Life’s full of hidden treasure! Oh, sure, that phrase works metaphorically, too, but we’re being quite literal here. If you’re curious about the world and live for the unexpected, then Bored Panda’s got a treat for you. We’ve collected some of the best photos of interesting finds that people were astonished to discover. So go on, check them out! And though far from everything glitters like gold, you’re likely to admit that most of these finds are valuable in their own right.
Remember to upvote the photos that you loved the most, dear Pandas! Got any interesting finds to share with us? Drop us a comment or a photo in the comment section at the very bottom of this list. And if you’re in the mood for some more unexpectedly awesome finds, check out our most recent earlier posts here, here, as well as here.
While we can find many unexpected things by accident, it’s also important to stay curious as we continue growing older. And that goes for all things in life, not just amateur archeology. After all, keeping that energetic spark alive makes our lives have far more quality. One thing that we value is people keeping their childlike curiosity burning bright no matter how old they might get.
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My Husband Passed Away 2 Weeks Ago And In The Garage Behind A Piece Of Paper Hanging On The Wall I Found This
In the months before his passing he was unable to talk due to his brain cancer, so finding this note from him meant the world to me and is something I will cherish forever. We were married for 24 years.
I Found A Baby Albino Oak In My Garden Some Years Ago And Realized That Plants Can Be Albinos Too, But They Do Not Live Long Since They Cannot Photosynthesize
While Tearing Up Their Carpet, My In-Laws Found A Giant Monopoly Board
Time to make some giant sized Monopoly pieces, cards and giant dice, and have a game night! And this time, nobody can flip the board!
When we stare at everything with wonder and can’t wait (!) to find or learn something new, even the biggest problems lose their sting. Instead, they’re but challenges. Challenges that you’re already thinking about how to overcome. But our modern schooling system might not be the best way to keep this sense of curiosity because it tends to take independence away from kids instead of driving them to be self-sufficient learners and daring explorers.
In a previous interview with Bored Panda, the president of the nonprofit organization Let Grow, Lenore Skenazy, shared with us that modern schooling goes against the grain when it comes to how learning and teaching happened through much of human history.
It's A Little Unnerving When You Wake Up In The Morning And Find These Right Outside Your Tent
Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska.
Splitting Firewood And Found A Piece Resembling The Sky In "The Starry Night"
387-Year-Old Shopping List Found Under The Floorboards Of A London Home
The full text reads:
"Mr Bilby, I pray p[ro]vide to be sent too morrow in ye Cart some Greenfish, The Lights from my Lady Cranfeild[es] Cham[ber] 2 dozen of Pewter spoon[es]: one greate fireshovell for ye nursery; and ye o[t]hers which were sent to be exchanged for some of a better fashion, a new frying pan together with a note of ye prises of such Commoditie for ye rest.
Your loving friend
Robert Draper
Octobre 1633
Copthall"
Wow! That is remarkable piece of history. It really made me think about our shared humanity and the progression of humans throughout the ages. Thank you for sharing.
“In the United States, for instance, school only became compulsory a little over 100 years ago. Previously—for hundreds of thousands of years of human history—kids learned simply by watching, copying, helping, and playing. In other words, they’d hang around the adults, see how they made things like baskets and arrowheads, they’d ask questions, noodle around, and try to copy what their elders were doing,” Lenore explained.
According to Lenore, kids would pitch in and help their families and communities as soon as they were able to. “They’d help out as soon as they could—fetching things, tracking animals, whatever—and in between they’d be playing with a group of mixed-age kids. All these activities were fueled by curiosity.”
This Silver Pendant I Found Metal Detecting Is Dated 227 Years Ago Today
Found A Stargate In The Middle Of Nowhere Near Linz, Austria
That's... not really a discovery. That's being on holiday without reading the tourist guide. "I found this really great church in Barcelona, build by some Antonio Godot or something!"
The building process: https://a-b-m-m.jimdofree.com/galerie/stargate/
Now THAT'S what I call COOL!!! Somebody get Dr. Jackson over here asap!!
If you have a good power source you can dial out manually (The Torment of Tantalus, S1 E10).
Load More Replies...That’s dope. I’m pretty unfamiliar with the franchise but what I’ve seen I liked. Really cool.
If you're into sci-fi you definitely need to look it up. SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis are two of the best shows ever.
Load More Replies...According to the Googlez, it's by this gent: https://a-b-m-m.jimdofree.com/galerie/stargate/
This Swirly Dandelion I Found
That grew in the dark. The stem is pale and the circular growth is the plant trying to find light
“You were motivated to learn what the bigger kids in your group knew, too, because they were so cool. Your entire day consisted of observing and practicing the stuff you needed to know— skills and games. If you weren’t curious, you weren’t going to enjoy life, or succeed at it,” Lenore said that curiosity really was (and, in truth, still is) more important than we give it credit for.
