Finders Keepers? Scout Learns City Hall Doesn’t Follow That Rule

A 14-year-old Boy Scout is getting a bitter civics lesson in this Seattle suburb.

Matthew Wolff was doing a good deed with fellow Scouts, cleaning the debris and weeds from a vacant lot owned by the city, when he found an old jam jar filled with $2,000 in gold coins on Feb. 24.

The four coins were wrapped in a leather packet. Each was a $20 gold piece. Three were St. Gaudens, minted in 1911, and one was a Liberty Gold Coin from 1907.

Matthew happens to be coin collector and knew he’d made a valuable find.

He turned the coins over to the Bothell Police Department. If no one claimed them after a certain time, they would be his.

But the city attorney has decided that since the coins were found on a city-owned lot, the money belongs to the city. And under state law, the city cannot give a private citizen a gift.

Matthew, an eighth-grader, is trying to be philosophical.

“The city can’t do anything about it. They’re hamstrung by the law,” he said. “I guess it’s easy come, easy go.”

City Manager Rick Kirkwood said Monday that Matthew will receive a commendation from the city, and the city will put money equaling the value of the coins in a fund for Scout community service projects.

The lot where the money was found had two small 50-year-old houses on it. The city bought the property last fall, and the houses were razed in December.