Stories About Collectors Who Hide Cash or Treasures

Stories from readers to add to the April 2013 “Letter to Lee” about collectors who hide cash or treasures in their homes—and die before telling anyone where to find the trove:

A Kentucky lawyer writes that he once had a client whose mother said she had put aside money for her funeral. He says: “Her mother had a heart attack and as she was put in the ambulance, she said to ‘look in the dining room.’ She died at the hospital. Years later, my client was moving some dining room furniture and removed a drawer in a cabinet. Taped to the bottom was an envelope with $1,700 in it.”

Another reader says he attended his cousin’s estate sale and found $16,500 stuffed inside a record album.

A longtime dealer tells us this tale: “One day a customer wanted to see a vintage cardboard hatbox that had been sitting high up in my shop’s rafters for years. When I fetched it down, I heard something rattling around inside. Underneath the paper liner, I found a pair of diamond rings—a woman’s engagement and wedding rings. I go to hundreds of sales every year and had no idea where I bought the hatbox, so there was no chance of returning it. I promptly sold the rings to a jewelry dealer for several hundred dollars. But I almost sold the rings with an $18 hatbox.”

A reader from Baltimore writes: “Years ago I worked for an auction house. We were called to the estate of the man who ran the Coca-Cola bottling plant in a nearby town for nearly 30 years. When we got there, everyone went into his garage to see his Coke memorabilia, but I had to deal with the furniture in his house. I asked if there was a coin collection, hidden money or jewelry we should know about. His wife said he only liked Coke stuff. But it didn’t take me long to discover a $20 St. Gaudens gold coin in a secret drawer he had built under a piece of furniture. I recovered 17 of the rare U.S. coins throughout the house and made his wife almost $14,000 extra.