tyvek i had written on about 12 years ago, when he was doing a remodel.tyke
Just another day in paradise
Yes, a couple years ago I got into a remodel of a bar we had done maybe 30 yrs ago. Uncovered the Impeach Nixon Now More Than Ever bumper sticker I had stuck on the back of the trim.
Ah, the memories.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Don't rat to the treasury department, but occasionally I'll find a coin laying on the deck on the jobsite. I usually put them on a bottom plate and shoot a nail through them. I'm sure some carpenter in the future will try to figure out why I needed to shoot a washered nail into that particular spot.
They do make good washers.
blue
I try to remember to sign and date stuff that I do. I figure it might be interesting to someone a couple decades down the road.
Ive also found an old budweiser can in the wall behind a shower unit in the house I used to live in. I saved that sucker, its on the wall in my shop. If I remember correctly, the house was built sometime in the late 70s.
we build a bank last year, and the bank dump $50 in coins, in the first foundation for luck. you should of saw the labor faces when they did that.
There was a time when one of the laborers would have been sacrificed and his blood mixed in the mortar for good luck!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I found a 1982 German Mark under that back seat of an 1982 300D Turbodiesel!
I have a friend who inherited a big box of old skull x-rays. He nailed them under the shingles on his next roofing job. I just wonder what explaination will come up when that roof is replaced.
I had a customer who reroofed an old office in the historical district of town just south of here, it was something like 50s squares, and the whole thing was covered in old NM license plates. I think they said something like 10, 000, well apparently the original DMV building down their burnt to the ground in the 20s and it had a bunch of license plates in it that couldnt be used, so this guy bought them and shingled his house. The roofers saved a bunch of them, their still in pretty good condition.
I live in a small town, and run the local weekly paper, as our family has done for over 50 years. one day an acquatance from town stops by the office with an old copy of our publication from 1954. "I found this under the linoleum when we remodeled the bathroom" he tells me. Pretty cool I tell him, papers were used all the time to prevent squeaks, thanks for bringing it over. "that's not all I have to show you", he opens the paper and points to a spot on page 3 where, to my complete amazement was a birth announcement... my own! Which my Dad had published. Not even he had saved a copy.
That is a great story! I have found local and NY Times issues in my attic. Apparently the electrician udpating the wiring at that time was well read. One of the papers includes ads from all of the businesses being closed for Registration Day so all of the eligible young men could go register for the War.
I have also found insurance papers and someone was stashing their liquor in a rafter above the storage area....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
While working on my basement, I found an envelope containing a wallet and $650. Postmark on the envelope was '55. The interesting thing is that there was a tube of caulk, dated 1998, on top of the wallet.
Somebody, while working on the house before I bought it from the contractors who bought it from an estate, laid the caulk on top of the wallet! Never saw the wallet or came back for the caulk.
In my 2 flat, I found a brand new 'Nixon Agnew' pencil. The only words it can right are "I am not a crook". (lol)
Get that framed!!!
I have a friend who inherited a big box of old skull x-rays. He nailed them under the shingles on his next roofing job. I just wonder what explaination will come up when that roof is replaced.
Assuming they notice them and don't just shingle shovel the whole mess down the chute into the dumpster.jt8
"Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. " --Theodore N. Vail
The gelatin emulsion on the old x-rays is unlikely to survive. Moisture would wash it away, bacteria would eat it up. If they're pre-1952, the plastic base could be cellulose nitrate, which decomposes. Cellulose acetate shrinks severely and gives off a strong ammonia smell. There's a bunch of it in the vault downstairs from my office, I can smell it when the temperature and humidity are right.
-- J.S.
was tearing up some vinyl with underlayment a while back, you know, the kind the floor guys try to see if they can put a whole damb box of staples in each and every sheet of underlayment..., once we got it up and saw sub-floor, it said, "Bet ya had fun taking this up"
My UL goes down with yellow glue and srews.