“One reason kids might seem less curious today is because most of their education, inside and outside of school, doesn’t require self-motivation, it requires compliance. The drive is extrinsic, not intrinsic. Kids fill out worksheets because they have to, not because these seem interesting, or have any immediate connection to the ‘real’ world,” the expert noted that obedience alone won’t raise people who are full of the joys of discovery.
Found A Starfish In One Of My Mussels
While Hiking An Isolated Jungle Trail In The Amazon, We Came Across This Post Marking The Equator
Osperlioceras Bicarinatum Golden Pyrite. Found In France
Meanwhile, extracurricular activities also appear to have fallen prey to the demands for compliance instead of encouraging kids to be curious. “Learning soccer means doing the drills the coach assigns, as opposed to tagging along with the older kids and working hard to get good enough so that they’d start letting you play. The key to curiosity, then, is giving kids enough free, unstructured time for them to find something they love to do for its own sake—not for a grade, or coach.”
In other words, we need to uncover in ourselves an inner drive to go out into the world and learn and find new and fascinating things. Some of which we’ll be more than happy to share with all the Pandas on the internet.
I Found A Misprinted Penny (Front And Back)
Perfectly Round Rock I Found At The Beach
Picasso Pebble
I Found A Cyclops Moth And It Was Huge. Bigger Than Half My Hand
We Were Digging Up Virgin Ground For A Garden And As I Was Tilling, We Found A Class Ring From 1954-1955
It only had initials and the school was closed, took me 3 months to find the owner's daughter and was happy to reunite it with her family.
That is very touching. How kind of you to go to all the effort to find who it originally belong to, and how much it meant to her daughter. You're a wonderfully nice person. Kindness. Pay it forward.
This Tree I Found Grows Into Itself
10-Carat Australian Sapphire I Found In A Creek
I Found This Gravestone For Someone's Beloved Dog In A Wooded Area Just Outside An Old Cemetary
How do they know it's a dog? Could be a cat, fish, kid, velociraptor, etc.
Frozen Flower I Found In Austin During The Texas Winter Storm
Look At This Crazy Icicle I Found This Morning (There Is A Small Hole In The Metal Handrail)
Found A Steam Room And Hot Tub In My Basement, Behind A Wall During Demo
This Morning I Found A Young Frog That Still Had Its Tail
Sweet little thing, amazing how nature makes things so independent so young and so vulnerable.
We Tore Up Some Carpeting In Our House Expecting Concrete But Instead Found This 70’s Masterpiece
Found A Perfect Salt Crystal In My Sea Salt Packet
My Uncle Found A Bag Of Volcano Ash From Mount St. Helens With A Note Tucked In The Back Of One Of His Cupboards
Found Original Homeowner In The Walls Of A Teardown
Found This Very Old Holy Bible In My Parents' Garage. Dated 1881. Thought Maybe You Guys Might Find It Interesting As Well
35 Rings Found On The Beach
Digging Through Old Boxes At 4am And Found A 200+ Page Novel That I Hand Wrote In 2009 When I Was 12 Years Old
Black Mist Chronicles sounds very interesting. revise and publish now!
Ordered Fried Oysters From A Takeout Restaurant And Found A Pearl In One
Found This Fish Was Frozen In Piece Of Ice, Texas 2021
Found This Arrowhead While Digging A Hole In My Backyard
A Wall Was Removed In A Victorian House We Are Working At Which Revealed An Old Cast Iron Fireplace
Our Dog Found A Pacifier
My Mom And Uncle Found An USAF Target Drone On The Beach
I Found A Miniature Telephone Box On The Street
I Found This Print From Where A Gray Wolf Slept In The Snow. You Can Even See Her Ribs
It's doing that optical illusion thing to me, where it looks like it's popping out instead of indented
This Fossilized Imprint Of A Fern I Found In North Dakota
Found An Edge Piece In My Bag Of Goldfish
My Dad Found This Old Pamphlet Advertising Tourism To The World Trade Centre
I Found A Book Autographed By Bill Nye At The Thrift Store
I found a copy of Salem’s Lot signed by Stephen King at a charity store. Bought it and took it home of course. It’s signed to a girl named Karen…
Found A Nice Honeycomb Amber Brooch Today. Amber Is Quite Hard To Find, Such An Interesting Material
Look How Large This Tree Frog I Found Is
This Brooch I Found While Metal Detecting
A Humpback Whale Jaw I Found This Weekend In New England
This Piece Of Wall That Got Rounded By The Sea
Bought A Vintage Stove And Found A Newspaper From 1954 In It
This Old Color Pencil Box After Termites Ate All The Wood
This 129 Year Old Penny Came Out Of A Roll Today
Everyone in this thread who found pennies should give them to me for…inspection…purposes :)
I Found A 6-Headed Daffodil Growing In My Garden
Those arent daffodils per se, they are jonquils and they grow in wee bunches like this. I have these bulbs in my garden (i prefer the more pale ones in the background, great scent!)
