"I dug down about 10in, and suddenly I saw this little face looking up at me."

From The Daily Mail, last year:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=476262&in_page_id=1770

Someone I know was moving from Boston to California about 15 years ago. When she arrived in her new home and opened her boxes, she found an envelope which she had never seen before, that had been self-addressed and sent by my grandfather (whom she didn't know at all, never met, didn't even know his name) in the 40's, preserved in an envelope with a price tag as if at an antique shop. What's odd is that he and I were/are from a secluded island in Canada, so she only associated the letter with me because of the address (not the name). She showed it to me just randomly, just for the oddness of the coincidence, and because it was truly odd that she had no idea how it got in her boxes. She and I were both shocked when I saw the name and told her this was my grandfather. My grandfather used to collect stamps, and would collect them in this manner.

we found an empty bottle of scotch behind a false bathroom wall during a reno... it can mean so many things...

our plumber told us to keep an eye out for buffalo nickles and lost rings when we were tearing out old plumbing.

My family found a school report card (a bad one!) hidden under the shelf lining of a cabinet in one of the bedrooms when we moved house. Sad thing was, although her grades were bad, the comment on her card said "Amanda has tried her best"!

In the 1890's house we are about to sell, when my husband bought it in the 1980's, he discovered that the bottom stair on the back (kitchen) staircase lifted up for storage. All that was in there was dust.

However, he found parts of a still in the basement when he moved in.

On the 3rd floor of our "new" (1880's) house, someone's crazy uncle had painted dozens of brooms, a la Sorcerer's Apprentice, on the wall. We also found a bunch of square headed unused nails in the attic.

im actually in the process of renovating the basement of my 1920's rowhome and discovered that a flooring addition built in the 1930's had been laid on top of newspaper from 1936. there has been no real moisture issues in the basement so the newspaper is so perfectly preserved that i was able to pick it up and read it.

I once found a late 1970's Playboy above some duct work in my parents basement....

I had friends that found a diary/sketchbook in their attic while converting it to a bedroom loft. It was from a little girl maybe about 8-10 years old dating to the early 20's. In adorable little girl English (the most perfect cursive, I’ve ever seen) she chronicled everyday life at school, which is still right down the street, drew pictures of herself, and the neighbor girls. Apparently at the time she was writing in this sketchbook, her sickly grandmother was living with her family, and residing in the bedroom which was now my friends bedroom. What was creepy was she died in her sleep, so after reading that My two friends were always felt a little eerie about sleeping there afterward :(

I used to live in a house that was about 100 years old in Poland, which used to be German territory before World War 2. When my parents demolished a house to build a new one we find lots of broken china and some silverware.

There was also a tree in my neighborhood that all the kids called a lucky tree. We were always able to dig stuff up from underneath, usually china, bullets or random nick nacks.

when we build something new in our house, we leave a time capsule. we built a fire place a few years back and it had a small cavity in it, so inside a large bottle, we left pictures of our family, our names, our pets, when it was built etc. after we are dead and gone someone will pull down our fireplace's chimney and have as much fun finding stuff as you did.

also we found newspapers from the 1960's under our old vinyl flooring when we ripped it up. it was amazing that there loaves of bread cost 50c and we still measured in pounds and ounces!! (Aussie) Also a story read "Women Handcuff Themselves to Public Bar" because public bars were boys clubs back in the day.

ha ha ha after re-reading it sounds as though we put our pets in our fireplace void... i meant to say pet NAMES

I am always so amused at Americans finding things from the 30s for instance and thinking they are old - Its so sweet!!

Europeans are so condescending.