Joker's wild

It was just brought to my attention from my friend (thank you, Zack) that the Congress Brand playing card we found in the walls is apparently an old manufacturer of playing cards that used very unique pictures on their faces. I did some Internet sleuthing and found out that a deck in nice condition is worth a little bit of money online. Go figure! I think we'll keep our humble little joker wall-card.

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Stuff we've found...

I promised pictures of the newspaper bits and other things we've found in our remodeling adventures.

I now have three newspaper bits (that came from sorting through an entire Safeway bag full of bits) that say "1924". We have not been able to locate documentation of when our house was built (something that for whatever reason has been driving me crazy!). Ross informed me that before they have fiberglass insulation (the pink stuff) they used sawdust, newspaper, and bits of cloth to insulate (which I should point out that whoever was in charge of "insulating" our house must have misunderstood the whole point - there is a handful in this corner, half a handful in that corner, and none anywhere else). Therefore, it would be prudent for us to guess that our house was built sometime around 1924 (newspapers were also used as toilet paper as Ross likes to point out repeatedly so i can't imagine they kept old papers lying around for too long). We also found a penny from 1929. One of Ross' coworkers informed him that people used to toss coins in the walls of houses that were being built to mark when the wall was built or remodeled. So if that's the case we are potentially looking at sometime around 1929. The penny was found while I was sweeping plaster into the chimney hole so we're not exactly sure where it came from. Then last night Ross was busting out the secret medicine cabinet in the bathroom (and left a gaping hole which makes it super "Psycho"-creepy to take a shower in there right now in case you were wondering) and found an old Gillette razor package that has the dates "1932" and "1938" on it. (We discarded the corroded razor that he found in it.) There are a few other bits of newspaper that had things printed that indicated the time period too which I though twas kind of fun. Anyway enough talking - here are the pictures!




Here are the three bits of newspaper with the 1924 date.






Here is the penny we found in the craft room with the 1929 date. (I guess that room will forever be the "craft room" - I can't seem to stop calling it that!) The mint mark is "S". I did some Internet Sleuthing and found out that the San Francisco Mint was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mining operations. It made coins until 1937. See, you learned something today! Some other posts from people looking to sell their 1929 pennies say it's probably worth anywhere from $0.15 to $1.50. That's hardly old Jim Bob's hidden fortune! :)



The piece on the right is advertising a " '18 Dodge" for $100. Sounds like a pretty good deal! The bit on the right is advertising an apartment (either in Sandy or on Sandy Blvd) with "steam heat".



A paper advertising property in "High Class" Laurelhurst neighborhood! I saw that several of the pieces said "Journal" on them. I looked it up and found out that the "Oregon Journal" was Portland's newspaper from 1902 to 1982. I should mention that all of the papers I have found have been from Portland. I know Tillamook had a newspaper but I am imagining it was all of about four pages at that time. Even now it only publishes once a week!




Here is the Gillette package from 1932 or 1938. It indicates the countries in which they had a patent on the back.



The bit on the right looks like a music score to me. The bit on the left has a bunch of dates from the 1920's.

I forgot to mention up above that we found an old playing card. I don't quite understand the symbol (anybody have any idea what game this might go to?). There is a picture of a ship on the front and the White House on the back. Ross said it looks like it was from sometime in the 70's. That was not nearly as exciting as some of the other stuff we found! I think the penny is the best treasure we've uncovered so far! We hope to find more! I'm still holding out for old Jim Bob's life savings in stocks and bonds hidden in jar somewhere. Though somehow I doubt we'll find anything like that. :)

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More surpises!

I completely forgot to talk about what else Ross found in the house! Some of it I will be able to take pictures to post on here (my computer is not up and running yet for picture uploads so I have to do this from work...I will post pictures as soon as I can). Ross discovered that the walls downstairs from floor to ceiling (and possibly including the ceiling) are wallpaper that has been painted and textured over. That was exciting enough. THEN, he found a secret hiding place under the stairs! Okay that's a bit dramatic. Let me try to give you a visual of how this works. There are stairs that lead up to the second floor from the main floor. There are also stairs that lead to the basement from the main floor. These stairwells sort of overlap each other, so that when you are going down into the basement, you are walking underneath the stairs that go to the second floor. With me so far? Well in the well of one of the stairs that leads to the second floor, and accessible only from the stairs that lead to the basement, there is a small space that has been boarded off. So, Ross pulled off the board and found a small collection of pots and pans, an old roll of 1960's style wallpaper, and some old cords. I have no idea what any of it is or how old it is, but it was kind of exciting to find it there!

Ross also discovered that there used to be a doorway from the landing at the bottom of the stairs that go up to the second floor that lead into the kitchen from the living room. This I will definitely be able to take pictures of. Interesting for sure!

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