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Lost & Found

Another long-lost class ring story. I'm struck by how often the original owners say they lost their class rings only a short time (days or a few weeks) after receiving them.
Former New York resident reunited with class ring after 46 years

A metal detecting hobbyist and the owner of a matchmaking company in New York reunited a man with the high school class ring he lost 46 years earlier. ...

Dan Milovich ... took up treasure hunting with his metal detector. ...

Milovich said he was searching in Buffalo last week when he unearthed a Nichols School class of 1975 ring.

He said the ring was engraved with the owner's name, but he was unable to find any clues on social media. ...

Milovich decided to try getting some help before giving up the search entirely, and Therese Forton-Barnes joined in the hunt.

Forton-Barnes said she regularly has to perform background checks for her matchmaking business, and she put those skills to use. ...

"I dug around for him and couldn't find much on him but I found his wife's phone number," Forton-Barnes said. "Twenty minutes later he called me back and was just enamored over this whole situation."

The man, who now lives in Colorado and did not want to be identified, told Forton-Barnes he had lost the ring only a couple weeks after buying it in 1975. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...Milovich-Therese-Forton-Barnes/3581627673806/
 
This book was finally returned to a Pennsylvania library 50 years overdue. The token payment sent with the book will be applied to other borrowers' fines.
Library book returned after 50 years with $20 bill

A book checked out a half-century ago has been anonymously returned to a library in northeastern Pennsylvania, officials said.

The ... 1967 copy of “Coins You Can Collect” by Burton Hobson arrived last month at the Plymouth Public Library in Luzerne County along with a $20 bill.

An accompanying unsigned letter, written as if by the book itself, said “Fifty years ago (yes 50!), a little girl checked me out of this library in 1971. At this time, she didn’t know they were going to move from Plymouth. Back then, kids weren’t told things like that.

“As you can see, she took very good care of me,” the letter continued, explaining that it was packed away often for frequent moves but was “always with many other books.” ...

The letter writer said she knew the $20 wouldn’t come close to paying the accrued fine, but suggested “Perhaps you can pay off some fines of some kids with it.”

Library director Laura Keller said she did just that, paying “some hefty fines” of a young mother who wanted to start borrowing books again. Borrowing privileges at the library are suspended if fines exceed $5, she said. ...
FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/bills-f40facf41ee2378e2582d2d3bc0b1180
 
An Ohio family clearing out their grandmother's home threw out the contents of her freezer - not knowing she'd hidden $25,000 there. A quick call to the garbage service and a search at a recycling center successfully recovered grandma's lost money.
Waste workers find $25,000 accidentally thrown out by Ohio family

Waste collection workers in Ohio were able to reunite $25,000 cash with the family that accidentally threw it out while helping a grandmother clean her home.

Republic Services officials in Lorain County said a call came in last week from a family who reported an envelope containing $25,000 had accidentally been thrown in the trash just before the garbage truck came through the area. ...

"They were cleaning out their house for their grandmother and they cleaned out the refrigerator, threw out all the garbage, grabbed all the freezer stuff and put it in a bag, and then the grandma was like, 'Hey, there's an envelope with $25,000 in there, don't lose that,' and she's like, 'Grandma, I already lost that, it's in the garbage,'" operations supervisor Gary Capan told WEWS-TV.

Capan said his team was able to contact the truck driver before he reached the landfill, and he was diverted to a recycling facility in Oberlin so workers could go through the contents of his vehicle.

Dan Schoewe, the operations manager at the recycling center, said it only took about 10 minutes of searching to locate the right bag. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...orkers-find-grandmas-lost-cash/7511628280470/
 
An 87 year old widow has been reunited with the wedding ring she lost 2 years ago.

"An 87-year-old widow has been reunited with her missing wedding ring two years after it disappeared in her garden.

Ursula Rowlands, from St Bees, Cumbria, lost it while tending to her flowers, and after a frantic search had given up hope of seeing it again.

But a local historian and his grandson searching with a metal detector in her garden managed to find it.

Her daughter Debbie Bowler said her mum was so thrilled to see it again she put it "straight on her finger".

"Mum couldn't believe it and is so grateful," Mrs Bowler said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-58123000
 
An E. E. Cummings collection was returned to a Cleveland library after being overdue for a half-century.
E.E. Cummings collection returned to library after more than 50 years

An Ohio library said a former patron mailed in an E.E. Cummings poetry collection that was more than 50 years overdue -- just weeks after a Bob Dylan record was returned 48 years late.

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library said the poetry book arrived in the mail recently along with an anonymous apology letter and a "lucky $2 bill." ...

