4 Surprisingly Valuable Things Hiding in Safe-Deposit Boxes

If your bonds are more than 30 years old, they are no longer earning interest, so it makes sense to cash them in. Because interest rates were much higher 30 years ago, you may be surprised how much old savings bonds are worth. Most banks will redeem savings bonds, so you can just walk from the safe-deposit box to the teller and cash them in. The U.S. Treasury stopped issuing paper savings bonds in 2012.

You may want to hold on to I bonds, which are adjusted for inflation twice a year. The recent boost in inflation has goosed the yield on I bonds to 3.54 percent the next six months. If you want to find the value of any of your paper savings bonds, the Treasury has a handy calculator.

3. Coins

If you have a stack of $20 gold double eagles in your safe-deposit box, you're unlikely to forget them — although gold coins are often found in abandoned safe-deposit boxes, typically because the owner has died.

But not all coins are gold. The U.S. Mint frequently creates commemorative coins that you may have purchased and stashed in a safe-deposit box. For example, a 1983 Olympics silver dollar that was minted in San Francisco sells for about $30 in uncirculated condition. A two-coin 1999 George Washington commemorative dollar set is worth $1,050 in uncirculated condition.

And even if the coin is dinged, its silver content is always worth something. The silver in a 1922 silver dollar, for example, is currently worth about $21. A $10 roll of 40 pre-1965 quarters is worth about $203. You can check the value of circulated gold and silver coins at a coin dealer or at coinflation.com. If you're going to sell your coins, get bids from several dealers.

4. Collectibles

Just because something is old doesn't mean it's valuable. But it never hurts to check. For example, to some people, campaign buttons and political memorabilia might be important enough to put into a safe-deposit box. Although campaign buttons are cheaply mass-produced, some are worth keeping. Some Eisenhower campaign buttons, for example, sell for about $25 apiece; a McKinley-Roosevelt button (from 1900) sells for about $50.

Baseball cards also frequently find their way into safe-deposit boxes. Although it's unlikely you'll find a Honus Wagner — the Holy Grail of baseball card collectors — a 1954 Hank Aaron rookie card could get as much as $300,000. A 1960 Carl Yastrzemski rookie card currently sells for $150 to $200 on eBay. And a Derek Jeter rookie card goes for around $110.

And you may find forgotten jewelry in a safe-deposit box as well. A February 2020 auction of abandoned Bank of America safe-deposit box contents offered an unmounted star ruby (sold for $6,875), a gold medusa ring ($6,250), a white gold and diamond pendant ($5,312), and a gold pocket watch ($11,250).

Manage your expectations

Sometimes people really do find valuables in safe-deposit boxes, either their own or ones they have inherited. “My godparents (and my parents) were Depression Era babies — my godparents had already experienced one bank that was closed and they lost some money,” says Patricia Hausknost, a financial planner in Long Beach, California. “So when they passed and I cleaned out their safe-deposit box I found silver certificates, some gold coins and about $5,000 of U.S. currency.” (Silver certificates are an old form of money, once redeemable for silver.)

"I'm not sure why they thought that would help them out if there really was a banking catastrophe, but there it was,” she says. She ended up distributing the silver certificates and gold coins to her godparents’ beneficiaries and used the cash to get their home ready for sale.

But people put all sorts of things in safe-deposit boxes, and not all are valuable — at least to anyone but the owner. Your pog collection may not have held its value, and your Mickey Mantle baseball card may be creased beyond recognition.

Inherited boxes aren't necessarily treasure chests, either. “When I was in my 20s, I worked at a bank,” says Melissa Brennan, a financial planner in Plano, Texas. “One year the bank manager asked me to be the witness when the guys came to drill the locks on abandoned safe-deposit boxes. ... What I vividly remember is not finding anything of substantial value.”

One box contained a few pieces of low-quality costume jewelry, she says, one contained love letters, and some contained miscellaneous paperwork and a few silver dollars and half dollars. “I guess that's why they were abandoned,” Brennan says. “Customers moved on, no longer wanting or needing what held value to them in their past.”

John Waggoner covers all things financial for AARP, from budgeting and taxes to retirement planning and Social Security. Previously he was a reporter for Kiplinger's Personal Finance and USA Today and has written books on investing and the 2008 financial crisis. Waggoner's USA Today investing column ran in dozens of newspapers for 25 years.