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Lost & Found

This library book was overdue for circa 70 years, and it's been over 50 years since the teacher who borrowed it retired and died.
Overdue book returned to Michigan library after about 70 years

A Michigan library received a long-overdue book in the mail along with a letter from the daughter-in-law of the woman who checked it out in the 1940s.

The Ann Arbor District Library said in a Facebook post that the copy of Social Studies in the Public Schools of Ann Arbor, Michigan Grades Three to Six was returned via mail after being about 70 years overdue. ...

The book was checked out by Mary Rowland Fischer, who worked as an art teacher ... in Ann Arbor until retiring in 1966.

Kari Magill, Fischer's daughter-in-law, mailed the book back to the library along with a letter explaining the overdue tome. ...

The library confirmed in its Facebook post that it would not attempt to collect any fines for the late return.
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...-Library-overdue-book-70-years/9851624649458/
 
A stolen Picasso painting has been found, along with a stolen Mondrian in Athens.

"A painting by Pablo Picasso that was stolen nine years ago during a heist at a Greek gallery has been recovered.

On Monday, police in Athens said Picasso's Woman's Head had been found along with a 1905 painting of a windmill by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.

Both were taken, along with a third artwork, during an elaborate 2012 heist at the Athens National Gallery.

The artworks were stripped from their frames in the early morning raid which only took minutes to carry out."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57644846
 
A collection of unknown Edward Lear poems has been found amongst a private collection in the British Museum.

"Previously unseen poems and letters written by Victorian nonsense poet Edward Lear have been found hidden in a private collection.

The discovery was made by University of Nottingham PhD student Amy Wilcockson in the British Library.

While sifting through manuscripts, Ms Wilcockson noticed some pages written by Lear to a young English woman he had befriended in Italy.

The university said the finds were significant."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-57699393
 
I found this little double sided pendant in the carpark at Currys earlier, it about 20mm by 15mm (cba to find a measure)

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I found this little double sided pendant in the carpark at Currys earlier, it about 20mm by 15mm (cba to find a measure)
someone will be missing that :(

Please don't just throw it away if you don't want it @Souleater I'd be very happy to take it off your hands.
 
someone will be missing that :(

Please don't just throw it away if you don't want it @Souleater I'd be very happy to take it off your hands.
I would never throw it away, you are more than welcome to it, it is metal with a hole through the centre, i will happily post it to you :)
 
Saint Christopher was booted off the list of Catholic Saints many years ago but in popular tradition, he remains the patron saint of travellers.

Devout Catholics do still keep these pendants in their cars. Attaching one to a bootlace may also be appropriate! :nods:
I was thinking more a jewellery lace :)
 
I believe this represents a new record for an overdue library book - quite possibly a bit more than 300 years.
Library book returned to British cathedral was 300 years overdue

Officials at a British cathedral said a book that arrived in the mail recently is believed to have been checked out from the facility's library more than 300 years ago.

The Rev. Canon Keith Farrow, who has served as vice dean and canon missioner at Sheffield Cathedral since 2014, said the book, a 1704 printing of The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man, arrived in the mail this week along with a note from a woman explaining its origins. ...

"It has come back to us because a lady in Wales, whose godmother passed away, found it amongst her belongings. In her will was the bequest that it should return to Sheffield Cathedral" ...

"Inside, it's actually dated 1709 and it's very beautifully written, it says 'this book belongs to ye lending library at Sheffield church,' which is Sheffield Cathedral," Farrow said. "So this has obviously been taken out of the lending library and not returned."

He said the cathedral's library had been a popular local feature until it was dismantled in the 1800s.

Farrow joked the overdue fee for the book could buy the cathedral "a new roof." ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...library-book-300-years-overdue/9381625857284/
 
A Florida diver searching for a lost wedding ring found a high school class ring instead. It had been lost 36 years ago, and it was returned to its original owner.
Class ring lost in Florida Keys waters found 36 years later

A diver off the coast of the Florida Keys discovered a class ring at the bottom of the water that turned out to have been lost by its owner 36 years earlier.

Shawn Rauch said he was using a metal detector to search for a lost wedding ring in 8 feet of water off Lido Key when he found a class of 1986 ring from Lassiter High School in Marietta, Ga. ...

Rauch said he only had the ring's owners initials to go on, and some research determined there were three members of the graduating class with the same initials.

The diver said he was able to narrow down the field and identify the likely owner.

"His name was Mark Murray ..."

Rauch said he was able to speak to some of Murray's classmates, and they helped the two men connect on the phone.

Murray said he had only had the ring for about two weeks when he lost it in 1985. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...s-Lido-Key-Florida-Shawn-Rauch/7631626121611/
 
I wonder if the antiques dealer who had to shell out for them will be compensated.

Four bronze tortoise sculptures stolen from a National Trust mansion almost 30 years ago have been returned after one was spotted for sale at auction.

Politician and adventurer William John Bankes had 16 tortoises made, using his pet as a model, in 1853 for the garden of his home - Kingston Lacy in Dorset.

The tortoises, used to support garden urns, were stolen in July 1992.

Sale details from the tortoise due to be auctioned, led to the other three being found with an antiques dealer. The dealer had bought all four from a scrap metal trader and was "completely unaware of their history", James Rothwell, national curator for decorative arts at the National Trust, said.

The tortoises were made by Italian sculptor Baron Carlo Marochetti, who also cast the lions that guard Nelson's column in London's Trafalgar Square.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-57846933
 
A sports car found buried under a pile of rubbish sells for £16,500 at auction.

"A classic sports car found under piles of rubbish has sold for £16,500 at auction.

