LOST PROPERTY AUCTION

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29233, 17 June 1960, Page 11

LOST PROPERTY AUCTION

Variety Of Items For Police Sale

The most out-of-the-way country store could not hope to stock the wide selection of articles which continually finds its way Into the police lost property office. Stored in a shed behind the Central police station’s main building are about 00 items ranging from spectacles to a sack of rye seed and a sack of coal, which will be sold by public auction if not claimed by July 2. In addition, the usual large number of bicycles will be put up for auction. Seventy-eight cycles are unclaimed at present, few of them of recent vintage but most of them at least in serviceable condition. The failur* on the part of one person to claim his lost property is perhaps much more understandable than most. It is a jemmy, which was found in a city street one night by a constable on his beat Perhaps it was hastily abandoned by Its owner at the approach of the law. Even if left in the street in legitimate circumstances the owner probably dd not relish being asked a few questions by the police when he went to claim it The failure of five persons to claim their spectacles is much harder to explain; or the person who lost a rado, or those who found their car wheel assemblies missing. Another item is a sheaf knife and sheath, which was handed to the police by a man who did not wish to keep it if unclaimed. There are also a number of handbags and purses to be auctioned, and several suitcases, a vase, and fountain pens and pencils. Blankets and rugs make up a fair proportion of the lost property. There is also lost clothing in great variety, including gloves, a plastic and other jackets, an Army greatcoat, women’s scarves, skirts, frocks, and footwear—and two pair of riding breeches. , As befits the “city on wheels/’ however, bicycles far outnumber all other items, requiring a special lost property section, .