When the cabinets came out on Wednesday, we uncovered some buried treasure. Well, if you consider things stuck under 50-year old cabinets to be “buried” and tattered old papers to be “treasure.”
Here’s what we found:
- Coupon for 5¢ off 2 bars of Princess Dial soap (“the soap with moisturizing cream right in it”)
- Coupon for 12¢ off two cans of Campbell’s Soup for One (expires 4/30/81 – I was less than 7 months from birth!)
- Coupon for 15¢ off 2 packages of Soft-weve toilet paper
- A dentist appointment reminder card for Mrs. Floyd Pollay for April 28, 1971 at 2pm
- A Beginner Bible Story dated Nov 1958
- A Storytime pamphlet called “God’s Helpers” dated November 30, 1958
- A poison antidote chart copyrighted 1965
- A drawing by Lisa Pollay dated April 11th, 3:15
Click below to see the treasures larger. Any suggestions on what we should do with them?
Jani says
Not sure if you still have these or not, but if so, you should google the names of the family and see if they are interested in obtaining the buried treasure. If you can’t find them, I think it would be cool to make a collage out of them or even cut letters out of them to spell something cool to hang in the kitchen (or scrapbook). Hmmm, makes me wonder what we’ll find beneath our 1940s cabinets.
The Chatty Housewife says
I would definitely keep them. As to what I would do with them, who knows? It would be pretty hard to track their owners down, but returning them would be the most fun!
Tran says
What did you end up doing with your finds?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Tran,
We actually keep them all in a little manila folder that we whip out to show guests. Everyone gets a kick out of our random discoveries.
xo,
s
Lisa says
We found a page from a 1947 magazine with an editorial about rampant STDs post-World War II. No joke. The article was called “Our Shameful VD Record,” and we framed the page and hung it on the wall. It probably won’t stay up very long because guests don’t really know what to make of it, but I love finding (sometimes shocking) pieces of history like that.
Antonia says
How awesome!!! I love finding random old stuff like that! So fascinating.
Aimee says
What fun stuff! I know I was really excited to see what I would find when I ripped out my kitchen. All I found was a bottle of Dawn containing some black liquid, and an old sock. Ewww. I just discovered your blog a week ago, and am going back and reading all your archives. I love it!!
Michelle says
We moved into my parents old house about 3 years ago and during renovations(my parents built the house) found a beer bottle in the walls! Made for an interesting story next time I seen my Dad.
Matthea says
In a home I bought in the heart of Austin, I found a 60+ year old pencil with a small town’s local HS football schedule printed onto it — and the small town was right where my uncle had recently bought property to be a second home, a few hours’ drive from Austin. That pencil went into a shadow box for him for Christmas — he loved it, and it is still hung on the wall in his small-town home, begging conversation from his visitors!
Amy says
This is exactly why a “new” house would never work for me! I love finding the hidden treasures (from buried wallpaper to old newspapers) that give a glimpse into the past.
Kristen says
While doing renovations my father found an old glass milk bottle in the yard, which we donated to the town historical society.
P.S. I came across your blog through a google search on hanging curtains and now my little insomniac self is addicted!
Amanda P says
Did you ever return these to Lisa, or do you still have them? I love that she found you and gave you the history of your old home!
YoungHouseLove says
We lost track of them a ways back but are still hoping they turn up so we can send them her way- if she wants them. Haha.
xo,
s
Judy Dryer says
Andi, we found the same thing while we were remodeling our house in Clintonville. We showed the help wanted ads to Sophie and Jen and they were surprised that, in the 1960’s, ads were segregated into “Help Wanted Female” and “Help Wanted Male”. Also great ads for stores that no longer exist. Unfortunately, they were badly crinkled, brown and brittle. I still have them somewhere in the basement but they have probably crumbled into tiny pieces by now. It was a fun discovery.
Isabel says
You’ve probably forgotten all about this post at this point but I’m fairly new to your blog and have decided to go back to the beginning. This one struck a chord though. About a month ago, my husband woke up in the middle of the night cause the attic fan blades were hitting the sides of the fan. I sleep like a log so after forcing me to get up claiming the house was going to catch fire any minute from the sparks (he freaks out pretty easily), we climbed into the attic to take a look. My attic is hard to get to so I had only been there once before but this time I started looking at what I thought was “debris” in between the floor boards. Among other things, I found the previous owners’ Navy discharge papers from 1945, a matchbox with his pic (to promote his campaign for city council in the mid-60s), a college or HS class schedule printed on an index card, a bank deposit receipt from 1962, and a doctor’s bill from around the same time. I am a history buff so it was all I could do not to start going through every floorboard right then. This stuff would probably be considered trash (except the matchbox I’m sure) but I put it all in a plastic baggie and will eventually add it to the album i’m planning of all our improvements projects for this house – my scrapbook version of the YHL blog :)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so amazing! What a find!
xo
s
ajira says
What’s happened to these now?
YoungHouseLove says
Good question! I can’t remember if we tried to mail them back to the original owners at one point or if we kept them in a folder somewhere… will have to look around!
xo
s
cam says
A quick Facebook search finds a Lisa Pollay who lives in Virginia. She’s probably the person you should try to contact!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Cam!
xo
s
Sarah says
We are completely gutting our house and have found – tissues being used to pack out skirting board / electrics wired back to front / chip board in the place of plaster board (rotted like compost) / brick walls nit tied into other supporting walls / woodworm / death watch beetle. None of which are treasures! ????
But we did uncover the 100+ year old lime stone fire place in the kitchen which would have had a little stove in at one time. That was exciting. And the old stone door step with the decades of wear.
Kismet says
We have found some treasure here but what we have also done is left some! When we tore out the walls in the bathroom we each picked one little treasure to leave for someone to find one day and wrote our names and date on the wood.
Janice says
When we remodeled the basement of our 40 year old home we found (in the drop ceiling) a 30 year old playboy and some empty cigarette packages. Makes me wonder if a teen was using it as a hiding space or something. In the walls we found dead mice, ick! They would have died of natural causes long before we lived there, so that made me feel a little better. I wish we had thought to put some photos or something of us living here in the walls for future home owners to find. What fun! There’s always the attic, I guess! :)
Gail says
I love finding things like this. Our house is over 200 years old. We bought our house in 1976, and we found some old newspapers under the linoleum that we took up. I think they were from the 40s and 50s. It was interesting looking at the ads, and skimming through the articles about the local people. I’ve also found some pretty pieces of broken dishes in the garden. Way back when our house was new, people just threw their trash in the back yard. I keep all of the pottery pieces.
As for your finds, I think they’d be nice framed, although your house is styled in a much more modern way than ours is. I especially like the picture on the beginner Bible story. I love the clothes styles from the 50s because it brings back so many memories of my growing up.
audrey says
I do hope you still have these! That poison antidote chart would be so fun to frame and hang in your current kitchen. Vintage art adds so much character.