Gun Found During Home Renovation

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federali

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If anyone watches "Good Bones," they were doing a whole house rip out to the studs when a worker found a rusted top-break revolver wrapped in a bandana hankie, tucked inside the attic. It appeared to have gooda-percha grips and was either an S&W or an H&R. They called a police officer and after a serial number check, determined that the gun had not been reported stolen.

It reminds me of a good friend of mine who purchased a home built in the 1930s and who possessed a local handgun license. More than 20 years after moving in, he is re-insulating his attic when he found a Model 1911 buried in the insulation. Of course, he kept the gun and took it with him when he moved to another state.

Some people are plain lucky. I have yet to find a gun under any conditions.
 
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My moms family had a generational house in the Bronx. My great uncle(maybe more greats) was a WW1 veteran. I was a kid when the place was sold and cleared out he had all sort of war and army mementos (I still have a few, my cousins got the rest).

Anyhow, the story was he brought home his pistol from the war but it was hard to get a license for it. He hung it on a nail off a rafter then covered the rafters with something like homeasote.

I was to young to try to find it and my family wasnt going to let a kid rip apart the place...

I used to dream of getting a metal detector and... well, anyway.

I wonder if the new owner ever found it or knew it was there.

I guess it does happen
 
Sorta of "found" one of the long barreled single shot Stevens pistols
Going thru late hubyy's shop. Found it on the floor behind his desk.
Sad part was there had been water on the floor in there years ago
so not in the best of shape. Did find a happy buyer for it tho.
 
Back when I was a kid, I was helping my father on a side job (he was a stone mason) repairing a chimney in an old house a young couple had just purchased.

Poking around, I found a Stevens 16ga double, and a Marlin .22 bolt action wrapped in newspaper, under some insulation between the rafters. They were in good shape.

My dad, being an honest sort, contacted the people, and asked if they belonged to them. They didn't. Being concerned for their wellbeing, he offered to "get rid" of them. They agreed.

I used that 16ga for grouse hunting a local farm, and many years later gifted the .22 to a kid from a poor family here in PA who wanted to take up hunting. Worked out all around, as the folks who had just bought that house in CT were NYC transplants, and did not want anything to do with guns.

Larry
 
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My best friend was doing Lead Abatement, and found a WWII style "Pineapple" hand grenade, when they pulled a base board in an old house. He was in the National Guard at the time and took it to the "Amnesty Box" at the regional Depot. The UXB guy walks up to him and in honest curiosity asks, "Where'd you get a 60 year old grenade?" so much for being anonymous! (close circuit cameras) Nothing official but it costs a bunch to roll out a bomb squad! and they don't like old ordinance turning up!

Ivan
 
Back in my teen years, I had a friend whose dad was sort of a Jack-of-All-Trades. He once demolished a house or maybe a building of some kind. He found a Walther Olympia .22 target pistol hidden somewhere in it. It wasn't in the best condition but we shot it a lot.
 
About 25 years ago one of my friends died. I was helping his wife and son go through his work bench and put away the guns that were sitting there. Underneath the bench was a GI ammo can. Inside were several M2 Carbine conversion kits. The son said that his dad was waiting for the next amnesty. I suggested that the parts go swimming off the pier in Santa Cruz.
 
I hunt deer with a model 94 in 32 caliber. It has the old Lyman reciever mounted peep sight. This rifle was discovered by afriend of mine who was deconstructing an old house for the lumber. This rifle and a Remington Rand 45 acp were found in a false wall at the back of a closet. They had been there for some time. Moisture had never gotten to them and they were in good shape, all things considered. He brought me the rifle and asked me what it was worth, I told him what I would give him for it. He handed me the rifle. It had obviously been somebody's deer gun.
So I bought dies, brass and bullets and put it back in service. He didn't ask me about the 1911, he kept that.
 
I have a friend who's a real estate agent. He has SEVEN guns that were GIVEN to him by widows selling their house, who discovered them after their husband died. Typically, they would ask him if it were loaded. When he checked, and confirmed that they were, and asked what did they want to do they tell him - "Just take it, get it out of the house".

Had me thinking about going into real estate there for a minute! :D
 
I have a friend that for years kept his FFL dealer's license because he was on a rotating list kept by the local Goodwill. They cannot receive any firearms and often people will donate quite literally everything in the house, according to what I remember him telling me was that he would get a call from Goodwill when it was his turn on the list. He would tell the boss he was sick and take off, leaving a smoking trail. He got lucky a few times but more often than not it was some old stinker nobody was interested in. I picked up on one of them, a starter .22 Remington model "cheap" for my son, he still has it.
 
I have an inoperable Colt DA .41 that I found in an old tackle box when I was cleaning out my mother's house. I think it was originally nickel plated but it's so badly pitted and gummed up it's hard to tell. I have no idea if it could be resurrected or not. I suspect the ancient bass lures it was found with may be worth something....
 
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Not a house demolition find, but one of my wife's friends (a widow in her 80s) called me last week about a couple of old guns she had in her attic that had been her husband's. She knew nothing else. I went over to see them and they were a couple of old 12 gauge Belgian-made doubles with visible hammers. One had Damascus barrels, both were in shoddy wall hanger condition. But surprisingly they were from the same maker (Janssen & Sons) even though not identical. They might be worth $100 each to someone as decorator items. Anyway, she didn't want them. I told her I'd take them to the next gun show and sell them for whatever I could get for her. Too bad they couldn't have been Winchester 21s, Purdeys, or Holland and Hollands.
 
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I have a friend who's a real estate agent. He has SEVEN guns that were GIVEN to him by widows selling their house
Click to expand...