Ain't much sense leaving notes under there!It's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
I was doing demo on a 1920's bathroom some time back, behind the tile wall (behind the sink) I found an unopened pack of Chesterfield cigarettes. I figured they probably slipped out of the tile setters shirt pocket and fell to far down inside the wall to retrieve. Have found, and left, lots of stuff, including written notes over the years. One of the more interesting finds was a long winded note penciled on the underside of a kitchen drawer, apparently written to document a bet (dated 12/29/1929). The loser of the bet was to buy everyone else a shad and oyster dinner, it was signed by about 12 different people. The owner saved the drawer and was going to try and track down previous owners of the house but don't know if they ever did.
Yeah, but didja smoke those Chesterfields? Heck, at today's prices, that's almost like finding a $10 bill....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
I used to own a 1929 duplex in the city, did lots of work on that house while living there for 11+ years.
Most interesting find was a Lucky Strike cigarette pack which was green instead of red like today. Still have it along with some other relics from various projects.
Found out later from an ad in a WWII vintage issue of Field and Stream that Lucky "donated" their green dye to the war effort and switched to red. Tag line of the ad says, "Lucky Strike green has gone to war."
The ads in the magazine are a hoot! Imagine trying to keep your customer base interested while you have nothing to sell because it is all going to the war effort. Biggest article concerned whether the gov. was going to release any ammunition for the hunting season - they did, it paid to let the homefront citizenry convert some of the critters to protein.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
How cool! I leave signatures (mine & whoever is helping me) on everything I work on -rehabbing very old house- & in a couple of walls I've left, in polyethelyne bags, commemorative sections of the local paper.
Enjoy your pennies!
Could've been a little kid. As a kid I was notorious for tucking objects into places they didn't belong. Including nickels in my nostril one time. Seriously though, kids love pennies and love poking things into little nooks and crannies. Just a guess.
I've found a bunch of that stuff in my 90 year old house as well - playing cards, valentines, Cracker Jack toys, coins, etc. tucked into nooks and crannies. I even found a couple 1964 Playboy magazines hidden away behind the furnace...they must have been left behind by some teenage boy. I have a 1925 penny here on my desk that worked its way out from underneath the baseboard a while back.
I've found traces of the original carpenters as well - a Copenhagen can inside a wall, various notes written on the back side of trim boards, even an antique beer bottle buried up against the foundation.
I have found several things including silver dollars.
The thing that has meant the most is finding my dads handwriting . I know it anywhere on any thing . He always wrote on lumber including words and lumber. We had a lumber yard in the early years and he built door units. On the side of every unit he made he "penciled " writing such as RH32" Johnson =[for job]
Ive found some estimates of his on yellow legal paper written in pencil.
Tim
That's pretty neat Tim. To me that is what legacy is all about. Not war stories or a big inheritance, but something that reminds us of who a loved one really was/is and how they spent their time. Even more so if their time was spent doing something as noble as crafting.
My mother's family settled a homestead in the 1860's. Like most places the house burned down at least twice. There are 2 barns of very good size , both with still existing markes of the master framer on the maple and oak timbers. The current house (an ugly house - too bad) has bbeen renovated by my parents and the remaining original part of the house is 3 inches on 8 feet out of plumb. Didn't seem like my grandfather's work - he was a gbreat carpenter and carver - and I couldn't see him doing bad work. I asked him about it and he told me that the house had been framed and ready for sheeting and they had a big storm. No one checked for plumb the next day and the house has been out of plumb for the next 80 years.He was a carver and there are a few substantial installations that he did in churches and some government buikdings. The all have ERM carved into the work somewhere - usually in the context of the subject material. The best things that I have from his era are a complete blacksmith shop with handmade tools, a set of taps and dies from Germany approximately 1840, a set of ledgers that detail what he paid for materials throughout his career, his chest of 100 or so hand built planes and scrapers.In the house, underlayers of boards we found newpapers from the end of WWI, many old copies of Farmers Almanac, and old magazines from the 70' under flooring. It's interesting to me how simply people lived and seemed to be happy. I'm sure that tools that my grandfather left at this death, he had used his whole career. I guess things were made differntly then too.
