'I Said, 'Oh, This Can’t Be Real'': Massachusetts Man Makes Huge Discovery Inside Old Desk

A Massachusetts man ensured that one family had a very happy Thanksgiving when he found more than $125,000 in bonds that had been missing for years, tucked away inside an old desk.

A Massachusetts man discovered more than $125,000 in bonds hidden inside an old desk. (Image source: Boston Globe)

Phillip LeClerc of Weymouth, Massachusetts, bought the desk at an auction earlier this month for $40, the Boston Globe reported. The desk had come from the home of a 94-year-old man whose son was selling the house.

“First I said, ‘Oh, this can’t be real. This doesn’t happen,’” LeClerc told the Globe this week. “You hear about it, but it’s not too often that it happens.”

He contacted the president of Kelley Auctions to get the bonds back to their owner. The family who they belong to had been looking for them "for years," Marg-e Kelley said.

“The gentleman whose family the bonds belong to, he can’t even believe it. He said, ‘I’m over the moon,’” Kelley said.

LeClerc told the newspaper he was moving the desk when a knob from an inner drawer fell off. Looking for the knob, he saw an envelope sticking out from a small gap under the drawer — and that was just the beginning.

“The first piece I saw was $500 and that was enough to shake me up,” LeClerc said. He and his wife ended up finding an entire stack of bonds, including six worth $10,000.

All the bonds matured in 1992 and have been collecting interest. LeClerc told the Globe he thinks they're worth at least $127,000.

“It was really a fluke that it was found. If I wasn’t looking for the knob … I never would have found it,” he said, adding, “I think it’s probably going to make a big difference” for the family.

LeClerc was going to give the bonds to Kelley, who said she'd return them to the family, who didn't want to be identified.

“It just feels good. We’ve done a couple of good things like that — we keep finding things for people that are unbelievable,” Kelley said. “That for me is the magic in what we do.”