Stove serves up coins, metal

Stove serves up coins, metal
By Staff Reports
7/7/2004

View in Print (PDF) Format


CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. (AP) -- A landlord is sure glad he looked in an old stove before he threw it out. Inside were vintage coins and nearly $4,000 worth of gold and silver bars.

Vincent Bilotti came across the stove when he was cleaning the Broad Street apartment of Ben Mizera, a longtime tenant who had died recently. He pried open the coal-burning chamber and found several wrapped parcels and canisters.

The cans had plastic bags with ancient pennies -- wartime zinc, Indian head and wheat. The brown paper packages had 133 one-ounce gold and silver bars. There were also five-dollar bills minted in 1851 and solid-silver dollars from the 1880s.

Bilotti said he'll make sure the valuables get to either Mizera's wife or a relative.