#20. A Mysterious Discovery
On June 14, 2018, an imgur user that goes by the name “Mycoffeeartjourney” posted a photo of a closed metal box and a banana. Of course, the banana was there just for scale, the box was the real deal! But where had the box come from?
The post had the following title: “I found a locked safe box in a council chuck out”. Therefore, the title suggested that the user had just discovered the box and that he hadn’t opened it yet. As you may imagine, most of the users were to dying to see what was inside.
#19. The Challenge
But first, let’s talk a bit about this website. Imgur is a photo website which has some unofficial rules adopted by the users. The unofficial rule that applies to locked boxes is that they must be opened eventually and that their contents must be shown. If not, the post will be considered a prank, and that’s frowned upon!
So if the O.P (original poster) does not finally open the box, he or she will be subjected to the anger of the rest of the users. This is how this story began, with the user mycoffeeartjourney trying to open the box and share his findings with the rest of the online community. And of course, all of the users challenged him to open the box and post pictures of it in a new imgur post.
#18. Livestream
Mycoffeeartjourney’s first thought was to live stream the box-opening. However, his computer’s video-camera didn’t function properly, and the imgur website doesn’t allow you to upload videos. Therefore, he promised that he would open the box offline and would constantly upload photos of his box-opening efforts.
As the idea of live streaming was not a possibility, the original poster started with the famous try-and-test method. And after every attempt at opening the box, he would post a new picture of the progress in imgur. The day after his first post, on June 15, 2018, the user uploaded a second picture. The photo had a caption that read “part one”.
#17. First Update
The post stated that that first part was the first of many updates to come. The original poster also asserted that he and his friend had found the box before it was thrown away and that the council workers gave it to them for free. When he and his friend shook the box, it sounded like there was something inside, and it sounded like coins.
So everything was ready for the box-opening effort to commence. The only obstacle was the box itself. Unfortunately for the original poster, it seemed that opening the box would be much more difficult than he originally planned. In fact, he believed that someone else had already tried to open the box, as there were marks on it.
#16. Drill
Those marks in question were drill marks and they were found in the rear of the box. It seemed that the previous “tomb raider” had attempted to make a hole to open the box, but it hadn’t work. But, on the bright side, the original poster could get a glimpse of what the locking mechanism consisted of, and it gave him a brilliant idea.
The user’s next step was to use a set of lockpicks he had lying around in his house. After several attempts trying to pick the box open, he decided that it would be useless. As the original poster claimed, “the shaft of the lock spins freely and is impossible to get a grasp of it“.
#15. Pencil
Not only did the user explain step by step the things he tried to do to open the box, but he also posted his different theories regarding the box’s past. The imgur user – or shall we say the imgurian? – believed that the person who had owned the box had probably broken the lock by accident, and after that, he was unable to open it and threw it away. And afterward, when the previous treasure hunter tried to drill into the box, he damaged the shaft of the box.
Continuing with the experiments to open the object and reveal the hidden treasure, mycoffeeartjourney tried to insert a pencil into the drill hole. According to the poster, the only thing that the pencil did was to press the lock keys, while the box remained completely closed. After this, the uploader decided to try heavy machinery.
#14. Angle Grinder
The original poster then went to his garage to grab some tools, and the first one he grabbed was the angle grinder. However, he did not know how to use that tool at all. Nonetheless, the user didn’t care and he tried to open the box with the grinder one way or another.
In order to use the angle grinder, mycoffeeartjourney clamped the box down to have a more stable work station. Then, he started to grind the outer part of the box, which was made of solid stainless steel. His first attempt, nonetheless, was not successful, even though he tried very hard.
#13. Second Attempt
Although his first attempt was a failure, the original poster did not resign and gave the angle grinder a second shot, but this time he attempted to open the top of the box. What mycoffeeartjourney did not know was that cutting through steel was not an easy task, and he just couldn’t stand the noise that the tool made against the steel!
As cutting through the top of the box seemed an impossible task, the original poster asked the imgur users some advice: “how about if I grind the hinges off the back?“. He thought that if he could cut the hinges, the box would maybe open itself. The other users agreed with his reasoning and pushed him to try it.
#12. Not Even Close
It seems that all that the original poster could do was make a very small dent in the steel. In an update post, mycoffeeartjourney posted a photo of the small dent in the back of the box with a text that read “not even close“. But, as we all know, when something does not work for the first, second, or third time, you just continue trying!
So, the original poster continued trying to open the box by grinding it in the back, but that second try proved to be as useless as the first one. As frustrated as he was, he posted another update in imgur stating that he thought the hinges were too incredibly thick. Besides, he said that the attempts with the angle grinder had left the box too hot to touch and that he now needed to take a break.
#11. Change Of Tool
The original poster took a very quick break, and very soon imgur users received new updates. On the same day, mycoffeeartjourney posted the “part two” of the box opening journey. He decided to change the tactic and the tool. He finally accepted that the angle grinder would be of no use.
The new tool consisted of a plain drill. As you can see, mycoffeeartjourney decided to go for the simplest and subtlest tactic. What he intended was to drill out the lock of the box so that it could be opened without having to force the lock open. And it seems that this new strategy was much more successful.
