When a World War II veteran died, he left his Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals in a bank.

Eventually, those medals found their way to Colorado State Treasurer’s office as unclaimed property.

Bianca Gardelli, the unclaimed property director for the office, said the state has found the veteran’s family, who will eventually receive the honored keepsakes.

The medals are just a hint of what’s sitting in the state vault — from gold bars to expensive jewels — that Treasurer Dave Young’s office is working to reunite with their rightful owners.   

A state program, known as the Great Colorado Payback, has reunited more than $675 million in valuables with the rightful owners to date.

Some of those items were put on display on Thursday as part of the fourth annual National Unclaimed Property Day.

Among the treasures in the vault are gold Kruggerand coins, bars of raw silver so heavy that lifting them could be painful, a gun that fits on a fingernail that really works and jewels dating back to the Roman empire.

According to Young’s office, Colorado’s unclaimed property is worth more than $1.5 billion. In the past year alone, through the Great Colorado Payback, the office returned more than $52 million in cash and valuables to owners or heirs, totaling some 71,234 claimants.

The average claim was worth $733.78.

“There’s a chance — at least 1 in 7 — that there’s unclaimed property, like gift certificates, unpaid wages, or uncashed checks, with your name on it,” Gardelli said. “And the Great Colorado Payback wants to make sure that you’re reunited with your money.”

Money or property turned over to the State Treasury for safekeeping is held for the owner or heir with no expiration date for filing a claim. 

The Colorado State Treasurer currently maintains a list of over 7.6 million names of individuals, corporations, municipalities, schools, nonprofits, hospitals, and small businesses — among the many whose property is available to be claimed.

That also includes more than $1.5 billion in cold, hard cash.

The treasures on display Thursday included a stack of South African Kruggerands, valued at up to $3,000 each; two one-kilo gold bars, worth about $65,000 each; jewels of all kinds, embedded in rings and necklaces; and, a small bronze statue and a gun. 

The gun is the size of a small paperclip. It’s part of a keychain and it fires small pellets.