I have already talked about some of the odder items found in our archive, so in this post I am just going to share some Unusual Archives news stories:
- In 2011 a reader at the UK National Archives got more than he bargained for when the file he ordered contained packets of heroin along with a document sent from the British Consulate in Cairo in 1928.
- The National Archives of Australia are baffled as to why their collections include a letter flown out of Paris by balloon while the city was besieged by the Prussians in 1870.
- A miniature and rather chewed archive of miscellaneous small slips of paper was found in birds’ nests in the roof of a Russian cathedral near Moscow.
And two unusual documents which were not found in archives, but are likely to end up in them:
- A letter to Santa found up a chimney 70 years after it was written.
- A map of Middle Earth annotated by J.R.R. Tolkien found in a copy of The Lord of the Rings handed in to a bookshop.
History RoundAbout 
How intriguing! Imagine the researchers’ surprise at the heroin. I was especially fascinated by the letter ballooned out of Paris…a whole new aspect of history to me, and very curious how it came to be in Australia.
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Archives are full of oddities and mysteries, and some are unsolvable. Occasionally incredibly valuable things turn up, like this copy of Magna Carta that was found in a Kent archive last year: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11398629/Magna-Carta-worth-10m-found-in-council-archives.html
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