A wallet returned, 10 years later

The moral of this story: Never give up on finding a lost wallet.

New Hampshire resident Ken Nutter lost his wallet 10 years ago while buying gas in North Carolina on the way to Florida. He looked for it for a few hours before giving up hope."I forgot all about it by the time I got to Florida," he says. "I never thought I would see it again."

It turned out Michael St. John of West Palm Beach, Fla., had found the wallet, tried in vain to locate Mr. Nutter, then put it in a safe, intending to keep trying to find the owner. Time passed, and Mr. St. John forgot about the wallet until about a month ago when he was moving out of his house. Rummaging through the safe, St. John rediscovered the wallet. This time he tracked down Nutter, called him, and told him he'd had the wallet the entire time and had meant to send it to him.

Nutter received the package in the mail last week. The wallet still had his expired credit cards, old family photos, and ID cards. Also included was a money order for $600, the amount of cash that had been in the wallet. Apparently St. John did not want to send cash in the mail.

Nutter says he'll probably send St. John a gift of some kind. "There are some honest people left in the country," he says.