Edited 10/27/2005 11:33 am ET by MarkMacLeod
I try to leave the front section of the newspaper undert the kitchen cabinets, or someplace that might be found in 15-20 years.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
How about those pennies as shim stock? Cheap and often right on site! A plumber buddy uses them when setting toilets on uneven tile floors.
Someone may have been using it as a shim.
I do recall growing up as a kid and watching this old house where so places it is a tradition to place a coin in places of the house while its being built.
Doing some research.....
Perhaps it may stem from the ancient roman shipbuilders(carpenters) tradition of placing coins beneath the masts of ships before they are permanently placed.
If the ship were lost at sea it was believed that those coins would cover the toll across the river styx for those who perished.
Re: ..."tradition of placing coins beneath the masts of ships before they are permanently placed."Not sure how it started out. Could have mythology behind it. Some scientists noted that copper exposed to salt water forms sulfates and salts that slow or deter shipworms and wood rot. An important consideration when the mast step, the block/s of wood the mast sits on, typically are inaccessible and any rot or deterioration may go undetected for a long time. The failure of this area could be catastrophic.Throwing in a few copper coins may be cheap insurance against rot that was explained, long before rot was blamed on microbes, with mythical stories.Scientific observation, copper slows rot, becoming mythology and superstition which is only later recognized as practical microbiology.
Interestingly, the tradition remains to toss in a sliver dollar when stepping the mast. Don't know that silver will have the same effect as copper.--------------
No electrons were harmed in the making of this post.
Re..." the tradition remains to toss in a sliver dollar when stepping the mast."Copper has definite antifungal properties and remains a major ingredient in pressure treated wood. Some antifouling paints for boat bottoms use copper as an ingredient.Silver has long been known to kill bacteria. Silvadine, or similar by other names, silver sulfadiazine, ointment is often used on serious burns and its base ingredient is silver.Settlers commonly dropped a silver dollar into the water barrel on the side of their Conestoga wagons on the way out west. Another case of something that was done but no apparent biological reason was given in the tradition. Once read where an old timer claimed it 'made the water taste better'.Interesting enough if you wanted to control marine growth, not sure about rot, tin is the material of choice for stopping the critters. In fact it works too well. Tin based antifouling paint are outlawed in some area because even the small amount that leaches out of the paint over time, essentially how it works, is enough to poison clam and oyster beds for a distance around. Even higher concentrations near areas where the stuff is applied or stripped. The Navy, which really liked the long lasting effectiveness of the tin bases paint got into trouble with this and they had to clean up their act. I'm not sure but they may have had to stop using it. Modern pennies are now copper plated zinc based pot metal. Which might not entirely eliminate their effectiveness for biological control as zinc is inherently antifungal. Zinc strips are sold for installing on roofs to eliminate the formation of moss and algae. This works if done early. Look at a roof with moss and if you look close you may notice that if any of the devices protruding from the roof, like box vents or exhaust stacks, are galvanized the area below them will be largely free of moss.I suppose you could fight moss on a roof by installing strips of silver. Its the expensive way to go but who knows it might become a popular form of conspicuous consumption. Strips of silver on the roof may become a selling point. Right up there with granite counter tops, over large stoves and a couple of acres of deck which will never be used.
Someone may have been a sailor -- it's tradition to place a coin under the mast when you "step" it, for good luck. But then I'd expect the coins more under studs, beams, etc.
Speaking of stuff under flooring, though, reminds me of the farmhouse my parents bought back about 1965. In the old kitchen there were, IIRC, seven layers of linoleum. The wife kept cats (like ten at a time inside, and more than that outside), and whenever the kitchen floor got too messy they'd just put down another layer.
Needless to say, there was this kind of black/brown dust separating the layers. Three layers down they found a dead mouse. Below the bottom layer they found a newspaper: "Lindbergh hailed in New York" was the headline on the front page.
No electrons were harmed in the making of this post.
seven layers of linleum, Ha, A building down the street from us had 20, and Im not making this up, 20 built up roofs, and I dont mean 20 layers of felt, the roofer said it was like 6" thick. I dont know how the roof joists held it up.
or how the nails held it down
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
The paper I got out of a bath remodel states FLYING FOOL DO IN PARIS.
