Cannabis leaves inside donated gardening book proves 'hilarious' find at op shop

Every now and then a person can forget to check their belongings for personal items before donating them to their local op shop.

Often important family keepsakes, money or photos can be left behind in pockets, suitcases and books. 

And, as one New Plymouth op shop found out recently, people can also forget to check their gardening books for cannabis leaves.

St John Op Shop store manager Yvonne Mawson was wading through a pile of books that had been donated after lockdown when she made the discovery in a New Zealand Gardener book last week. 

“We had piles of books there and I was just flicking through it thinking wow this would be a nice book for somebody.

“And there it was, a giant leaf in the New Zealand Gardener. I kept flicking through and finding more, there was probably about half a dozen.”

Ms Mawson says the moment was amusing.

“Ironic, it was just hilarious. I was like I can't believe I'm seeing this. It was just funnier as I flicked through.”

The store has seen some fairly wacky stuff left behind, but Ms Mawson says this is by far the wackiest. 

"We once had a donation of mens clothes and we found a comb and a hanky in 15 of the pockets," she says.

"We get the odd strange thing but this is the funniest. It's the one that really stood out particularly being in the gardening book."

Ms Mason shared her find on the store's Facebook page over the weekend, as a reminder for everybody to check their items before they leave them at the shop. 

She says the post has received a huge response which she wasn't expecting, and someone has even bought the gardening book because of it. 

"Yesterday we had an inquiry from a lady who had asked if it was sold because her friend had seen it in our post and said it was a good one. She came in store this morning and bought it for $5."

Ms Mawson says the attention their page is getting because of the post is more important than ever, hopefully getting more people to visit their store post Covid-19 lockdown. 

"St John did take quite a big hit financially with Covid so we’re humbled by the donations that we’ve had since we opened.

"I was a bit scared that the public would be nervous about op shops but we’ve had really good donations and everyone has been fantastic. It's just been very humbling."

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