The Office of the State Treasury of Wisconsin plans to drawn in online buyers of antiques, collectibles and jewels this holiday season with its largest ever eBay auction, which launches at noon today.
The auction has 110 lots of items. Featured items include 26 coin lots with 50 to 100 coins each, 25 diamond items, a precious rosary and a sports card lot containing signed cards by Ted Williams and a rare Michael Jordan baseball card.
The items originate from abandoned safety deposit boxes at state banks. When a holder does not pay for the box for five years, the bank turns contents over to the state treasury, which then hunts down the heirs. If the owners are not located in three years, the treasury auctions off the items, said Megan Perkins, state treasury office spokeswoman.
The state keeps the money from the sales, but it is still accessible by owners. The money is always there,"" Perkins said, ""so if an heir comes forward years later, we won't have the item for them anymore, but we will have the money that we got for the item.""
Perkins said the treasury worked hard to make the auction four times larger than any previous auction in time for holiday shopping.
""We've only been doing the eBay auction for a year now, and we thought why don't we do a really big one over the holidays because that's a good time for people to buy presents.""
Other states are also using eBay to sell off abandoned safety deposits. Illinois launched a similar eBay auction after Wisconsin's debuted, and currently has a similar online holiday public sale.
Wisconsin's auction runs until noon Dec. 5. The eBay site can be accessed by going to http://www.ost.state.wi.us and clicking the eBay link on the left side.