I always put a newspaper in the wall before drywall. Current house that i'm working on didnt have so much as one penny. there was more than 30yds of trash (in a 650 sqft house) but the family must've known where all the money was.
My mother in law gave us a penny and some salt wrapped in tinfoil to put in the kitchen.
First one (becides Andy) who can tell me what the symbolism is gets a milk bone!
Eric
It's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
The Penny to insure prosperity, salt to add spice to their lives, and bread is that they never know hunger.Or some variation of those things.
What did I win???
Robteed, you won one friggin milkbone. El cheapo only offered one!
I haven't seen such a cheap contest since I've been visiting this site! I knew the answer too, but I wouldn't offer it for anything less than three milkbones!
blue
Easy there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Frugality is back in vogue!
ONE Milk Bone , that was an easy one!
EricIt's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Close enough, and the only taker.
Penny so you never are poor, salt so you never go hungry.
At least that's what I was told.
You win the coveted Milk Bone!It's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
The "bread and salt" thing is an old Russian saying.
-- J.S.
"bread and salt" thing is an old Russian
The world has many traditions with salt. The Romans used it as currency. In Japan, you make a sacrifice of salt and sake for a new house (and bunch of other things).
I'm remembering (and not well enough) that flour & salt is a traditional gift for a new house--I just cannot remember if that's Iberian, Italian, or what.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Brother in law was redoing a floor for a woman with a bunch of cats. The floor was tore up when she came in and said"thats old yellow fir" Brother in law thinks"this woman knows her wood". The she picks up a cat carcass and goes and buries "Ole yellow fur".
I've found a few coins, beer cans, kids toys and such over the years. Also found several shoes. Apparently it was considered lucky to put shoes in the walls too. Did an old one a few years ago (1850 remodeled 1920) and I brought back old bottles etc. I was going to make a shadow box, but it never happened. The one I'm working on now, I found the signature of a carpenter on the back of one of the boards, but it's too hard to read.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
My guess is shims.
On the comments about what's been left in a house. I used to write Bible verses on headers so the drywall guys would have to read them when hanging rock. I've written blessings on the homes and the owners on framing when I had the urge. I've written and scribed dates into concrete or mortar where it would only be seen by repair or demolition folks.
I've found Old Penthouse and Playboy magazines that turned to dust when you picked them up stashed in attics. Moldy cigarettes and matches turned to dust. Old liquor bottles, faded out polaroids of naked women, and one time a decent bottle of moonshine. Found some bubble gum cards that were stuck together so bad we couldn't get them apart. Probably worth thousands.
Never found anything I'd take home and shine up. Oh well. The noose hanging from the rafter above the attic stair was interesting and makes for great stories. I left that one be.
Found lots of fun and interesting stuff through the years, but this one was the best: During the tear out of a kitchen renovation for a friend I noticed a gob of goo on the backside of an upper cabinet - it was something like beeswax, but not quite sure as it ended up being soapy water soluble. Anyway, just as I was gonna toss the carcass into the dumpster, something 'in' the goo caught my eye. It was a .5 carat mine cut diamond in a 18 ct yellow gold ring - nice filagree on the setting and top of the ring, too. I showed it to my friend who said 'you found it, it's yours'. Had it cleaned and appraised for $1200 (flaws in the diamond) - gave it to my then girlfriend (now wife) who now never complains when I 'have to help a friend' with some house project or other...I wonder what in the heck the owner was thinking....Looks good from my house....
I leave pennies all the time, the date of that year. Many times I glue them onto a surface with super glue, or leave them in wet cement. I leave signatures all the time with the date and who the owners of the house were at that time. Have found many many "time pieces" .
Once, we took down a cieling in a Brooklyn brownstone, and there was a whole S&M set up with leather wrist restrainers on chains bolted to the cieling joists, some sort of saddle and swinging device, and in between the joists they had glued mirrors throughout the room. They never left the names or a date though...
