BOSTON — A diamond pendant appraised at $25,000, a jewel-encrusted tiger pin and a broken Harry Potter wristwatch are a few of the hundreds of abandoned items Massachusetts officials planned to sell in an online auction.
State Treasurer Steven Grossman, who displayed some of the items at the Statehouse on Wednesday, said they came from safe deposit boxes in financial institutions that reverted by law to the state after going unclaimed by their owners for at least nine years.
The auction, which begins on Saturday and runs through Dec. 3, marks the seventh year that the state has used eBay to sell tangible unclaimed property. Last year's auction netted a record $480,000, Grossman said, with the proceeds going into the state's General Fund.
The approximately 1,000 items available in this year's auction have a total appraised value of about $350,000, treasury officials said, but in the past they have sold on eBay for an average of 60 percent above their appraised value.
While the proceeds of the auction benefit state government, Grossman said the primary goal of his office's unclaimed property division is to reunite property with those who owned it in the first place.
"We are always trying to get the property back in the hands of the rightful owners, or their equivalent cash value," he said.
To that end, the state operates a website listing abandoned property that has been turned over to the state, and has also posted the list in newspapers.
An estimated one in 10 Massachusetts residents have unclaimed property, Grossman said.
The jewelry, watches, coins and other physical items represent only a fraction of the $2 billion in total unclaimed property, most of which consists of stocks, bonds or forgotten bank accounts.
Once an item is sold at auction, the rightful owners can no longer retrieve it, but they can claim the cash equivalent from the sale if they can provide proof that they owned the property, or are the heirs of the original owner.
An example of such proof, Grossman said, would be a valid insurance appraisal matching the description of an item.
The most valuable of the items to be auctioned is the $25,000 gold necklace with diamond pendant, described as having 80 additional round brilliant cut diamonds, and approximately 10 carat total weight. Other valuable jewelry include a white gold diamond broach pin appraised at $18,500 and a diamond solitaire ring appraised at $17,000.
The most unique piece of jewelry, and Grossman's personal favorite among the items, was the tiger pin, which sported diamonds on its nose and two natural emeralds. It was appraised for $1,000.
Rare coin collectors will also have plenty to choose from, including a $3 U.S. gold coin from 1878 with an estimated value of $4,000 and an 1802 Silver Dollar appraised at $2,000.
The broken Harry Potter wristwatch, with a drawing of the boy wizard adorning its face, was among the more whimsical of the items displayed by the treasurer that could attract the attention of memorabilia collectors. The appraised value of the watch wasn't known.
"It's fun," Grossman said of the auction. "It's a good time of the year, a holiday time, and people are looking for gifts."
The items will be on public display at a state office building in Springfield on Thursday and at a state lottery office in Worcester on Friday, prior to the start of the auction.