What's in Your Tackle Box?

An interesting thread on Joe's Board asked the question about the weirdest thing you've ever found in a tackle box. Having been collecting in Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin since the mid-1980s, during a time when a bad weekend of garage sales meant only three or four tackle boxes, we had our share of bizarre and strange items come from the bottom of tackle boxes.



After perusing a couple of dozen responses, there were both predictable and surprising results. Some of the more common items found include lots of knives. toiletry items such as toilet paper, ex-lax, and soap, and even the odd pistol or two. Money was also a common response, including a $5 gold coin, a Mexican gold coin, and an old metal shaving tin that was full of valuable circa-1850 coins. But there were certainly some more, how shall we say, uncommon items. From the Illegal Category we find a crack pipe, marijuana joint, and dynamtite blasting caps. From the Unexpected Category, we find a box of tampax, a set of false teeth, and strangely enough, an Ideal split shot tin full of a fisherman's teeth. From the Fake-Out category comes a two pound canvas bag marked .999 silver, unfortunately filled with lead sinkers, found by Dan Basore. From the Very Interesting category comes three Julis Schmid Inc. ca. 1931 condoms (unused). From the Oh My category comes naked pictures of a guy's wife and a roll of black-and-white film photos of women in swimsuits.

Of the two most interesting responses, the first came from Robbie Pavey, who found a bundle of love letters between a lady and the former owner of the tackle box. But the winner came from veteran collector Jay Chumley, who who found a "Dinosaur egg and other prehistoric animal artifacts along with early carved head and primitive tools."


Jay Chumley's Amazing Tackle Box Find

I have accumulated some of the more interesting items from tackle boxes past which I may dig out some day and tack on as an addendum to this post. But among the unusual items we have found include a vial of prescription drugs, a loaded .22 pistol, love letters, and a woman's two-piece swim suit (inside a 2PCB box for a musky tornado spinner).

Click on the original post at the above link for more oddball tackle box remainders, but remember the link will disappear within a few days.

-- Dr. Todd