When renovating the bathrooms of two '30s houses here in western Wisconsin, I've found the builders' signatures on the subwall behind the medicine cabinets. Better to me than any signed baseball. Some of them had names still present in this area's construction business.
I rehabbed a kids bedroom once in a remodel and smeared some drywall mud on an inconspicuous spot. The youngster was able to leave his own hand prints and name and date to be painted over and secured forever. I don't think it turned out the greatest, but he loved it!
Just this last spring I remodeled a bath in a '50's two story. When I removed the meds cabinet, I found a name and date scratched into some plaster. I tried to save the chunk, but it wouldn't come in one piece.
I have several custom built ins out there now that have my card taped to the backs or bottoms of. I will admit, though, that there are some projects I've been involved with that I glad my name is not associated with at all.
I get paid to do carpentry. That makes me a professional.
If I work on my own house does that make me a DIY?
i did a small job for a former restoration contractor. He had a business in New Hampshire or Vermont, I can't recall which state. But one of their projects was an old church restoration after a fire.
While salvaging some of the pews, one of his carpenters found a couple of coins in one of the arm rests. They were set into drilled holes, and were dated from the late 1700's.
He said they made a display plaque with the old coins, and presented it to the church. He also gave the carpenter a few brand new pennies to hide somewhere in the new pews he was building.
The plumber I use is getting close to 60 yrs old. He sometimes points out that he has been plumbing longer than I have been alive. So one day I am pulling apart a bathroom, and find his name and date signed in the wall. Pretty close, I would have been two years old then.
Gotta laugh from the comment about Buck writing messages. Did it this summer with a complex multi angle piece of trim. " What are you gonna do now that you broke this piece?"
Bowz
or a good luck charm? Standard tradition
It's something I grew up with, that a couple of pennies in the foundation were good luck for all within. Up there with the cedar to mark the end of framing, in terms of old tradition with many explanations, and little documentation.
Don't think I've ever hears of pennies under the finished floor, though. I wonder if that was an impromtu shim (but that seems like a hard way to shim a floor while installing it).
I once had the surprise of uncovering a note I'd written myself 10 years previously which I'd completely forgotten about. I've also left a few 'good luck' pennies on fire-stops over the years.
I remember my father signing, dating, and leaving a whole dollar bill inside the last piece of crown he installed in our new house in 1965. It was a silver certificate, too; so it's worth a bit more than a buck now, I guess. He was going to leave a $10 bill, feeling flush with his carpentry success: quite a job for him as a DIYer, cutting all that crown with a hand-made mitre box and being the perfectionist that he was. But my mom said, "No! if anyone ever finds that, they'll tear up the whole house looking for more!"
That house got sold in 1974; I wonder if the new owners ever remodeled and changed out the crown in that hallway for something else....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
It was a silver certificate, too; so it's worth a bit more than a buck now, I guess
Hmm, my memory was that there was a cut-off date for turning the SC bucks in, after that date, they became "ordinary" dollars. Now, they probably have some numismatic value, but, my understanding is that is a fickle market at best. Kind of like construction estimating <g>.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
there was a cut-off date for turning the SC bucks in, after that date, they became "ordinary" dollars. Now, they probably have some numismatic value,
Numismatically I think last time I checked they were worth about 4x or 5x original value if in good shape. I've got one or two $1s stashed around here somewhere; used to have a $5 but spent it during a fit of poverty that was gettin' outta hand.
My grandmother stashed a sock with a real silver dollar for every birthday each of us grand kids had, right up to the time she could no longer get silver silver dollars at the bank by asking for one; when my old man cleaned out her house he found the three socks hidden at the bottom of an old steamer trunk in her bedroom, along with a note saying they were for us when she died. Dad sold the silver as metal to help pay for the nursing home for her. None of us objected to not getting the money for ourselves--she was the best grandmother any kid could ever have wanted.
