Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Bric-a-brac await the highest bidder

Collected items of abandoned safe deposit boxes offer just a glimpse into unknown lives.

By TAMARA LUSH
Published July 30, 2005

[Times photo: Willie J. Allen Jr.]

Madeline and Anthony Kastrinos, from left, sift through forgotten items while George and Julie Hidle look for rare coins while previewing items for today's auction held by the Florida Department of Financial Services.

FORT LAUDERDALE - It's easy to see why the owners of Lot No. 2 put 50 ounces of silver away. Or why the person who used to own what is now Lot No. 8 put her 5-carat sapphire inside a strong box. Or why someone squirreled away a baseball signed by Hank Aaron.

But the rest? The change purse shaped like a fish with the word "Florida" embroidered on the side, and the Lion King trading cards, and the Walt Disney Tower of Terror commemorative tickets?

Thomas Egler tries to figure out the life stories behind the clues. The tales are always strange, mysterious and full of holes.

Officially, his title is senior management analyst for the Florida Department of Financial Services, but really his job is to handle the immense amount of unclaimed property that emerges from bank deposit boxes and flows into the coffers of the state of Florida. Egler is in charge of cataloging, verifying and selling all of this stuff.

Once everything is cataloged in Tallahassee and efforts have been exhausted to find the owners or their relatives, the items are readied for sale.

Each piece - a fragment of a lifetime, really - is slipped into a see-through plastic bag and brought to the auction site. This weekend's auction is held in a nondescript, sterile Wyndham Hotel off Interstate 95. Each bag is put into a small bin, and prospective bidders flip through the bags, searching for that one collectible that will make them rich, or complete or both.

On Friday, Egler was previewing the auction items, showing off everything from a 3.5-carat diamond pinky ring to a Caesar's Palace poker chip. All of the loot came from safe deposit boxes from around Florida - boxes that were sent to the state because of nonpayment, or death, or both.

"Sometimes we open up the boxes and go, "wow,"' he said. "They all tell a story."

Take Lot No. 334, which will start bidding at $86.50, according to Egler and his staff.

Someone, somewhere, put the following items away for safekeeping: A baby rattle. A heart-shaped silver bolo tie. A white-bead rosary. Six 32 cent stamps.

A postcard to Mrs. Robert McCarbery in Michigan, that read: "A merry Christmas to all, Kiss Ivan three times for me, Lovingly, Mai."

And, next to that, a glossy, signed photo of actor Philip Michael Thomas, dated Sept. 5, 1986.

"To Tammy," the former Miami Vice star wrote. "If you love anything enough, it will give up all its secrets."

Today is the actual sale. The Department of Financial Services periodically holds such auctions. All of the money goes to the State School Trust Fund. Since the program's inception in 1961, about $1.25-billion has been given to the school fund.

The estimated value of everything at this weekend's auction in Fort Lauderdale is $350,000.

Egler has been overseeing these auctions for several years. He and his staff comb through clues like detectives, trying to find names, phone numbers or addresses of the owners. Only after such searches have been made will the state sell the items.

He remembers receiving several safe deposit boxes owned by one woman. They contained dozens and dozens of pieces of silverware from all over the world. Egler kind of made up a story about the woman, who had rented the boxes in Miami.

"You could tell she had a big house once," he said. "Then she moved to North Miami Beach. She had no room in her condo."

Egler had to create an ending for one story.

The owner of one deposit box in Jacksonville passed away. She had no heirs. Inside the box was a plastic bag filled with ashes.

Egler thinks the ashes were that of the woman's husband. But he's not sure.

"It was sad," he said. "So we took it upon ourselves to get a pauper's grave."

[Last modified July 30, 2005, 01:09:17]