Treasurer's office to auction off abandoned items

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Nov 17, 2000 by Marie Price The Journal Record

A treasure trove of abandoned property rescued from safe deposit boxes will be auctioned Monday by the office of State Treasurer Robert Butkin.

Gold and silver coins and collectible paper currency, jewelry, a Mel Ott New York Giant baseball card, Native American artifacts and several pieces of scrimshaw -- some dated in the 1830s -- will be sold to the top bidder. Scrimshaw is carved ivory from animal tusks or teeth.

The auction will be conducted by Dakil Auctioneers of Oklahoma City at MetroTech, 1900 Springlake Drive. Louis Dakil said there will be no minimum bids or reserves.

Dakil noted that payment must be made in full for auction items at the time of sale.

The items will be available for inspection beginning at 9 a.m., with the auction set to begin at 10 a.m.

In 1998, the unclaimed property auction raised $42,620, in 1997 $36,256. These sales were held when the unclaimed property division was administered by the Oklahoma Tax Commission. No auction took place last year, when the division was being moved into Butkin's agency.

Under Oklahoma law, personal property held in a safe deposit box or other safekeeping repository which remains unclaimed for five years is presumed abandoned. The treasurer's office has three years after receiving the property to sell it to the highest bidder at a public sale.

Cash proceeds from the sales remain available to owners of the property, Butkin said. There is no time limit in which the cash must be claimed.

Lots that fail to bring bids will be sold as an aggregate lot at the auction's end. Proceeds from the sale of these "zero value" lots will be used to offset auction costs.

Expenses are paid from sale proceeds. Butkin's office takes no fee or commission, but the auction firm will be paid a percentage of auction proceeds. Interest on the sale proceeds goes into the state's general fund.

Butkin also pointed out that about 250,000 individuals, or about 8 percent of Oklahomans, are listed as having unclaimed property of one form or another. His office publishes a listing of unclaimed property twice a year.

"Their chances are higher than winning the Texas lottery," said the treasurer.

In fiscal year 1999 alone, officials say, about $5.2 million was returned to rightful owners or heirs.

Butkin's staff is in the middle of a Tulsa-based "telethon" type of program, continuing over the next couple of Tuesdays, where they are taking telephone calls from individuals who believe they may be due some of the unclaimed property in the agency's care. Thus far, Butkin said, about 4,000 claims have been processed.

The listing can be checked through www.missingmoney.com.