LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — You never know what you might find when you’re cleaning out a family members home.
That’s what one family in Lansing found out first hand this past weekend.
In the process of cleaning out a family member’s home, Melony Atwood and her sister found what she believed was a live ammunition round and they called the Lansing Police Department.
“She said exactly something we couldn’t say on TV,” Melody Atwood joked about her sister’s reaction when she found the item.
Atwood says she could not believe what she and her family were looking at.
“We were checking out the closet to see how much we had to unload from there and lo and behold she found a torpedo,” Atwood said.
The Michigan Sate Police Bomb Squad team then came in and conducted an X-ray, and figured out the the round was not live.
After taking a further look, the bomb squad figured out that this was a WW1 round that had a hidden treasure of coins and bills ranging from the 1800’s-1900’s.
“It was a torpedo that had been apparently cleaned out and it was stuffed with dollars and lots of change,”
“There’s some old money there,” Atwood said. “There’s wheat pennies, there’s silver certificates.” Some of the coins were from the late 1800s and some of the bills were from the 1920s.”
The bomb squad took the non-live round and the treasure was left for the family.
Atwood says she’s not going to keep the money, it belongs to her aunt. But they’re going to see how much it’s worth.
As for the torpedo, it made for one odd piggy bank.
“(Michigan State Police) kept it,” Atwood laughed. “It’s not something you can have in your possession. So they were surprised we had it to begin with.”
