the whole table...covered
Usually everyone agrees that it would be nice to never worry about money. And when I think of treasure I do still tend to think of gold, rubies and pirate ships. But when I traveled around Europe this fall it wasn't fancy objects and jewelry that I daily sought to collect. It was paper. Enough paper to make any mixed media artist drool.
modern maps
old photos from Madrid, maps, wrapping paper, and original handwriting 
envelopes
My two favorite finds were a handwritten ledger and a piece of a gregorian chant.
The handwriting in this ledger is just amazing. There were little notes of scribbled calculations stuck into the pages of ledger too.
flourish
some calculations stuck in between the pages
I have always loved the oversized sheets of gregorian chant from the middle ages. The notes and words are painted onto animal-skin vellum (probably from the 17th or 18th century). This piece had sadly been cut...but that made it affordable for me!
a slice of very old chant music
notice the brush strokes that wrote the latin
This stuff never fails to get my creative juices flowing. Hope it inspires you too!