The letter writer said they were recently going through some old boxes of books when they came across the E.E. Cummings collection bearing a Cleveland Heights Public Library stamp.

"It's been over 50 years since I've lived in Cleveland, so this must have gotten boxed up when we moved," the letter reads. "I am so very sorry. Here's a lucky $2 bill for whoever opens this!" ...

The library said the person would not have faced any late fees, since the facility did away with fines in 2019. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...-E-E-Cummings-50-years-overdue/3701628537921/
 
This guy threw a house party at his family home 20 years ago, at which someone stole multiple items including his father's university class ring. He stumbled across a Facebook posting about a found ring that turned out to be his father's.
Class ring stolen 20 years ago found in closet of newly purchased house

A college class ring stolen from a Rhode Island home during a house party 20 years ago was returned to its owner's finger after being spotted on social media.

Jim O'Brien said he threw a house party at his family's house about 20 years ago, and during the event one of the attendees stole multiple items from the home, including his father's Boston University class ring. ...

O'Brien said he was scrolling a local Facebook group for Warwick, R.I., recently when he came across a post from a woman named Lisa who said she had found a ring in a closet while cleaning out the home she recently purchased.

The post included a photo.

"I saw the physical therapy sign and I knew right away it was my father's ring," O'Brien told WJAR-TV. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...Rhode-Island-Boston-University/9501628534291/
 
This is so sad. It happened in Utah.
A little boy hid in his toy chest and suffocated. He was probably dead before he was missed.

Body of missing toddler found in toy chest after he disappeared from bed

A four-year-old tot who disappeared triggering a massive probe has tragically been found dead inside a small toy chest in his own bedroom.

Kache Wallis had suffocated after crawling into his toy box at his family home.

Kache was last seen alive on the night of July 24, as his grandmother tucked him into bed in his Utah home while he was wrapped up in white Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pyjamas.

The Mirror reports that the next morning, he was nowhere in sight.

His panicked grandmother could not find the boy, who was not in his bed on Sunday morning, and the authorities were called to the home to help search for him alongside family and friends.
 
I've just seen a local TV report about this.

A swimmer's artificial leg came loose and fell off in chilly Lake Windermere. Luckily, a skilled volunteer diver found it in no time.

BBC News link -

Windermere diver retrieves lost prosthetic leg from lake

Josephine Bridges, from Birmingham, lost it in Windermere in Cumbria's Lake District while swimming.

A post on social media by her sister was forwarded to Angus Hosking, founder of Lake District Diving, who is regularly called by people who have lost things in the water.

"She was pretty stunned for me to have found it," he said.
 
This North Carolina woman was reunited with the smartphone (and photos) she'd lost in an Ontario river a year earlier.
Phone returned to owner after 12 months in Ontario river

A cellphone containing precious photos of a deceased relative was returned to a woman a year after she dropped it into an Ontario, Canada, river.

Jordan Miezlaiskis, of North Carolina, said she and her husband, Scott Kjelson, were visiting Ontario in July 2020 to celebrate the birthday of her brother, Jesse, when she dropped her phone into the Chippewa River when visiting Chippewa Falls. ...

The family attempted to find the phone with a magnet, but eventually gave up the search.

Miezlaiskis returned to North Carolina, and tragedy soon followed when Jesse died in an ATV crash, leaving the last photos of the family together at the bottom of the river.

Miezlaiskis returned to Ontario in July to mark her brother's birthday and coincidentally received a message from a stranger in town.

"We went back to his home to celebrate his birthday like we did last year, and that day I got a message on Facebook from this complete stranger who had said he and his brother were diving at the falls and they found my phone," Miezlaiskis said. ...

"He thought I had just lost it because it was in pristine condition -- it didn't look waterlogged or anything."

Miezlaiskis was reunited with the phone, and the precious photos it contained. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...r-recovered-Jordan-Miezlaiskis/6741629406419/
 
An 18th century Canaletto painting long believed lost has been found in the UK, and it will be auctioned in September.
Long-lost Canaletto painting found hanging in English home

A Canaletto painting thought lost by experts is going up for auction after appraisers found it hanging in the English home of a recently deceased woman.

British auction house Gorringe's said appraisers spotted the painting hanging in the Lewes, England, home of a recently deceased woman whose mother purchased the artwork in 1920. ...

The painting, titled Venice, The Dogana from the Bacino di San Marco, depicts the Dogana da Mar, an old customs building in Venice, Italy. The painting is believed to date from the mid-18th century.

The auction house said the deceased owner of the painting apparently was aware of the artist's identity, but did not want to sell the artwork.

The painting is expected to sell for up to $200,000 when it is auctioned Sept. 28. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...English-home-auction-Gorringes/8711629320771/
 
This is so sad. It happened in Utah.
A little boy hid in his toy chest and suffocated. He was probably dead before he was missed.

