My 78 year old grandmother's organizational system has never been great. Everything from clothes, photo albums, to canned food is mingled together in various closets throughout her sprawilng home. As wealthy as she is, her depression era upbringing conditioned her to never throw anything away.

I took it upon myself yesterday to attempt to organize one of her closets, and came across an interesting looking album marked 1985. I took a brief moment to look through the album, and realized I had just found something I had been searching for most of my life.

Towards the middle of the album, one page was titled:
Summer 1985: Flew down to Houston to visit Mary Sue (her sister) and pick up my new Mercedes.

She is describing the 500 SL I have now; a grey market import that came off the boat in Houston. I will scan in some of the pictures for everyone to see later. Its pretty amazing.

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

Cool! Can't wait to see em.

__________________
'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Cool! My love of diesel (and Mercedes) began when my family lived in Belgium in the mid-80's. I love looking back at our albums from that era and seeing all the pristine W123's and such.

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

That's cool Tyler, I look forward to seeing the pics. Is your grandmother happy that you cleaned out a closet for her? Check all the mattresses in her house. Quite a few people from that era keep cash in places like that.

My GGF bought all his kids houses for their wedding gifts with cash from the mattress.

EDIT: BTW, I'm not suggesting you take the cash. My wife's grandmother sold her farm after her husband died and remembered years later about a stash of cash she left behind in a home-made wall safe.

__________________
Chad
2006 Nissan Pathfinder LE
1998 Acura 3.0 CL
OBK#44
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

SOLD
1985 300TD - Red Dragon
1986 300SDL - Coda
1991 - 300TE
1995 - E320
1985 300CD - Gladys

My friends mother was in Germany in the late 70's and showed me a picture of the only Mcdonalds that she saw. Instantly I freaked. " look at all of those w123's"... There was a limo, sedan, taxi, and a coupe! all in the same picture

The orignal owner of my grandmother's home was a slot machine and other gambling vender/operator. There are at least 3 secret compartments throughout this house built in the late 70s.

One we discovered about 3 years ago. My grandfather, who died in 2000, had his coin collection, gold and sliver bars, and $500 worth of pennies hidden away.

Not sure why he had bags of pennies, but the gold and silver was a nice find.

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

I wanna see pictures! Pictures damnit!

__________________
-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

It wasn't 50,000 indian head pennies I hope! ... or I do hope if you still have them.
http://coins.about.com/od/coinvalues/l/bl-indian-head-penny-values.htm

__________________
Chad
2006 Nissan Pathfinder LE
1998 Acura 3.0 CL
OBK#44
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

SOLD
1985 300TD - Red Dragon
1986 300SDL - Coda
1991 - 300TE
1995 - E320
1985 300CD - Gladys

I have one of those, but its not in the best condition..

I had a jar of them in the late 70's when I was a kid. I think I ended up using them to buy gas for my mini-bike. I had no idea at the time. I used to come across them pretty often back then. 50¢ pieces and Silver Dollars were easy to come by too.

__________________
Chad
2006 Nissan Pathfinder LE
1998 Acura 3.0 CL
OBK#44
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

SOLD
1985 300TD - Red Dragon
1986 300SDL - Coda
1991 - 300TE
1995 - E320
1985 300CD - Gladys

My aunt has (or had?) thousands and thousands of wheat pennies. But they're probably worth about a cent apiece.

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

I asked my dad about why he would have pennies. He told me that at the time pennies were made of real copper and a shortage of copper was driving the price up.

My grandpa bought them for fun to see how much the pennies would be worth in copper weight in a few decades.

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

Wheat pennies are (or would have been) worth 2-3 cents each for the copper content. The US government recently made it illegal to melt them down. Heck, I think even the zinc pennies are worth more the one cent for metal content now.

You and JimmyL have the same problem.

__________________
1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

In my collection of old Autoweek newspapers (they really weren't magzines), the back pages had many ads for grey market cars and Houston was a pretty busy POE for those importers.