I didn't get any photos, but yesterday we cleaned off the workbench in the old garage and dismantled it for transplant to the VAB. This was not super-eventful, but we did find a few odds and ends that were peculiar enough to warrant comment, including:

- One .30-'06 Springfield cartridge with jacketed soft-point bullet. This is not that unusual on its face, since .30-'06 is a popular hunting cartridge in these parts and JSP is a pretty common bullet format for that activity. The curious things about it are that a) it was just lying around on the bench in the garage, where Dad's never had any guns (and anyway he doesn't own a .30-'06 or do any hunting), and b) the headstamp says it was made by Sears.

Now, I don't know how long ago Sears, Roebuck & Co. last sold ammunition with its own brand name on the headstamp, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it was before I was born and long before Dad moved into that house.

- Two 2¾" 20-gauge shotgun shells. One is marked "1-6", which I think means it contains one ounce of number-6 shot. The markings on the other one are too worn to be made out.

This is not as weird as the .30-'06 round (Dad does at least own a 20-gauge shotgun), but it's still a little strange that they were in the garage.

As near as I can figure, all three of these cartridges must have been in with some stuff Dad brought to his own garage from his fathers when my grandparents moved out of their house in Oxbow. Gramp used to shoot out of one of the windows of his garage there, which had a view of a hillside out back of the house that made a good backstop, so he would've had ammo kicking around on that bench.

The fourth item baffled us both completely at first:

- A Finnish 50-penniä coin. These haven't been issued since sometime in the late '90s and have had no value since 2012, the 10th anniversary of Finland's conversion to the euro. Dad and I were both very confused by the presence of this coin until we remembered that he actually went to Finland circa 1990, to meet with some people at the company that was making some huge piece of equipment for the paper mill he worked in.

But that was years before he moved to that house, and anyway, what's it doing in the garage?

Strange things happen to your stuff when you live in a place long enough, y'all. I'm just sayin'.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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