4 valuable finds hiding in bank vault safe-deposit boxes

And you may find forgotten jewelry in a safe-deposit box as well. A February 2020 auction of abandoned Bank of America safe-deposit box contents offered an unmounted star ruby (sold for

$6,875), a gold medusa ring ($6,250), a white gold and diamond pendant ($5,312), and a gold pocket watch ($11,250). MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS Sometimes people really do find valuables in

safe-deposit boxes, either their own or ones they have inherited. “My godparents (and my parents) were Depression Era babies — my godparents had already experienced one bank that was closed

and they lost some money,” says Patricia Hausknost, a financial planner in Long Beach, California. “So when they passed and I cleaned out their safe-deposit box I found silver certificates,

some gold coins and about $5,000 of U.S. currency.” (Silver certificates are an old form of money, once redeemable for silver.) "I'm not sure why they thought that would help them

out if there really was a banking catastrophe, but there it was,” she says. She ended up distributing the silver certificates and gold coins to her godparents’ beneficiaries and used the

cash to get their home ready for sale. But people put all sorts of things in safe-deposit boxes, and not all are valuable — at least to anyone but the owner. Your pog collection may not have

held its value, and your Mickey Mantle baseball card may be creased beyond recognition. Inherited boxes aren't necessarily treasure chests, either. “When I was in my 20s, I worked at a

bank,” says Melissa Brennan, a financial planner in Plano, Texas. “One year the bank manager asked me to be the witness when the guys came to drill the locks on abandoned safe-deposit

boxes. ... What I vividly remember is not finding anything of substantial value.” One box contained a few pieces of low-quality costume jewelry, she says, one contained love letters, and

some contained miscellaneous paperwork and a few silver dollars and half dollars. “I guess that's why they were abandoned,” Brennan says. “Customers moved on, no longer wanting or

needing what held value to them in their past.” _John Waggoner covers all things financial for AARP, from budgeting and taxes to retirement planning and Social Security. Previously he was a

reporter for_ Kiplinger's Personal Finance _and _USA Toda_y and has written books on investing and the 2008 financial crisis. Waggoner's _USA Today_ investing column ran in dozens

of newspapers for 25 years._