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What's the craziest thing you've found inside an old piano?

I found a 1943 steel "wheat penny" in mine when I took the action out for a good cleaning.

While there, I found evidence of a few coffee or perhaps soda spills, a jolly rancher candy still in the wrapper and a crap tonne of dust bunnies.

Best,

My cat!!

Oh, not in an old piano. Just my Yamaha C7 that I play all the time.

Prescription psychoactive drugs, a string of pearls, and a silver dollar are ones I remember.

Money hidden for a childs' birthday present, then forgotten - Two large bags of potato chips (stale unfortunately) - a pet boa.

A broken dining room chair

An iphone. (The customer had previously search the house top to bottom and concluded it had been stolen.)

A tv remote (amongst other junk)

Although I wasn't there at the moment of discovery, the grandchildren told me that their grandmother used the upright piano as a safe. It was stuffed with gobs of cash. The tip off was that the piano made weird sounds when the keys were played. They investigated and uncovered a college education (almost).

Pwg

A large bong with a bag of appropriate smoking material. A skin off a snake that choose to shed it in the piano. A venomous spider, that bit me. Mice, Rats, Roaches, DVD's, hair brushes, cards, bills, pictures, an envelope containing cash, and rarely, a tool that I left behind last time I tuned it.

I don't like spiders and snakes...!

Macaroni, lots and lots of macaroni under the keys that a mouse had stored there. Same thing with dog food with another piano.Lots of coins that smaller kids just have to put in the "slot" between keys. Plenty of small toys and board game pieces. And then there was a bottle of nail polish. For some reason that one always sticks in my mind.

Yeah, I had the dog food thing too a couple of times. Forgot about that.

Pwg

Entire family of mice skeletons-- papa mouse, mamma mouse, and all the babies...Group suicide? Or, perhaps someone played F5 too hard? Co-workers wife was walking through the used piano showroom- I showed her...Why do women get so squeamish anyway?

I too had one completely stuffed with dog food- so much you couldn't play the keys (the owner- again a woman- was horrified when I lifted the keys)...That was here in Maine- the mice have to stock up for the long winters

A few neat things at times-- such as back when I first started...My employer put me in the storage sheds (where all the oooold uprights were stored for sale to those who couldn't afford the used showroom pianos)...That summer (no windows, no a/c and 95 degrees; was just north of DC), I reconditioned so many of those...Anyway, one of my first finds was campaign buttons of Franklin Roosevelt when he ran for governor, of Teddy Roosevelt, and Harry Truman-- quite a little collection (I still have today)...

FDR, Teddy, Harry. Did you vote for all three?

Today I found a dead goldfish in a piano.

I once had a small Knabe upright and there was so much junk that had been set on the fallboard and then, when the fallboard was opened, the stuff on it magically disappeared. The family had a small kid that evidentially played this game over and over. There were paint brushes, crayons, pencils, pens, coins, a toothbrush, various toys, etc. Probably about a bucket full of trash.

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa will finally show up!

Sounds like a fishy story to me
Ian

Imagine finding a live one!

There was a newspaper blurb a few years back reporting that someone saw a live skunk crossing the road by the courthouse. (Yes, that makes the news out this way.) Now, if it had been a dead skunk crossing the road...

I found silver coins,Indian head pennies,all kinds of junk.Found a tiny brass barrel,leather covered,that unscrewed and had 2 tiny dice inside,about 1/4 inch wide.How it got under the keyboard,I have no idea..