Besides money or valuables, what items or info would you be pleasantly surprised to find?

Some marbles. I've lost a few over the years.

Some years ago, I lost a drawing notebook full of sketches I'd done over a few years. Dunno if that counts as 'valuables'?

I'm 99% sure it's somewhere at home, but either way I'd really like that back.

Oh, I found such a thing three different times, yesterday! In a county office, an employee patiently, compassionately, happily helping an elderly lady with paperwork; at a takeout restaurant, a genuinely happy individual who graced me with a smile that would shame the sun, in it's glory, an authentic wish for a great day and a hug, at another business, another absolutely fabulous smile from a spry elderly lady with the most brilliant gray hair.

Nice snack I bought myself and forgot, and then finding it again later while browsing aimlessly.

Unless it's at the bottom of a bag you haven't used in months.
Might be good still, but it's likely smushed

I took the cargo hitch off my bike and set it down somewhere in the basement...

I've got a pair of vice grips somewhere in my flat.
It's not even that big of a flat, and I don't even have that much stuff. There's no way I ever left the flat with them. Yet they've completely disappeared.
- Oh sorry, i borrowed them to clamp a hitch i found to my bike.

My motivation

Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is a trained skill.
Whatever thing you wish you had motivation for, make a schedule for yourself and start doing it. Pair it with something you like ("I run each morning and I get my morning coffee after I finish my run") and stick to it.
- To someone with ADHD, this is like telling them to just pull ya'self up by yer bootstraps. 🙃

I think it would be cool to stumble upon something of archeological value while on a hike. Like some ancient statuette, or something like a cuneiform tablet.

A cat.

Packaged meals, wildflowers, an aloof cat, alcohol, a street performer, maybe a neat rock.

Disposable vapes. I harvest the batteries, that are wasted on them.

Art, a park, a hidden beach. A copy of Found Magazine.

An underground city

I think I may have kept this a secret, had my amazing secret enormous underground city to myself, and announced it's existence in my will.
Anthropology was also my first love, so I probably wouldn't have done that, but it's fun to think about lol
- That's exactly what I would have done, lol.
  When I'm gone and done with it, someone more altruistic than I can report it to the archaeologists haha.
Somehow this popped into my head when you said that.
Disclaimer: 90s throwback alert.

Happiness.

We said no valuables

Gray’s Sports Almanac

Damn it Biff, you beat me to it!

I lost my friggin glasses two weeks ago, it'd be nice to find them.

Weird little drinking related story about finding my glasses from my college times: Got accepted for a PhD and wanted to party. Met a good friend and went to a Balkans party with loads of cheap booze. Wake up at 6am in a night bus out of town and can't find my wallet on me. Run like crazy to the club/bar where the party was. Last people there let me search for my wallet. Only find my glasses in the bar toilet that I didn't notice I had also lost. Lock credit card and go home happy that I at least found my glasses.

Info that allows me to break through any of the "brick walls" in my genealogy research.

Found within my own home/possessions, a jolly rancher hard candy.

Out in the wild, a geocache. I go searching for them intentionally on occasion, but I also just spot one while I'm not looking and those are my fave. Especially the really tiny ones, "oh, that bolt on that stop sign looks a little weird. Hey, it's a nano cache!"

I also go hiking a lot and it's always fun finding plants I have high confidence that they are edible. I cooked up quite a bit of wild fern this spring, now it's berries and mushrooms.

My copy of pokemon heartgold that I lost right before fighting red

Finding some conclusive supporting material about the (as yet unsolved) Voynich Manuscript.

Either, enough information to decode a possible cypher, or proof that it is an elaborate troll/hoax/joke.

Could be the 'Rosetta Stone moment' of the modern era.

I really appreciate that people in my city place their old books in small boxes with a "zu verschenken" (free to take) sign when they want to give them away. I've found many great books this way, along with a few quirky and unusual ones too.

Office supplies or gaming stuff

Lan Chi chili paste.

Legible notes, especially those intended to be personal. I absolutely love buying used books and finding notes in them (either between the pages or written on them). Crumpled notes, shopping lists, discarded notebooks.

If I wasn't poor, I would prefer those to the banality of money.

I had a little pen knife that was great for small stuff like opening packages and cutting string. I lost it maybe a year ago. A replacement is maybe $10 but I liked that one :/

I'd also be pleasantly surprised to find some data I know I have saved but cannot find

Find where? At home? In someone's backpack?

Anywhere it's generally okay to look/find things
- The last time I was pleasantly surprised to find something somewhere, I was looking through store shelves and found an old food I used to like, toaster muffins.

My virginity.