PHOENIX (InvestigateTV) — Have you ever found a $20 bill in your pocket that you forgot you had put there?
Every year, the Arizona Department of Revenue, or ADOR, returns millions of dollars to the families of individuals who have either moved, passed away, or simply forgotten about those funds. You could have some money waiting for you.
Unclaimed checks, old accounts, safety deposit boxes that have been untouched for years — whatever the state can’t reconnect with the rightful owners, it auctions off. Arizona’s Family got a rare tour of the secured vault in which it’s all stored.
Two stories below ground at the Department of Revenue building in downtown Phoenix lies a reinforced vault guarding some of the state’s most treasured valuables.
The vault is protected by a series of complicated locks and a 15-inch steel door.
While it’s more of a police evidence locker than a pirate’s lair, staff did show us a giant bag of gold, 500 one-ounce gold coins.
“It’s very deceptively heavy,” said Will Nagel, the division administrator for the ADOR’s Unclaimed Property Unit, squatting under the heft of it as he lifted it off a table.
How much is something like that worth?
“Our estimation is $2,000,000,” Nagel said.
If that was in just one unclaimed safety deposit box, we could only begin to venture a guess at the possibilities of what lived in each of the boxes crowding around us in the vault.
“We’ve got stuff that’s very historical, maybe not high dollar value, but very high personal value, heirloom style,” Nagel explained.
They showed us an old war ration book from WWII, an original patent with a notarized seal from 1885, historical photos, a paper brochure for the first electric cart buggies promising speeds of 12 miles an hour, and a bronze star medal.
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Read more about the items stored in this vault, as well as how some of these items are auctioned off each year.
Anything that doesn’t sell at the auction returns to the vault to be locked up again until next year’s auction.
As for that $2 million bag of gold coins, it’s still in that initial holding period, waiting on an estate or heir to claim. A nest egg in safekeeping until then.
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