The 1960 MG A Roadster was discovered at a property near Shaftesbury, Dorset, after the owner died and a valuation of their assets was requested for probate.

Auctioneers Charterhouse, based in Sherborne, said the car had taken "a long time to dig out", and that such discoveries were "rare".

The buyer will have to pay auction fees on top of the hammer price."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-57849769
 
A sports car found buried under a pile of rubbish sells for £16,500 at auction.

"A classic sports car found under piles of rubbish has sold for £16,500 at auction.

The 1960 MG A Roadster was discovered at a property near Shaftesbury, Dorset, after the owner died and a valuation of their assets was requested for probate.

Auctioneers Charterhouse, based in Sherborne, said the car had taken "a long time to dig out", and that such discoveries were "rare".

The buyer will have to pay auction fees on top of the hammer price."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-57849769
Typical auction house sales pitch nonsense. The car is not rare, neither is the discovery of cars stashed away by elderly or subsequently deceased owners. "Sexed" up to generate interest, which is becoming more and more common nowadays.
 
A diver discovered, recovered, and will return a cellphone and wallet lost by an ice fisherman two years ago.
Scuba instructor finds phone, wallet lost in reservoir two years earlier

A scuba diving instructor visiting a Utah reservoir with his students ended up finding a cellphone and wallet that had been lost by a man while ice fishing more than two years earlier.

Matthew Wesselink, a Colorado-based scuba instructor, said he and his students were on their yearly trip to Utah when they paid a visit to the Deer Creek Reservoir. ...

"I drop down and 20 feet down there was a phone right in front of me," Wesselink told KSTU-TV.

The phone had an attached wallet that contained credit cards, cash and a driver's license belonging to Evan Byington. ...

Wesselink took the water-damaged cash to a bank to exchange for fresh bills and contacted Byington on Facebook.

Byington revealed his phone had fallen into his ice fishing hole while he was at the reservoir more than two years earlier. He said he had forgotten his phone was on his lap when he stood up ...

The two men said they are now planning to meet at the reservoir in August to reunite the phone and wallet with their rightful owner.
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...hone-Deer-Creek-Reservoir-Utah/7781626721331/
 

Pre-Raphaelite study discovered behind door in English mansion​

A remarkable study for Flaming June, one of the best known of all Pre-Raphaelite paintings, has been discovered hanging discreetly behind a bedroom door in an English country mansion.

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The discovery of the head study for Sir Frederic Leighton’s picture was announced on Friday – one of many extraordinary secrets to emerge from a 16th-century manor house owned by Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe until her death, aged 99, last year.

The heir, to his immense surprise, was her great-nephew Bamber Gascoigne, former host of University Challenge.

He has vowed to begin carrying out the essential restoration needed to secure the house’s future and has arranged with Sotheby’s to sell objects from the house

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Flaming June is on posters all over the world, yet resides in the most unexpected of places – the municipal art museum of Puerto Rico’s second biggest city, Ponce, where it is known as “the Mona Lisa of the southern hemisphere”.

It was snapped up by the governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Ferré, in 1963 for $1,000 (£660) when Pre-Raphaelites were still painfully out-of-fashion. But while experts were aware of the existence of the pencil and chalk preparatory drawing because it featured in an 1895 art magazine, they did not know its location.

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...udy-discovered-behind-door-in-english-mansion

maximus otter
 
The Rogue Song Reconstructed.

The 1930 early sound, two-colour Technicolor film is one of those lost Holy Grails, which torment film collectors. Not so much on account of singing star, Lawrence Tibbett but on account of some comic relief business by Laurel and Hardy.

It is still lost but the delightful Greenbriar Picture Shows blogspot alerted me to the fact that a full-length reconstruction has been updated on Youtube, utilizing all the fragments of footage, which have surfaced over the years and welding them to the VitaPhone soundtrack, which survives complete. The rest is montage.

Worth a look! :)
 
Mini Max is back home after wandering around who-knows-where for the last 6 years ...
Massachusetts woman's lost cat turns up six years later

A Massachusetts woman whose cat escaped from her third-floor condo through a loose window screen was reunited with her pet six years later.

Margaret Kudzma said the cat, named Mini Max, slipped out of her downtown Peabody condo through a loose window screen in 2015, and she used posters, online posts and newspaper ads to try to locate the wayward feline. ...

Kudzma even ended up founding her own nonprofit rescue group, The Rescue Business, in 2016 when the search for Mini Max led her to discover a large colony of feral cats living in her neighborhood.

Kudzma said she was shocked last week when she received a phone call from Dr. Samantha Simonelli, a Wakefield veterinarian who had found her information on the microchip of a cat that had been brought in with ear mites. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/07/26/lost-cat-six-years-Mini-Max-Margaret-Kudzma/5851627333419/
 
This Scottish library received one of its books which had been overdue for 53 years.
Overdue book returned to Scottish library after 53 years

Workers at a Scottish library said they were surprised to open a package that arrived recently in the mail and discover an overdue book believed to have been checked out 53 years ago.

Linda Flynn, team supervisor at the Paisley Central Library in Renfrewshire, said she opened up the padded envelope that arrived at the facility and discovered a copy of Mrs. Balbir Singh's Indian Cookery, an anonymous note and about $28 cash. ...

The anonymous note read: "Please accept my apologies for the late return of this book. Enclosed is a token payment in recognition of this oversight. Thank you."

Flynn said library staff believe the book was last checked out in 1968, but their records don't go that far back, so the identity of the person who checked it out remains a mystery. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...ntral-Library-overdue-53-years/8601627585710/
 
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