Found a Kershaw Vapor II boot knife. Still have it. Found a $5 bill one time. Turtle cruising the white line that just about crashed me dodging it. Went back to try to get it off the road about 10 minutes later and he had been hit already.
My work buddy is the king of finding stuff but not by bike. He has an hawk eyes and can spot a 1/4 inch socket doing 70mph on the hwy. I have known him for 15 years and he Has boxes full of tools, phones and PDA's.
Last year he found a tool box full of 5 precision digital dial gags 3 of them had 5 inch dials and looking them up they were $1300 each. He posted ads on craigs and the local papers found section describing the tool box they were in but not the contents trying to get it back to the owner. Hundreds of people responded with all sorts of guesses and never anbody that could tell him what was in it.
A whirlpool bath tub and yes it was salvageable and in service today. A new projection TV IN the box and yes it was repairable. Sat on the side of the road with both for over an hour to see if anybody came back looking for it. Nobody ever did.
HOW the HELL can you loose stuff that big and not notice it? My issue is if they were so stupid as to not secure their loads and risked peoples lives driving down the road like that they don't deserved it back as a lesson to secure your load. We actually had a guy get killed here in GA hitting a brand new Dryer that came out of pickup truck about 8 years ago. They found the guy by tracking down where the dryer came from. I recall the widow tried to sue Home Depot for allowing the guy to leave without strapping it down.