SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WMBD) — The Illinois state treasurer has $2.5 billion worth of money, jewelry and priceless goods waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners.
“Every now and then, someone leaves something in a bank safe deposit box, and it’s turned over to us when it’s abandoned. We try to track down the rightful owners,” Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs said.
Things like jewelry, gold and silver bars, coins dating back to the Roman Empire and vintage banknotes take up space in the large vaults in the basement of Springfield Marine Bank.
“When we start to run out of space, we will auction off things. So after about 10 years, no one claims their property. We will auction off in a live auction in the state fair or an online auction,” Frerichs said.
“The state doesn’t keep that money. We hold on to it for people. You may not get your Mickey Mantle baseball card that your father had in a safe deposit box, but you’ll get the full amount that it sold for at auction,” he said.
Some things that come into their possession don’t always go to auction.
“We’ll never auction off military medals. You know, someone can’t come in and buy that honor. They can’t purchase that valor. We track down those people. However long it takes,” Frerichs said.
They’re currently hoping to find the owner of one Purple Heart medal that came out of a Peoria bank.
“We are still looking for the owner of one of our Purple Hearts from the Peoria area. People can go to operationpurpleheart.org to see if they recognize a name or any bit of detail or clue that can help us return it,” he said.
You can head to the state treasurer’s website to see if you have unclaimed property to your name.
