Forgotten Safe Deposit Boxes Opened By State

By Staff in News on Sep 19, 2009 10:00PM

The State of Illinois has many duties, but perhaps their most interesting one is getting to open forgotten safe deposits boxes. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ office is in charge of the procedure and this past year ending in June, they inventoried 5,142 new boxes. Fortunately, 1,476 of those boxes were returned to their rightful owner. When they’ve been untouched for five years, banks turn over boxes to the state, and the names of box-holders are published in newspapers.

But for every box that has to be opened, Giannoulias revealed to the Chicago Sun-Times some of the State’s interesting finds. "We've had things like false teeth, human ashes," Giannoulias said. In addition, Giannoulias’ department has also found real teeth (both baby and adult), locks of hair, Beanie Babies, hearing aids, and even a pair of tickets to the Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition.

Of course, the typical illicit items are found often. Pornography gets shredded, Josh Joyce, chief of the treasurer’s unclaimed-property division, told the Sun-Times. "We won't return your nude pictures to you," he said. "That happens every couple of months." Surprisingly though, Joyce says they’ve never found illegal drugs, however, “we unfortunately got our fair share of drug paraphernalia.”

Fortunately, the State department works hard to reunite items with their owners and solve the mystery of each box. They check Social Security numbers to see if the owner or their heirs are still alive, they check firearms with the police to see if they link to any crimes, and they give military medals to local veterans groups. However, when they can’t accurately appraise valuables, the State calls in experts to do so and the items are auctioned on eBay with profits going to benefit state pension funds.

Post By Anna Deem