Buried Treasure in Toronto

[androiduk]

Everybody loves a good buried treasure story and this thread is just about that. I'll start it off.

It was the late '60's and I was a kid working part time at a variety store on Roncesvalles. All around the interior walls of the store behind the counters were cupboards with sliding doors for holding extra stock. One day I was getting some stock to refill the displays when I noticed one of the floorboards inside the cupboard was loose. I slowly lifted it up and there it was, stacks and stacks of silver dollars as far as you could see. It turned out the entire perimeter of the store contained thousands & thousands of these silver dollars. I guess the original owner of the store hid them there and then died without telling anyone. What did I get for telling the owner of the store? Three silver dollars and a pat on the head.

 

[BobBob]

Nice! Did the owner get rich?

Last year I helped friends demolish (ahead of renovating) interior walls of an old worker's cottage near River St. Inside the walls we found all sorts of garbage that the original builders must have dumped in there during construction: empty cigarette packs, old pop bottles, food wrappers... all from the 40s and 50s. Nothing of "value", but it was pretty neat to see!

 

[androiduk]

^ I'm sure it changed his life. Even though the stuff you find doesn't have a lot of value, it's still thrilling to find it.

 

[voxpopulicosmicum]

A friend of mine recently bought and reno'd an estate-sale house in the Junction. The previous owner had died in the house after his family had lived there for over 70 years. At various intervals of the reno work, they found a box of cash (over $1000) as well as some old (1920s) rare currency and a pistol.

 

[androiduk]

It's been awhile since posting in this thread but here is a new addition. I found this letter in a book I bought about 15 years ago at a Sally Ann. The author was obviously a person of some stature but as yet I can't figure out who it is. Any sleuths out there want to take a crack at it?

 

[OttoSchloss]

You should have killed the store owner, collected the silver dollars and put his body under the floorboards for the next employee to discover.

 

[androiduk]

^ Now you tell me. Unfortunately I was only 12 years old and my homicidal tendencies hadn't fully developed yet.

 

[vic]

Raise your hand if you put your own treasures into walls etc. when doing any kind of renovations.

I like finding stuff, so I try to leave notes or objects for others (or myself) to discover.