IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…Sun Sentinel: “State auctioning unclaimed jewelry, rare currency and gold coins”
7/22/2017
“State auctioning unclaimed jewelry, rare currency and gold coins”
Sun Sentinel
Story by Dan Sweeney
July 21, 2017
Click HERE to read the full story
Every day, people go to banks to place their treasures in safe deposit boxes. Sometimes, they never come back.
It’s hard to imagine how someone could forget about their collection of gold South African krugerrands, Mexican pesos and Canadian coins, leaving thousands of dollars behind.
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When banks are left with unclaimed valuables after three years, they hand them off to the state Department of Financial Services, which spends another two years looking for the owner. Then — not having a large vault of its own to store all the stuff — the state auctions off the valuables.
The proceeds are kept in bank accounts so that if the owners of the valuables ever come forward, the money can be given to them.
Such an auction is taking place July 29 in Fort Lauderdale. The contents of more than 300 deposit boxes — about 50,000 objects in all — will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
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The contents of the boxes represent just a small sliver of the millions of dollars in unclaimed property held by the Department of Financial Services.
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“Most accounts are intangible, like uncashed payroll checks or old utility deposit refunds that you may have forgotten existed,” said state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who will be overseeing his first auction Saturday after his June 26 appointment by Gov. Rick Scott.