An unlikely surprise in the box

Stamp collecting has a serious appeal to those of use who like to get into pack-rat mode and dig through boxes filled with thousands of little bits.  Or books filled with goodies.  You can always expect some non-stamp items to end up in those boxes as well.  Some of the things I can normally expect to find include:

- coins
- paper money

- postcards without stamps
- old letters (they were probably in envelopes once but are now loose)
- news clippings (usually about stamps)

These make sense.  In fact, I have several binders full of coins and paper money myself, and boxes of covers in bins under the bed.  These all go together as a historical grouping.

Some of the less common things I have found:

- coupon & savings book stamps
- hunting licenses, etc (ephemera)
- stickers
- rubber stamps
- rocks & pebbles
- dead bugs
- mouse droppings (sorry but it happens)
- old pharmacy labels
- cigar bands & labels
- liquor & drink labels (one time it was a collection of about 80 different kinds of ginger ale)
- microscope slides

I doubt the collector put most of these last things into the box.  Sometimes the stamps are only on the market because the owner is deceased, and I know when cleaning up an estate, you're not going to know where to put things.

One thing I have not seen until a few months ago ... firecrackers?  Really?  Here you go ...

I took out a few before I realized it would be an interesting thing to write a post about and took the photo.  There's one more way in the back right corner.  


Maybe someone told the collector that they might help keep the moisture levels down, or he just threw the things into the wrong box in the garage.  I don't know.  It was just a surprise dumping out some of the stamps from this bag and seeing that hazardous materials are involved.


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