SALEM, Oregon (KGW) — This Black Friday, the Oregon State Treasury hopes you’ll think outside the box and see what Oregonians have left inside their old safe deposit boxes.
Pre-bidding for the state’s Online Auction of Unclaimed Property is happening now until 11 a.m. on Black Friday. That’s when the live auction kicks off, hosted by Capitol Auction & Estate Services.
The auction will feature 89 lots of unclaimed property, items once cherished but now unclaimed or forgotten. Included in the auction is a five-piece silver coin set featuring members of the Portland Trail Blazers’ 1990-91 team. There are also gold watches, silver bars, collectible stamps and graded baseball cards.
“We’ve had these for almost four years now and the banks had them for two to five years before they send them to us,” said Claudia Ciobanu, trust property director at the Oregon State Treasury. “So at some point, it’s just unmanageable to hang on to all of them, but our preference is that we give the owners their contents intact.”
Past auctions have fetched $120,000. Money raised goes into the state’s Common School Fund. There, the principal amount from each sale is held for the rightful owners. Interest earned goes to Oregon’s K-12 public schools.
One thing the state will never sell or dispose of are military medals. Instead, they’ll post photos on the treasury’s website where people can search for them.
“We really hope that either the medal earners themselves or their families come forward and get those,” said Ciobanu.
Around $80 million in unclaimed funds are reported to the state every year. To see if any of it belongs to you, just go to treasury’s website and look up your name.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.