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SAFE DEPOSIT HORROR STORYWe've discussed in the past how bank mergers and closures have reduced the number of safe deposit boxes available to collectors for storing their valuable collections. This week I came across this 2024 horror story of a collector's lawsuit against a bank that shuttered a branch. -Editor 
The shuttered Bank of America branch After rare coins worth an estimated $3.6 million went missing, a customer of a now-shuttered Bank of America branch in metro Detroit is questioning whether safe deposit boxes, where the coins had been stored, are as "safe" as their name implies. The customer is a rare coin collector who lives near Windsor, Ontario. He kept some of his collection in the U.S. for when he visited coin auctions in the states. The customer's lawsuit against Bank of America, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Detroit, describes how the collector had a savings account and a safe deposit box rental at the Bank of America branch at 6071 Middlebelt Road in Garden City. The box held 107 rare silver and gold coins, plus 17 additional less valuable coins. Then Bank of America permanently closed the Garden City branch in June 2021. The closure happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the U.S.-Canadian border was still closed to nonessential travel. According to the lawsuit, Bank of America claimed it mailed the man... three notices between March and April 2021 advising him the branch was closing and that he needed to clear out his safe deposit box. But the notices were sent to an incorrect address, the lawsuit claims, and so [he] never received them. Notices also may have been sent to a U.S. post office box that the man closed in August 2020 — during the pandemic — because he couldn't cross the border to retrieve the mail. At the same time, Bank of America continued to send regular statements to [his] correct home address in the Windsor area, according to the lawsuit. Long story short, the collector ended up with the 17 less valuable coins and the other 107 were nowhere to be found. Here are images of a couple of the missing coins. -Editor 
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: Subscribe All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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