Exploring old personal belongings can lead to findings you never thought possible. Sometimes when I do a full spring cleaning of my room I find something that I thought I lost months ago. And sometimes exploring through other people’s personal belongings (with permission) can lead to some pretty cool findings too.
In a story posted on Imgur, user 70becks told the story of finding Walt Disney stock in their great uncle’s old safe. The safe was located on the original poster’s family farmhouse in the basement. The old house is slated to be torn down, so naturally, they were pulling out anything and everything of value.
Apparently, no one in the family is sure how long the safe has been there or who the original purchaser was (though the original poster’s grandfather claims it was his father who bought it). In an attempt to get the safe out of the basement, 70becks and a friend tried to pull it upstairs with a furniture dolly but they were unsuccessful. A few weeks later, 70becks and their father came back “with the big guns” to get the safe out of the house.
They made a ramp out of 1x12s screwed together with 1x1s on the back to catch all treads and prevent slipping.
But they knew that manpower alone wouldn’t be enough to pull the safe up the stairs so they attached a tow strap to a chain in order to pull it up the stairs and around the corner with a skid loader.
70becks and their dad originally had the safe on a dolly and they tied the tow strap to that a few different ways hoping they could pull it up but nothing worked. After the fourth try, finally the rig worked. The safe weighed somewhere between 800 and 1000 lbs, making it an impossible two-man lift job.
Finally, the two got it into 70becks’ garage without much effort. They cleaned it off a bit and they received the original manufacturer’s sheet with combo-lock on it by 70becks’ grandfather. 70becks claimed that the lock design was “unlike any” they had ever seen before and without their grandfather’s help they could’ve never opened it.
Great Uncle Ray was apparently known for being a “notorious hoarder” when it came to anything related to his money and was known as the “family scrooge” according to 70becks. For this reason, they had no idea what to expect when they opened the safe. At first, there was just another door, but it had a key inside to lead to other compartments.
“Documents on documents on documents! Oh, look, a jewelry compartment… and another key!” Apparently, nothing was in the jewelry compartment so 70becks decided to start going through all the documents. It was mostly information on charities, annuities, life insurance, an outdated last will and testament, etc.
By far the most interesting thing 70becks found in the safe were two stock certificates for The Walt Disney Company, one was for twenty shares and the other was for ten. As the shares were still in their full paper form (once cashed out or liquidated all paper trail is destroyed).
70becks took the stocks to the bank and found out not only were they outstanding but also that Great Uncle Ray had bought them just before a split meaning they’re worth 60 to 90 shares now. 70becks and their grandfather are currently in the process of changing the names on the stocks so they’ll be valid again!
