Bought any old paint cans recently?

[imastawka]

A tin of paint bought for $10 at a garage sale changed one man's life - more than a decade after he took it home.

Lightning Ridge man Tony O'Brien was living in western Sydney more than 12 years ago when he bought a pair of one-gallon (3.8-litre) tins of house paint at an deceased estate auction.

Taking his new acquisitions home, he pried the lid off one only to find it was unusable.

"One of them was watered-down paint so it was useless, it was no good," he told A Current Affair.

Mr O'Brien left the second tin undisturbed for some years, until he eventually decided to open it up as well.

To his disgust, he found it was full of sand and, fed up, he tossed it onto a rubbish heap at the outback Lightning Ridge property where he now lived.

It sat on the heap for a decade or more, enduring temperatures of up to 50 degrees and torrential rains.

"I was going to toss it out one day when I was having a clean-up," Mr O'Brien said.

"And I thought, no, better keep that sand - might need it for a bit of grouting."

However, he didn't dig around in the tin yet, until returning home one day from his $10-an-hour weeding job.

"The sand wouldn't come out, it was all wet," he said.

"I put my hands in it, I felt the bottom of a bag and thought, that can't be right."

To his own disbelief, Mr O'Brien pulled out bags of money in $5000 bundles.

"My jaw just fell," he said.

One further catch remained - the money was all in old Australian paper notes, rather than modern plastic.

Mr O'Brien laid it all out in his house, covering his doona, carpet and lounge.

"The doona sucked the water out (but) I had to get rid of the doona," he said.

Two days later, during which Mr O'Brien didn't dare leave his home, he re-packaged the money and took it to the bank.

He emerged $45,000 richer.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/08/10/17/37/how-a-10-dollar-tin-of-paint-earned-an-aussie-blok...

I'm thinking it was worth a lot more than the $45,000 he cashed in at the bank.

The old paper money is worth a lot these days.

The moral of the story is to check old grandad's things before you have a garage sale.

[kopenhagen5]

I saw this, but he just cashed in at the bank and the bank probably sent it for destruction.

Could have been worth more if there were first n last prefixes or star Cwlth notes.

Bet ya a few people looking twice at paint tins tomorrow, Richo ?

[icyfroth]

Life's full of surprises!

[chameleon54]

A few years ago a friend asked me to spend a couple of days helping him clean up his spinster aunties deceased estate. She had lived in the same little brick house all of her life and was a genuine hoarder. Stacks of newspapers neatly folded and piled to the ceiling, dating back to the second world war etc. Large boxes full of neatly folded plastic bread bags etc. It was all very neat and ordered really. The sad part was the friend had already thrown a lot of the really good stuff out such as 50 YO. sweet packets, interesting newspapers and magazines etc.

Anyway we had to check every little thing carefully as she had squirilled all sorts of treasures and money away in secret little places. We found her brothers war medals hidden in an old coffee tin, full of coffee, jewellery in old rag jumper pockets and my fravourite, an old cadbury choclate box contained dried up, mouldy figs. Under the figs was a plastic bag with pound notes inside.

We never really found any highly valuable items, but it was a very interesting couple of days.

[kopenhagen5]

Always fun finding treasure no matter it's value. 

[mloreason]

What a great story.

I love finding old newspapers. I remember ripping up the Lino in a house years ago and finding pages of very old newspapers. They weren't worth anything but I read every word on the pages.

[chameleon54]

I collect antique books. On a couple of occasions I have found old currency including an extensive collection of international notes that where placed in the heavy old books to flatten them out and then where forgotten about. On one occasion I found some-ones pressed flower collection, between the pages of an old volume and quite often find newspaper cuttings .

Probably my best and most interesting find was an old 1850,s family bible with the beautifull stamped leather bindings and coloured lithographic plates. What made the find even more special was all of the marraige, death  and christening certificates for the family from the late 1800,s. The bible also contained a very old set of paper dolls with period style dresses. I researched the information on the certificates and found a family member interstate who was delighted to purchase the bible for what I paid for it and have it return it to its rightful place. ......

[mloreason]

That's amazing, that family member must have been so pleased to have the bible returned. It's lovely that you bothered to go to all that trouble to return it. Most people wouldn't have bothered. 🙂

[chameleon54]

Some people do puzzles, I enjoy researching things. ( yes I know I should get out more ). It can be very interesting and you never know where it will lead. Yes the family where delighted to have the bible back and it felt like I was returning a lost item to its rightful place.