I got the steamer trunk, tho. It's 30 feet from me as I sit here writing, still covered with stickers from her ocean crossing when she emigrated to the US....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
a real silver dollar
That spurs a memory. My grandfather had a pretty good buisness running movie theaters in the Panhandle. He kept sliver dollars and half dollars in his old iron safe in the office. One of the other theaters in town he ran Mexican cinema, its box office would turn in all sorts of currency. So, also in the safe were the gold & silver peso coins (I remember seeing some Centennial Revolucion's in there), as they could not go to the bank.
Sadly, about the time he decided to finally retire, and just after the sale for the theaters went through (but before closing), hoodlums broke into the theater. They could not get the old safe open, so they pilied all the paper mess they had made looking for a cash box in front of the safe and fired it up. The safe survived, but not much within; much melted specie, blended into an inelegant, and under-recyclable amalgam.
Such is life. Bunch of $2 bills in the safe, all marked for first day of issue, that had gone out as gifts & mementos, burnt right up. At least the theater sale went through, even with the "elbow" of the fire insurance settlement.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Damn. Makes ya wanna spit nails, it does. Did they ever catch the creeps?
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Not for that offence. Hoodlums that dumb are not that hard to incarcerate. I want to remember they were nabbed in Lubbock for trying to force a u/c to buy their pound of caffiene & borax they'd stepped on with powdered milk for cash money.
MY gf used to grouse (semi-playfully) that he wondered how the book-keeper kept track of how the cashier made change from a '32 500 centavo (gold) peice for a $2.00 movie ticket . . .
Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Edited 10/25/2005 4:16 pm by CapnMac
I'd bet were a cheap anti-squeek device? No rust and worked.. Who knows..
I found some old metal billboards for cigars and cigarettes in an old 1910 or so barn, also a bunch of newspaper which was used to insulate the floor.
I do sign the back of the cabinet or a section of a remodel, also leave the date and the weather info like "it's 102 degrees today hope you appreciate the sweat that went into your house". Left a $5 bill and a little treasure map to another spot in the house with the saying " stashed the rest of the loot here". Wonder if they ever found that and tore up the rest of the house?
I recently remodeled a home for a friend...the house belonged to another friend of mine prior to the sale. The new owner wanted new Kitchen cabinets and I found a note I had written when I installed the previous cabinets in 1990. I could not remember writing the note.
Fascinating replies. all. I think I'm going with the pennies for prosperity theme. There have been far too many in all sorts of places to be shims. It's also how many folks leave their mark of some sort.....it certainly shows the pride you all take in a job well done. I think I need to get some freshly minted coins..............
I like the notes from carpenters the best, especially one with weather or politics of the day.
Every note I've found, I've left there. And tried to add something myself.
Since I like to find bits of newspaper when used as spacers or backers or whatever, Sometimes I'll throw in a whole section of the newspaper or a Time magazine. I like reading the old ads and the different styles of writing.
David, don't leave a Time magzine around. That's the pits. Leave a Forbes or something that makes sense.
blue
Demo to a closed bank some years back in tidewater, mid rise . . . as the wrecking ball struck the side of the building silver certificates began to flutter to the ground, work stopped and unknown quantities were scoffed up. . .
Pennies from Heaven.... One buddy of ours sister brought a older home. They had to knock down a wall as it was in a bad sharp, and found alot of cash tucked in there, $28,000. Tried to find the rightful owner but he was long gone. No wonder why that wall wasn't done right..... Again Pennies from Heaven....
Like DanH said - a penny under the mast is an old "good luck" custom.
Watermen in southern DE and Eastern Shore of MD have extended the tradition to include pennies in engine rooms of boats, and hidden on a new car / truck.
I bought a used Tahoe that came complete with a penny wedged in the running board - never moved it - didn't want to tempt fate. (Guess there is still a little waterman left......)
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Tommy, didn't read all the posts but was laughing a little at your orig post. I worked in one house somewhat similar. Kept finding pennies. I sorta humored myself by saying instead of nickel and diming the HO to death (as most homes do today), that houses back them were "penny-ing" their owners to death. I also humored myself by saying "putting money into a house, getting it back out."
2 pennies left in the floor symbolizes a new beginning. A lot of pennies means the floor isn't level and they ran out of shims and had a bunch of pennies in their cup holder🤣🤣