BREAKING NEWS

You can bid on jewelry, coins, more from abandoned safe deposit boxes across Arizona

Julie Luchetta
Arizona Republic
Auction items for sale by the Arizona Department of Revenue.

The Arizona Department of Revenue is holding an online auction of unclaimed property from delinquent safe deposit boxes and hopes to return $1.8 billion of unclaimed cash, department spokesperson Rebecca Wilder said ahead of the auction.

Most of the unclaimed property is cash, with an additional $550,000 to $650,000 worth of items being auctioned off by the department through a third party company, Sierra Auction.

"Unclaimed property can be physical property or money," Wilder explained, "from a tax refund or rebate that was never cashed or even maybe a deposit on an apartment that was owed back to you." 

The items mostly come from safe deposit boxes, which have their content returned to the state by banks and private businesses after being abandoned for three years. The state Department of Revenue then holds on to the items for three years before auctioning them off to make space for incoming abandoned property.

"You can imagine that if we held on to all that physical property, forever, there just wouldn't be enough space in our vault," Wilder said. "But still the owners are able to be reimbursed for the funds from that auction even if they can't get the physical property  back." This year, one claimant in Arizona could potentially claim $1.5 million of abandoned property. 

The Department of Revenue tries to find people to reimburse them, Wilder said, through mail and sometimes by printing announcements in the newspaper. The department will hold on to the proceeds of the sale for 35 years, Wilder explained. To check if the state is holding on to any unclaimed property, people can look up their names on the Department of Revenue website and find out if the state is holding unclaimed property for them. 

Items auctioned range from vintage jewelry to collectible coins and solid bars of silver, which can go for thousands of dollars. Some more personal items like DVDs, plastic trinkets and old photographs are also up for sale. If they do not get sold, the more personal items may be kept in the Department of Revenue vault for longer than three years, Wilder said. 

The auction started online Wednesday and will run until Sunday. There will be an in-person viewing event from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday at Sierra Auction Management near Grand and 35th avenues. 

Between June 2020 and June 2021, the Department of Revenue's Unclaimed Property Unit returned $48 million to owners, but still has upward of $1.8 billion waiting to be claimed. The department will return the property to people who can provide documentation proving they have a right to it. 

Reach breaking news reporter Julie Luchetta at jluchetta@arizonarepublic.com.

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