This Rock I Found Has A Shell Inside It And It’s Been Worn Away To A Flat Spiral In Appearance
Found A Little Piece Of History During A Hike In France: A Roman Shoe Nail
I Present Today's Seaglass Findings From A Stormy Day In The Cove. Cape Breton Island, NS, Canada
I Found My Great Great Grandfather's WW1 Medals The Other Day
My Grandmother Lived Through WWII In Her Teenage Years, And She Found One Of Her Issues Of Life Magazine From 1941
I Found These Stacked In A Secret Drawer Left In My 1885 House
While Renovating An Office In DC, I Found A Stack Of Uncashed Checks Dated July-August 1910
Jack Miner Was A Hero Of Conservation Who Passed Away In 1944. I Found One Of His Bird Bands Today On The Shore Of Lake Erie In Ohio
Minutes before I picked up what I thought was a shell but turned out to be a piece of plastic. Years of picking up crap on the ground has finally paid off
Found A Grenade In The Garden, Had A Visit From The Army Bomb Disposal Unit
I found one as well. Didn't know what it was so tried breaking it open with a hammer. It was a training one. Luckily.
Removed A Wall Fixture That Came With The House To Repaint The Wall And Realized This Room Used To Be This Exact Color. Old Color In The Middle, New Paint On Left Edge
The room clearly knows what color it wants to be, and, dammit, it will get you to paint it correctly one way or another. =)
This Snake Sword In A Cane I Found On My Walk Today
These Vintage Items I Found In A Mouse Nest In My Wall
You obviously had a very thirsty, curly haired mouse who played marbles and suffered from headaches.
Small Starfish With Four Arms Instead Of Five
I Found An Original 1985 Back To The Future Skateboard At The Back Of My Parents' Shed Today. Shame About The Condition But Still Great
I Just Found A Marriage Certificate From 1841 In My House In The Attic
Toutes mes félicitations ! (Mieux vaut tard que jamais...lol)
Found This Tiny Mushroom Growing Out Of A Sweet Gum Ball
Telegram Abbreviations Found In My Great Grandpa’s Notebook
We Found A Little Bat In The House
An 18 Karat Gold Ring I Found At My Late Grandmother's House - No Idea Anything About It. But A Beautiful Ring So I Thought I Would Share
100 Years Ago Someone Lost Their Coin Purse
I Found A 5 Leaf Clover
Some Old Russian Pepsi That I Found
Found A Rock That Looks Like An Alligator
Found An Ancient Ruin On A Hike
I Found This Heart-Shaped River Rock Today
This Weird Lemon That Grew On Our Lemon Tree
🎶I wonder how I wonder why, yesterday you told me bout the blue blue sky....but all that I can see, is a freaky lemon from the tree 🎶
This Praying Mantis Exoskeleton I Found Stuck To The Side Of My Car
I Found A "Treasure" From The 90s In A Garage
I'm Redoing My Kitchen And The Old Owners Put A Wall Over An Exterior Door
WW2 Badge Found In Ocean
This Deteriorating Combination Lock I Found At The Beach
This Old Skeleton Key I Found With My Metal Detector
I Found An Old Whiskey Jar With A Fern Growing In It On A Walk Out In The Woods Today
I Found An Old Newspaper From 1934 Under The Floorboards Of My London House
The Daily Express are probably reprinting many of those stories today, given how they seem to work now...
In The Process Of Demolishing The Bathroom Of Our Newly-Bought House And This Message Was Behind The Mirror
The Underpayment Used Last Time My Floor Was Replaced
The Allies smashed at Nazis, but I prefer to follow the exploits of SUPERMAN!
