Old Jones Desk

This is Marcia's old desk that we are preparing to give to David and Becca. We've cleaned it up, sanded it, and primed it for final painting.  Becca wants to finish it off with her choice of color/colors.

So, Dave. I took these pictures to let you know how it looks now. We will hold on to it until you are ready to take possession.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

The drawer handles are in the top right hand drawer. The were painted a gold color. I haven't cleaned these. You may want to paint them some contrasting color. Your choice. I also stuck a wood screw in one of the holes in each of the top drawers so you can open these. After you take out the top drawer, you can push open the next drawer down to open and remove.

Dos Pesos

When we got married in 1973, a friend gave us two dos pesos gold coins from Mexico. The coins were 1/2 inch in diameter compared to the US cent's 3/4 inch diameter. So, they are a very small coin. They had been sitting around doing nothing ever since. We are cleaning out and getting lean, so Marcia suggested we see what they were worth.  We took them to a coin dealer in Greenville, and he gave us $120 for the pair. Gold is $1767 an ounce right now. In 1973 it was $100 an ounce. In 1973 these coins were worth about $3 each. If we could only set the Way-Back Machine and go back and buy up a bunch of these little coins.

AK-47 Bullet

I found it. This AK-47 bullet had been lost in my stuff for years. I picked up this bullet when I was in Vietnam in 1969. I worked in surgery in the 93rd Evac Hospital. We had some poor soldier who had caught a round in his left knee. We were prepping him for surgery (he was asleep) and when the doc bent the soldier's knee, the bullet just slid right out. I got it and stuck it in my pocket. I had wondered all these years whether this was actually a M-14 round or AK-47. Both are .30 caliber rounds, but the M-14 has 6 lands and grooves while the AK-47 has 4 lands and grooves. This bullet has 4, so it is an AK-47 round. It is magnetic, so it has a steel core. The tip of the bullet has been deformed. I'm guessing that that is from hitting the knee. Anyhow, this is my war souvenir.

M-14 round is 7.62 mm x 51.  AK-47 round is 7.62 mm x 39.

M-14 vs AK-47

OOPS! Bad strike!

This is a quarter we ran across a while back. It is copper on the heads side and cupronickel on the tails side. Cupronickel is 75% copper, 25% nickel, and a trace amount of manganese. That is the silvery part of our clad coins: dimes, quarters, and half dollars. Anyhow, this coin should not have made it into circulation.  It was a mis-strike. I had it checked out by a coin dealer, and he said that it was probably worth about 25 cents. Evidently, mistakes in the government aren't all that rare.