Old Safe Opened....

Very cool story, thanks for posting

After reading the article I have come to the conclusion that:

1. The dead mans kids were supposed to hire someone to open the safe and give the belongings to the estate. Instead they hit it with a hammer a few times and gave up and sold it for scrap/

2. The scrap hauler was smart enough to know that there was a slight chance that something valuable was inside and of course called a locksmith like the kids should done.

3. After opening the safe and finding out what was inside the estate ended up having to pay for 20 hours of locksmith talent and some fees to the junk hauler.

So the moral of the story is put in your will who gets your good stuff or the kids will sell it all at a rummage sale for a $1 or donate it all to Goodwill.

jack, the article states that the deal was that the safe would be sold after it was opened and it's contents returned to the family.
"Someone who was helping his family clear out the garage was given the safe to sell as scrap, but was supposed to return anything inside of value once he figured out a way to get it open."
so the family did not just donate it or sell the safe with all its contents, just the safe itself after it was opened and the items inside returned to the mans family.

Neat story

Sounds to me like the guy who purchased the safe as scrap would have legal claim to the contents. How is this any different than, say, buying an abandoned storage locker and finding something valuable in it? As I read the story, the final buyer had no direct agreement with anybody that he would return whatever was found inside. That agreement was with the person who gave up on opening the safe and sold it to the final buyer.

That gentleman would presumably have had to pay the locksmith in full for his time if the safe turned out to be empty. I can't see the former owner(s) kicking in hundreds of dollars after the fact to compensate him for taking that risk.

The deceased man's family was darn lucky the buyer was so ethical. I think they should have given him a LARGE cut of the treasure.

I think it was mighty honest of the bloke but what I am somewhat suspicious about is what would have happened if there in fact was nothing in the safe. I don't think they would have paid him an additional couple of hundred to unlock a safe with nothing in it and as such he should be richly rewarded not only for the service provided and the honesty and integrity given in it's service but also the risk he took in this endeavour.

The locksmith is the one that should be applauded, he could have just kept everything and not even told the scrap dealer or the family. Could've just said it was empty.