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Do you have unclaimed property?

JANESVILLE — You’re too late to claim the umbilical cord or the beaded evening bag.

But there’s still time to claim some of the $350 million in cash and assorted stocks, jewelry and collectibles being held by the Wisconsin State Treasurer’ Office.

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, State Treasurer Dawn Sass will be at the Rock County Courthouse encouraging people to check the state’s database for unclaimed property.

Wisconsin has 1 million entries in the unclaimed property database.

Rock County has 17,135 entries worth $3.7 million.

Almost 30 residents have more than $5,000 in unclaimed property, and one resident is owed $75,000.

Where does that money come from?

Old bank accounts, escrows for mortgage accounts, stocks, safety deposit boxes and payroll and insurance checks.

Here’s how it works:

Companies hold on to checks and other assets for a certain number of years before turning them over to the treasurer’s office, Sass explained.

The treasurer’s office holds items for three years, advertising each year.

Then, items such as jewelry, coins, men’s pocket watches and baseball cards are auctioned on eBay. The state now is running an auction for coins and tokens from safe deposit boxes.

“We have old tokens from bars in Superior, Palace Lanes in Burlington, tax tokens from the south and an 1856 Indian princess gold dollar,” Sass said.

Past eBay auctions have included items such as diamond and emerald earrings, a beaded evening bag containing an opera ticket in Russian and an amethyst necklace in an art deco setting.

Safe deposit box items such as umbilical cords, a single sheet of Kleenex—perhaps containing a loved one’s tears—and risqué photos, never make the auction.

Auction money goes into an account along with money from other assets.

The state is not allowed to spend the principal, but the interest is used for schools, libraries and other projects.

In May, Janesville resident Rich Bostwick’s name appeared on the unclaimed property list.

“Someone from church saw it in the paper and told me about it,” Bostwick said.

The money was from a mortgage escrow account on a duplex that Bostwick hadn’t lived in for years.

It was tricky to find the legal documents proving he was the owner and resident of that building, but he finally managed to get the paperwork together.

That was about seven weeks ago.

Legally, the state has 90 days to get money or property back to the claimant.

Janesville resident Scott Petranek’s name was also on the May list. His father had stocks in a safe deposit box that had fallen off the family’s financial radar.

He submitted the paperwork, and several weeks later he and his family got a check for more than $1,000.