All of the years that I was in real estate I never was so lucky. I did however have a stretch when Massachusetts adopted its 1 year mandatory jail sentence for anyone caught with a gun without a license. My first wife and I were renting a garage from a widowed neighbor lady and when she found out I was into guns she gave me several that her husband had kicking around including and old BB gun. Since she visited the local senior center to spend time with her girlfriends, several of the other ladies contacted me with guns that they wished to get rid of. On another occasion one of my wife's friends husband had been in the National Guard and he had a 1917 Eddystone that was used in parades and he no longer wanted it.

None of the above were anything special, bolt action 22's from the widows but I'm just a caretaker anyway. Saved them from the dumpster or local police station. ;)
 
About 40 years ago I bought a 1890's era house, gutted it and renovated it with new floor plan and updated electrical/plumbing/windows/etc. Big job that required many months of work and cost way more than I could have predicted. In the attic I found a newspaper-wrapped bundle that contained a US Springfield Trapdoor rifle in very good condition! Still shooting it regularly.

About 1968 I was working nights in a gas station. People came in frequently with items to sell, frequently for the cost of a tank of gas (typically $4 or $5, back in the day). Bought a toolbox from a young man which, in one drawer, contained a 1903 Colt .32 pistol, wrapped in oily rags, well used but functional. Had a local cop check the serial number, but no stolen reports. Wish I still had it!

About 1983 I was working through an old house while living in it. Pulled up carpet in a bedroom closet, found 40 US silver dollars from the 1880's to 1920's. Also found an old life insurance policy rolled up and hidden behind a light fixture (why hide an insurance policy, unless hubby didn't know?), and a very nice ivory-handled antique straight razor hidden behind a toilet.

Was hunting in a National Forest once, years ago, and found an old tumble-down cabin. Stopped to make some lunch, pulled several stones out of the old fireplace, out dropped two US $5 gold coins (1880's). Spent most of the day looking for more, but found nothing else.

Knew a guy who purchased a car at a police impound auction. Several months later he got busted when several kilos of dope were found under the back seat! DA decided not to prosecute, but it was a difficult time for the guy, who was definitely not a doper!

No telling what we might find, here or there.
 
...no guns found...

...my wife did find a $900 wrist watch on a beach in California once though...
 
A number of years ago, a friend was remodeling his home and found a budget Italian over-under 12ga. behind a wall.

He gave it to me to try to sell at the club to which I belonged, but nobody was interested in a less than $10,000 non-trap gun, so it sat around in my apartment until he died recently. His wife gave it to me, since she had no use for it. I don't either, but it's a memento from a friend, so I'll hang onto it for the foreseeable future.
 
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When I bought my first house I found a old Daisy BB gun. It was covered with grease and grime, I cleaned it up and it still worked. Several years later I was remodleing the bathroom, in the wall I found a old Boston Braves baseball card in good shape.

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
 
I was living in an apartment building with a first floor parking garage that was open to the street in post Katrina New Orleans.

It was not unusual to find all sorts of interesting things stashed there. I think most of it was probably concealed to pick up later when the police were not watching.

One morning I went out to my car only to find a camera bag chocked full of expensive commercial photography equipment. I went through the baq to find a stack of business cards of a local photographer.

I called the guy to tell him what I had found and requested a meeting so I could return his stuff. This guy kicks into a third degree, rapid fire questioning of me. After he accused me of stealing his stuff he insinuated that I was holding it for ransom!

I let him know how disappointed I was in his family ancestry and the horse he rode in on. I told him that his stuff might still be behind the bush at an intersection a block from my residence and after he picked it up.....he could.....Well, in all of this excitement I overlooked the fact that I called him on my cellphone and that he had my phone number now, dang it.

I covered the location until his car pulled up and he jumped out with a pistol in hand. He went directly to the bush and retrieved his camera bag.
He never even called to thank me.

No good deed goes unpunished.
 
Similiar situation:
We had a dumpster behind our business facility and I went out one morning to dump our trash and saw there was a wallet laying on the bottom. I managed to retrieve the wallet and found a females ID along with some cash and all her personal ID's. I called her on the phone and told her where to come to retrieve it. When she showed up I handed her the wallet and she turned and left without so much as a thank you!
Jim
 
Last summer I found a cell phone near the Block Island Ferry, the phone rang a few times every few minutes it would ring a few times, finally a young girl came and grabbed the phone and ran off without a thank you, I should have tossed it in the water.

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
 
I once had a mailman tell me about the strange things found in free-standing street corner mail boxes. Wallets, jewelry, keys, purses, articles of clothing, fruit, garbage, drugs, about anything you can think of that would fit. I imagine cell phones being found there today might not be too unusual.
 
Once many years ago when I was about 12 a friend and I were rummaging around under a creek bridge. People had used the area for dumping. We saw what we thought were old bed rails sticking out of a burlap bag. It was two 1895 Winchester 10 gauge lever action shot guns and two Winchester model 1906 .22s. there were a lot of personal papers including a marriage license. It was stolen goods from an old gun smith in town.

Being the good kids we were we took it all back to him. He was so appreciative he gave us a box of .410 shells to split.

Now every time I see one of those old lever action shotguns I think about that.
 
My mother found a S&W jframe between a mattress and box spring in one of the rooms at the motel she owned. It was no telling how long it had been there. She called a friend who was a local cop and he came and picked it up.
 
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Salty RI said:
When I bought my first house I found a old Daisy BB gun. It was covered with grease and grime, I cleaned it up and it still worked. Several years later I was remodleing the bathroom, in the wall I found a old Boston Braves baseball card in good shape.

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

...you reminded me that I too found a Daisy BB gun...sticking out of a trash can on a job site...and it still works...
 
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