Sometimes those “unclaimed property” announcements from your state government can be worth looking into. A St. Louis area man who thought he’d lost part of his sports card collection for good got a nice surprise this week.
Kevin Kelly accumulated a sizeable collection but stashed some of it away about 20 years ago inside a safe deposit box. Eventually, he forgot about it and lost touch with the bank where they’d been stored. As part of the state’s push to return unclaimed property, Kelly got his cards back this week.
Missouri State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick returned thousands of dollars worth of baseball and other sports cards to Kelly on Wednesday. There were hundreds of cards in all, including a 1980-81 Topps Larry Bird/Magic Johnson rookie card, a 1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle, a 1960 Topps Mantle, a 1962 Topps Lou Brock rookie card, an autographed Stan Musial card as well as rookie cards of Joe Montana, Ozzie Smith and Tiger Woods, all of which have gone up in value considerably since Kelly had put them away at the end of the last millennium.
They had been located in a safe deposit box that had been turned over to the state’s unclaimed property division since so much time had passed.
There were complete sets and single cards of limited value, too. The treasurer’s office says it was a potential five-figure windfall but beyond whatever it all might be worth, it was a happy and unexpected reunion for Kelly.
Fox 2 in St. Louis carried the story.
“This is a good reminder that unclaimed property can happen to anyone—from local governments, to families, to avid collectors,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s important to check the unclaimed property list regularly and in these challenging times, an unexpected bonus can always help.
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