Oh my goodness :(

Shades of the Mistletoe Bride
 

180 Classic Cars Found In An Abandoned Warehouse After 30 Years Of Neglect Are Worth Millions.​

A short while back, a photographer was on a leisurely stroll through the countryside of Portugal when he came across a huge storage barn that had no place being where it was. Looking out-of-place, his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to walk up to the building for a peek inside. What he saw made his jaw hit the floor. It was an absolute dream come true and he needed more details. He went up to the farm-house near the building and asked if he could take a look inside. The owner told him the story and made him swear to keep the location a secret. He was allowed to photograph the contents however he could not tell a soul where he found this hidden treasure. Check this out.

Warehouse-3.jpg


https://www.buzznicked.com/ultimate-barn-find-classic-cars/
 

180 Classic Cars Found In An Abandoned Warehouse After 30 Years Of Neglect Are Worth Millions.

A short while back, a photographer was on a leisurely stroll through the countryside of Portugal when he came across a huge storage barn that had no place being where it was. Looking out-of-place, his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to walk up to the building for a peek inside. What he saw made his jaw hit the floor. It was an absolute dream come true and he needed more details. He went up to the farm-house near the building and asked if he could take a look inside. The owner told him the story and made him swear to keep the location a secret. He was allowed to photograph the contents however he could not tell a soul where he found this hidden treasure. Check this out.
This is an old story that's been spun and re-spun to add lots of woo factor for years.

The owner of the property was a car dealer who'd stored excess inventory and sealed the warehouse. The photographer didn't stumble onto this - the owner hired him to document the collection. It is true the photographer was sworn to secrecy about the collection's location.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/portugal-barn-find/
 
Someone left his rhinoceros head on a street corner in Pennsylvania.
Police investigate after rhino head is found on street corner in Aspinwall

Police are investigating after a taxidermy rhinoceros head was found on the sidewalk in Aspinwall.

Cameron Taylor was walking his dog when he stumbled upon the head. ...

Aspinwall Police took custody of the head, which they say appears to be authentic. They believe it is potentially more than 50 years old.

Police say they are in the process of contacting the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to find out what the legalities of possessing such an item are. ...

Aspinwall police say they are reviewing surveillance video from nearby homes and businesses to figure out who the man is, where he got the rhino head and why he dumped it. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.wtae.com/article/aspinw...rhino-head-is-found-on-street-corner/37425363
 
This is an old story that's been spun and re-spun to add lots of woo factor for years.

The owner of the property was a car dealer who'd stored excess inventory and sealed the warehouse. The photographer didn't stumble onto this - the owner hired him to document the collection. It is true the photographer was sworn to secrecy about the collection's location.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/portugal-barn-find/
In my home town there's a UL about a cellar full of classic motorbikes. I've had the site of the house, long-demolished, pointed out to me.
 
A metal detectorist searching for a lost diamond ring discovered a lost locket containing its owner's father's ashes.
Metal detectorist finds lost locket containing owner's father's ashes

A Massachusetts man combing a beach with his metal detector found a locket containing the ashes of the owner's father and was able to find the woman who lost it two months earlier.

Rich Bonanno of Scituate said he was using his metal detector on Nantasket Beach, trying to find a diamond ring lost by a South Shore Hospital nurse, when he came across a heart-shaped silver locket with the words "Miss You" printed on it. ...

Bonanno found what he suspected to be human cremains in the locket, and a call was put out on social media to attempt to find the owner.

Thomasina Holley-Lewis of Rockland said her cousin saw the Facebook post and texted her to see if the locket Bonanno had found was the one she had lost on the beach two months earlier. ...

Holley-Lewis said the locket contains the ashes of her father, who died of COVID-19 in November of last year. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...ach-Massachusetts-Rich-Bonanno/5191630435712/
 
Someone abandoned a mobile home on a highway in Texas.
Mobile home abandoned in the middle of Texas road

Authorities in Texas are asking the public for help with an unusual mystery after a mobile home was found abandoned on a trailer in the middle of a road.

The Kaufman County Sheriff's Office said the trailer loaded with a manufactured house was found abandoned in the roadway of Farm-to-Market 2578 in Kaufman County on Tuesday. ...

The sheriff's office said in a Facebook post that the home was loaded onto a trailer, but no tow vehicle was found. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/09/01/mobile-home-road-Kaufman-County-Texas/6271630521222/
 
A Wisconsin diver finds and returns two boxes of valuables stolen from a local resident's home 1.5 years earlier.
Diver finds man's stolen property in Wisconsin river 1 1/2 years later

A diver in a Wisconsin river found some sunken treasure when he surfaced with a box of valuable jewelry that had been stolen from another man's home a year and a half earlier.

