Unclaimed Coins And Police Auction/ Illinois

From the article it sounds like this burglar was quite prolific and sold/melted down most of his ill gotten gains. What is left up for auction apparently is only the tip of the iceberg.

Never knew there was a 1918 Lincoln half-dollar commemorative made...

I smell multiple parties petitioning for an injunction coming

Yeah I'm sure there will be but in the Law Enforcement's defense, they made every effort to return the items back to their rightful owners... If you can't prove it was your property then they are not going to return based on your word... Otherwise, I'll say it was all mine so I can have for myself when none of it was mine to begin with...

I'm really surprised the coin shop did not have an inventory of what they had... I'm curious if they even filed a claim with their insurance for the losses...

If they can't find a victim how can they prove they were stolen? And if they can't prove they were stolen why shuoldn't the money go to the person that was holding the property at the time it was confiscated?



Why should I have to prove it's mine. Shouldn't they have to prove that it isn't? If they confiscated something on the assumption that it was stolen, but then weren't able to prove that it was stolen, why shouldn't it be returned tot he person it was confiscated from?

Bet they didn't break a sweat trying!!

I agree with the statement at the end of the article that the proceeds should not go directly to the local police but instead a statewide fund. Otherwise the police would end up seizing all high-end cars for "suspected drug trafficking" and auctioning them off.

I can understand that point of view but having been robbed more than once, I know that if the police don't find your belongings in a day or two there is little chance of recovering them. After making an insurance claim and cashing that check any items recovered would belong to the insurance company.

If someone stole my wedding ring and I got a check from the insurance company -- I might not be in a big hurry to replace it. If it was recovered months later, I would gladly return the money to get my ring back. But if it was my car that got stolen, I would have replaced it as soon as I could and then what? Sell the replacement car to return the money to get the original car back? No, the recovered car would go to the insurance company to sell and recover some of the money they paid out.

I'm guessing that the unclaimed coins cannot be connected with certainty to the original owner and the insurance companies would decide that further investigation was not cost effective.