#10. Drilling
Finally, and after several attempts with different tools, the drilling technique proved to be the most effective method. He was able to drill out the lock, which meant he was really close to opening the box!
The imgur user uploaded a picture that offered a much better view of the box’s locking mechanism, which he was able to drill out. It seemed that when the exterior lock had been in place, it had been used to turn the pins to pop open the lid. But without the lock, it just couldn’t be opened.
#9. Lockpicks Again
According to the user, it was time to use the lockpicks he had at his house, even though the first attempt at using them had been a disaster. But the imgur user had learned from his past mistakes and he made some adjustments to his approach.
First, he had to put the locked box into a mount, which would then be in a better position to be opened. A torsion wrench placed on top of the lid to provide better ground. For those of you that know nothing about tools, the original poster explained what a torsion wrench was and what it was used for: it is a piece of gear also used to pick locks. When a pin of the lock has already been picked, it will hold down the rest of the pins.
#8. Plan B
Nonetheless, the use of the torsion wrench was, once again, useless. Mycoffeeartjourney explained that the levers of the torsion wrench could never grab correctly, and the torsion had no effect whatsoever on the levers. But the user had a plan B, which included the use of several tools.
At this moment, the imgur user uploaded a random picture of a robot scorpion. Although that photo had nothing to do with the box opening effort, the imgur user had said from the very beginning that he would post a picture that had nothing to do with his plan, just to check if the rest of the users were paying attention.
#7. Multitool
After the post of the scorpion picture, the original poster went back to the issue at hand. According to the post, mycoffeeartjourney used a multitool to move the lid of the box just a little bit, but that was enough to be able to work with the box. He then put a screwdriver into the gap, and with a hit, he widened that gap.
In an attempt to create more suspense, the original poster just posted a new picture, this time of the still-closed box and the workbench. He accompanied the picture with the text “Tidying the bench… Making the suspense last a bit longer”. Nonetheless, the suspense lasted for only one more post.
#6. Keys
Finally, it was time to show what the contents of the box were! This was the moment that everybody was waiting for. But the content of the box was just a set of keys! Almost everybody felt the same way: sadly disappointed. Two hours following the posts, and just to find a keyset!
The user confessed that in the place where he had found the box, there were no safes nor locked boxes. Therefore, nobody knew what the keys could have been used for. Regardless of the outcome, mycoffeeartjourney concluded that the whole search and the countless attempts to open the box had been really funny. However, this was not the first time that an imgur user shared a story about an attempt to unlock a safe.
#5. Homecoming Passport
Another imgur user, known as Thorhees, posted a similar story on December 2, 2014. This user uploaded a picture of a blue safe manufactured by a company called Summit. The photo was accompanied by the caption “I’ve had this plastic safe for a while and I heard imgur likes safes“.
In other words, the user wanted to share with the virtual community of imgur the things she kept in her safe. But unlike the previous story, the process of opening the safe came with much less suspense. This time the contents of the safe were presented in the third post, and on the rest of the posts, the original user uploaded a lot of close-ups of the items that were hidden inside the blue safe.
#4. Tickets
In the first post, Thorhees revealed the first thing she kept inside the box: a fake passport. But there were plenty of other sings hidden in the box as well. For example, there were dozens of movie tickets, Broadway tickets, and gig tickets. The oldest ticket of all dated back from 1994. It seemed then that the original poster was a bit of a hoarder!
Among the different tickets, many of them corresponded to music concerts of heavy metal bands, such as Megadeth, Iron Maiden, and Lamb of God. As regards the films that this user had seen in the movies, they included WALL-E, Spider-Man, and The Pink Panther.
#3. Teeth
So it happened to be that Thorhees used the safe to treasure the sentimental keepsakes of her life, although most of the items reflected the user’s teenage years. For example, she uploaded a picture of an object that at first glance seemed like a piece of trash but was actually the wrapping of an Absolut bottle, the first bottle of booze the user had ever drunk.
But the user posted many other objects that were contained in the safe. For instance, she showed a transparent box that looked like it was brought all the way from Texas. The box contained a diversity of objects that looked like small stones that the user had collected during a lot of her travels. The box also contained, by the looks of it, old teeth. Gross!
#2. Discovery Zone
The next item – or should we say items – that were in the box was a set of coins and bills. There were several coins, some of which were from the United States and others from the United Kingdom. There was also a bill, but it was no ordinary bill: it was nothing less than a two-dollar bill, which nowadays is extremely rare to find.
Along with the currency, Thorhees had saved some Discovery Zone tokens, as another souvenir from her youth. For those of you that do not know, Discovery Zone was an arcade and soft play destination for kids of all ages. To be able to play in the arcade and consoles, users needed one of those tokens, that had to be put inside the machines. Discovery Zone closed in 1999.
#1. Bill Clinton
The currency and tokens were not the only coins that the original poster had saved, as there were other noteworthy pieces. One of the rarest coins that Thorhees had was a half-a-dollar coin, that featured the face of former President John F. Kennedy, and a bicentennial quarter, which had been created in the mid-1970s to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Thorhees, finished her post by showing another rare coin, still wrapped, that featured the face of another former President of the United States, Bill Clinton. It seemed that she did not remember where that coin came from. But if she ever happens to need a commemorative presidential coin in the future, she knows where to find one!