Not the best thing I'd ever found, but one of the more useful
As a lad, we lived near a lot of Army training ranges, so we got quite used to finding odds and sods of abandoned/misplaced kit. The unused Thunderflash my brother found was a shining example of our pikeyness regarding forces kit, but one day I found a mortar bomb.
Now, it was an old one and only an illumination mortar, but it was made for a 2 inch mortar and was thus worth much bragging rights at school.
Anyhoo, fast-forward some years and there's a member of the local plod knocking on the door. They're evacuating the entire street as the old duffer up the road had found an unexploded bomb in his garden. Mum start getting coats for us kids and shifting us out when I asked the copper 'what's it look like?'
'Well, it's about a foot long, two inches wide - like a cylinder with six fins.'
'Hang on a minute' I reply while running up the stairs.
I come back down with aforementioned mortar and ask 'One of these?'
The copper, somewhat surprised to be confronted with said munition replies 'That's it!'
I told him what it was and to have a look if the cap was missing (which it was) and when the bomb squad turn up, the copper is there, mortar in hand and a laid-back air:
'S all right, lads, just an old mortar.'
Saved the whole street from being evacuated.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sun 9 Nov 2008, 17:13, Reply)