I Found This Bee With My Metal Detector
Old Bottle From Ruehl Bros. Brewery In Chicago I Found Behind A Wall During Our Demo In Our Master Bedroom. According To Google, Brewery Existed From 1915-1926
Man Finds An Enormous Moth. About The Size Of A Rat At A School Construction Site In Australia
Renovating My 101-Year-Old House And Found This Behind The Drywall
This Bone I Found On A Walk
Found My Old Cell Phone With Optional Clip-On Chatboard For "Easy" Texting
This doesn't compute in my head. I remember cell phones like that, but I don't remember texting being a thing until 5-10 years later. Was this an updated add-on?
Found A Wheelchair In A Cave While Visiting Tennessee
I Found A Metal Bat Symbol In My Yard
This Beautiful Salt Crystal That Formed Inside My Instant Ramen's Sauce Packet
This Really Tiny Arrowhead My Dad Found A While Back
I Found The Fibonacci Sequence Under Carpet Tiles At Work
I don't know which is more impressive: that someone drew it, that others left it there, or that you recognised what it was!
Found A Bible In An Antique Store. When Opened, It Flipped To Antique Pressed 4 Leaf Clovers
I feel like something special happened the moment that person put the clovers there. Just some reason that made them do it.
Sea Urchin Skeleton I Found At The Beach
Old Submarine I Stumbled Upon Outside Stockholm, Sweden
Got A Roof Inspection, They Found A Bullet In My Shingles. My House Is In A Highly Populated Suburban Area. It’s Right Above Our Master Bedroom
A Shard Of Porcelain I Found Diving On A Wreck
Beautiful, I love these even the small pieces, you find loads in gardens of old houses, the older houses, the more pieces.
I Found A Teeny Tiny Conch Shell In My Pack Of Decorative Rocks
Found 25 $2 Bills While Cleaning My Closet
Found A Penny From 1864 When Cleaning Out My Wood Stove
This Nike That We Found While Hiking
I Found This Rock On A Beach, With A Hole In It, With A Star Inside The Hole
Found A Baby Snapping Turtle Walking Across My Driveway
I Found This Rock With A Perfect Hole In It
This Big Old Padlock I Found At Work
Found Sea Shell In My Sea Salt
This Friggin Huge Strawberry I Found Today
This Rock I Found Looks Like A Speech Bubble
I Found A Paystub From 1948 Being Used As A Bookmark In A Cookbook
50 dollars in 194? for 31 hours of work. That is almost $700 today. Not bad. This is why you Unionize.
Mom Cleaned Out Her Pantry Cabinet And Found Four Generations Of Wyler’s Beef Cubes. Oldest One Expired 2/14/1989
Original Dr Pepper That Was Buried In The Garden, The Soda Turned Clear
The soda probably dripped out and the bottle later filled up with rainwater is my guess...
While Cleaning Out The Storage Room At My New Job Today, I Found A Newspaper From 1893
Found A Stingray Barb While At Work
Found A Skull In The Forest
Found A Mutated Daisy
I Found A Nickel That Is 116 Years Old
Found A Pay Phone Today. Haven't Seen One Since I Was A Kid
This Perfectly Cylinder Shaped Rock I Found At A Local Beach
My Dog Found A Badger Skull In The Garden
Came Upon A Christmas Tree While Walking In The Forest
Moved A Pot And Found A Slug Laying Eggs
I Found My Dad’s 7th Grade Report Card From 1948
That's some serious improvement from 7 weeks to the next two terms.
My Father Found These Old USSR Military Hats That His Grandfather Gave Him When He Went To Russia Right At The Time Of The USSR's Collapse
Found An Old Key While Renovating My 100-Year-Old House
Now you can access the tiny hidden door behind the furnace! Bwaahaaahaaa
Today I Found A Tiny Shell In My Sea Salt
Found A Pearl In My Oyster
This Boot I Found In The Woods Is Covered In Moss
Found These Mcdonalds Gift Certificates From 2001 (Top) And 1998 (Bottom) While Cleaning My Room
I Found A Burger King Kids Club Cup From 1996
I Found A Toilet Seat Guitar At A Pawn Shop
Found A Cheez-It Family Today
1977 McDonald's Christmas Trash Found In The Wall Of Our House
This Fully Intact Pepsi Bottle From The 1930s I Found While Bottle Digging Today
Found This Battery At The Beach That Collected Minerals And Debris At The Ends
I'm not sure I'd handle that with my bare hands. That looks like substantial corrosion to me.
Found The Can On The Left Today Where I Live On The Beach. Found Online That This Design Is From 1959
Found This McDonald's Cup In The Ice I Was Skating On
Sorry to say I don't think this is very uncommon. It's called pollution.
I actually found a shell with my friend's name on it, then I gave it to my friend. One of my coolest finds ever.
I actually found a shell with my friend's name on it, then I gave it to my friend. One of my coolest finds ever.