Pennsylvania Treasury will sell about 6,000 pieces of abandoned property, including jewelry, coins, currency and precious metals, at an online auction on Wednesday, October 28. The items come from the state’s vault of unclaimed property, where owners who never came forward left them behind.
The sale does not end an owner’s claim. Treasury says the money from every item sold is kept for the rightful owner, and the state’s search site is open to anyone now.
What goes on the block October 28
Treasury’s auction announcement says about 6,000 items will be featured, handled by the auction house Pook & Pook, and people who want to bid can register at pookandpook.com. Treasury employees and their immediate families cannot bid.
The release lists several featured lots: a platinum ring with a 6.11-carat round diamond and 38 single-cut diamonds, a 1907 S Liberty Head $20 gold coin with a 22K mount, an 18K gold Omega wristwatch with a gold band, and a 14K gold chain with a gold-filled Waltham pocket watch. Items are subject to change before the sale if questions arise about authenticity, value or other discrepancies.
State Treasurer Stacy Garrity said in the release that the auction is a few weeks away and that Treasury is already excited for the “fantastic items.” The Treasury newsroom, which has posted releases as recently as October 14, has not announced any change to the date.
Tangible property of this kind usually comes from abandoned safe deposit boxes, according to the release. Other kinds of unclaimed property include dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks, forgotten stocks and insurance policies, which is why the state’s database covers far more than jewelry.
Treasury holds property for its owners until they come forward. The release says Pennsylvania is working to return more than $5 billion owed to more than one in ten Pennsylvanians, and the average claim is more than $1,000.
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Can an owner claim an item before it sells?
Treasury’s announcement does not describe a way to pull an individual item from the sale, and it does not give a separate claim process for auctioned goods. What it does say is that proceeds from every item sold at auction are kept in perpetuity for a rightful owner to claim at any time.
That makes the practical step a search rather than a bid. Anyone who has lived in Pennsylvania, or whose relatives used a safe deposit box there, can look up their name at searchandclaimpa.gov, Treasury’s official unclaimed property site.
Because the value of a sold item turns into cash held by the state, a claim filed after the sale is still a claim on money. How the amount is calculated for a specific sold item is not spelled out in the release, so an owner with a possible match would want to ask Treasury directly.
What the new search site changed
Garrity announced the new site on September 23. When a person files a claim for specific properties, the system adds other qualifying properties it finds for the same owner.
The release also says properties meeting the Money Match criteria, described as $500 or less, can be returned automatically, periodically and as new property is reported. Search results show the exact amount for values under $500 and “over $500” for larger ones, and the system flags potential fraud for a more in-depth claim review.
Treasury says it has returned more than $1.2 billion since Garrity took office, and that an additional $5 million has been matched with claimants since the new system launched. A separate summer tour across 35 events reunited more than $1.4 million with Pennsylvanians.
What the last auction brought in
Treasury’s last sale gives a sense of scale. For the spring auction on March 25, Treasury reported gross sales of $523,873 on more than 4,000 items, and expects to net over $450,000.
The top lots that day included two 22K yellow gold bracelets at $8,000, an American Eagle gold coin set at $7,500, and an 18K gold bracelet with diamonds and sapphires, with earrings, at $6,000. Treasury said the funds stay available to rightful owners indefinitely.
The spring release carried the same promise in its headline, saying the proceeds will be held in perpetuity for rightful owners to claim. Garrity said in it that Treasury’s first priority is always returning items safeguarded in its vault to their rightful owners, which is why the auction is a last step for property nobody has claimed.
The fall sale is larger, with about 6,000 items against more than 4,000 in the spring.
Pennsylvania’s database holds only property reported to Pennsylvania. Someone who also lived, worked or banked in other states may have property held by those states’ offices, each with its own search site and claim steps.
That matters most for older households, where decades of moves, closed accounts and old safe deposit boxes can leave property in several places at once. Treasury says the state’s own site can be searched at any time, and it is the one place to start for Pennsylvania.
Lived in more than one state, and searched only Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania has about 6,000 items going to auction October 28, but its list covers only Pennsylvania. Property left in a former home state sits with that state’s treasurer or comptroller, under that office’s rules.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes a 5-tab Excel tracker pre-filled with all 51 state unclaimed-property offices, so each search, claim and follow-up can be recorded in one place. It also lays out the source vault of 12 official places money sits, beyond unclaimed property alone.
Get the 51-office unclaimed property tracker for every state searched →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- The New $6,000 Senior Deduction and 14 More Tax Moves for Retirees
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
