The state continues to clean out its treasury chest and will seek high bids beginning Monday via eBay for vintage spare change, stamps, jewelry and sundry items once so valuable they were locked in a bank vault but now so forgotten they are sold as unclaimed property on the Internet.

The state Treasurer's Office, as part of a vow to clear a backlog of unclaimed property, is selling hundreds of items separated into 22 lots. The office promises to hold monthly auctions.

There are rings both decorative and golden, silvered, zirconiated and bejeweled; there are necklaces, watches, pendants and bracelets. There is a hodgepodge of currency and coins.

It will remain a mystery why some items are saved, or what sort of thought went into predicting that, one day, those 29 Buffalo nickels with no discernible dates might be worth something.

Every year, the Treasurer's Office gets the contents of safe deposit boxes that have been abandoned for at least five years at banks and other financial institutions. The names are published and made public in the office's online database of unclaimed property, and the property is stored for two to three years. The unclaimed items are then auctioned and the proceeds held indefinitely, according to the Treasurer's Office.

Source: Wisconsin State Journal