This Veterans Day, five Purple Hearts are sitting in the custody of the Colorado Department of the Treasury, waiting for someone to claim them. So are two Bronze Stars and two National Defense Service Medals, part of 18 military decorations in all, according to Denver7.
The medals turned up in forgotten safety deposit boxes, Denver7 reported. The boxes also yielded service records and missing money, which landed with the treasury’s Unclaimed Property Division, led by State Treasurer Dave Young, according to the treasury’s Nov. 9 news release. Neither the release nor the report names the veterans or says which wars they served in.
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Veterans and their families can search for the items through the state’s Great Colorado Payback website, per Denver7. The division holds military medals indefinitely while it tries to find owners or heirs. “When a veteran has passed away, finding the rightful heir can take time,” said division director Bianca Gardelli.
The medals are not going anywhere in the meantime. “We never sell military medals or decorations,” Gardelli told KOAA in 2025, and the treasury says state law bars selling them.
“Our veterans have made extraordinary sacrifices in service to our country, and their families carry those legacies forward,” Young said, per Denver7.
The treasury made a similar appeal a year ago, when it highlighted three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, according to its Nov. 10, 2025, news release. This year’s tally is bigger, though the treasury itemizes only nine of the 18 decorations and does not identify the other nine.
The Purple Heart is given to service members wounded or killed by enemy action, per The National WWII Museum. The museum calls it the oldest active military award in the United States, tracing it to the Badge of Military Merit that George Washington created on Aug. 7, 1782.
The medals are a small part of a much bigger pile. The treasury says it safeguards more than $2.5 billion belonging to 17 million individuals, businesses and organizations, per its news release.
The timing is deliberate. Denver7 tied the call to Veterans Day, observed Wednesday, Nov. 11. The holiday began as Armistice Day in 1918, and this look at its history explains how it became Veterans Day in 1954.
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