(old baseballs – KIWA Staff stock photo)
Statewide Iowa (RI) — State Treasurer Roby Smith is highlighting some sports memorabilia from unclaimed bank safety deposit boxes that has been turned over to the state. A baseball signed by Pete Rose and other Cincinnati Reds players was in a box rented by Jonathan Pederson of Mason City. The treasurer is seeking the public’s help in tracking down Pederson’s family so the baseball can be turned over to them.
After the owner of a safe deposit box has not paid rent, banks keep the box — including the one rented by the Mason City resident — for at least three years before turning it over to the State Treasurer’s office.
During a news conference Wednesday, Smith displayed the baseball signed by the Cincinnati Reds along with baseball cards and other sports memorabilia banks have turned over to the treasurer’s office.
A Michael Jordan card is among the items, and while it’s not a rookie card — the most valuable Jordan card on the market — Smith believes it’s from a 1998 Gatorade promotion. The state treasurer says they’re hoping to track down Scott Myers of Des Moines, Russell Wirth of Manilla, and Jeremy O’Connor of Granger or their relatives to claim sports-related keepsakes that are in the state treasurer’s vault. Smith says over the past 12 months his office helped return a record amount of unclaimed cash and property to Iowans that banks had turned over to the state treasurer’s office. There’s a state website that lists all the unclaimed cash, bonds, utility refunds, or other items that have been turned over to the state.
The website is greatiowatreasurehunt.gov. Smith’s office processed well over 53-thousand claims during the past 12 months, returning nearly 36 million dollars in cash and another two-point-four MILLION dollars worth of property abandoned in banks.