Ed Bieber said he was looking for trash and other sunken items at the bottom of the Menominee River when he found a pillow case containing a pair of heavy metal boxes. ...

Bieber ... found one of the boxes was filled with laminated newspaper obituaries and the other with several hundred dollars' worth of jewelry.

Bieber said a friend recognized the family from the obituaries and suggested he contact Marinette resident Gary Edwards, who confirmed the boxes had been stolen from his home during a break-in about a year and a half earlier.

"I thought everything was gone and forgotten," Edwards told WGBA-TV. "And luckily, he got in contact with me as the good guy he is."

Bieber said he was happy to be able to reunite someone with their lost property. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...iver-Menominee-River-Ed-Bieber/9231630527353/
 
A climber was killed on a New Zealand mountain. Years later his backpack and camera were found.
The film was recovered and the photos posted on Facebook where they were identified.

This bit intrigue me, about the Hooker glacier where the find was made -

Hooker is at the base of Aoraki (Mount Cook), in a national park of icy peaks where hundreds of climbers have died, dozens of them never to be found.

Hundreds have died there? Dozens of bodies never recovered? Why haven't we heard of this before?
Or maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Tony Shepherd in the Guardian -

Photos from ‘beyond the grave’: camera discovery reveals climber’s last images before fatal avalanche

Two decades ago Richard Stiles escaped an avalanche in New Zealand, but friend Steve Robinson wasn’t so lucky. Now the mountain has given up some of its secrets

When mountaineer Chris Hill found a backpack with an old camera in it on the Hooker Glacier – an 11km chunk of ice on New Zealand’s South Island – he was intrigued and decided to get the film inside developed.

Hill wanted to know whose pack he held, so he took the photos – grainy and vintage-looking – to the police and to New Zealand’s Land Search and Rescue. Eventually, he posted them on Facebook, hoping the mountaineering community could solve the mystery of the pack and the camera.

The photos were shared and finally the mystery was solved. The mountain had given up one of its many secrets.

One of the men in the photos, with a big grin and long wavy hair, turned out to be 29-year-old Steve Robinson, the pictures taken in 1997 just before he was killed and buried by an avalanche.
 
Hidden Cupid resurfaces in one of Vermeer’s best-known works after two and a half centuries
Laboratory tests revealed "sensational" discovery that the figure in Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window was overpainted decades after the artist’s death
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/hidden-cupid-resurfaces-in-one-of-vermeer-s-best-known-works
After 2.5 years of meticulous work, the large Cupid figure that had been hidden by overpainting is now fully revealed and the painting will soon be publicly exhibited.
Vermeer's 'hidden' Cupid is the enigmatic artist's latest mystery

For around three centuries, the girl reading a letter in the dimly-lit solitude of a Johannes Vermeer painting gave no indication of what the message contained.

Facing an open window, her figure gently curved as she scanned the note in her hands, her body appeared slight against the vacant wall behind her. But last week, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany, where she's been housed for most of her long life, has finally unveiled an amorous secret, hidden long ago beneath layers of paint.

Ahead of its upcoming show about the celebrated Dutch painter, the museum has released an image of a drastically changed "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window," which the Dutch artist painted between 1657 and 1659. Following a painstaking four-year-long restoration, the empty wall now shows a monumental painting of Cupid, discovered by X-ray in 1979, but now revealed for the first time. ...

The unveiling of Cupid, the Roman god of love who is often represented as a winged boy, gives the girl's letter new connotations of affection, longing and desire. ...

When the hidden Cupid was first found over four decades ago, it was believed the Delft-born artist had himself painted over it. ...

But when conservators began cleaning the painting in 2017, they found evidence suggesting otherwise. ...

Now, the team involved believe it was painted over sometime in the early 18th century. But as to who did it, they can only guess. ...

Who painted over Cupid in "Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window," or why they did, may never be solved. ...

Several other Vermeer paintings were inexplicably altered, as well, ... from an entire blue sky painted into his early work "Diana and her Companions" to a modified picture frame in "Woman Holding a Balance." (Both paintings have since been restored to their original compositions.) ...

To recover the Cupid, conservators at Dresden State Art Collections decided not to remove the original 17th-century varnish, but instead meticulously chipped away at layers of paint with a medical scalpel under a microscope with 120x magnification, according to Koja. The process took two and a half years, with only a few square millimeters covered each day. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/vermeer-gemaldegalerie-2021-hidden-cupid/index.html

NOTE: This article includes an embedded video showing the painting in progressive stages of restoration.
 
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