71 years later, lost wallet returned — with Boy Scout card still inside

While renovating the Talent Factory Theater in Nevada, Iowa, Larry Sloan and his wife found an old wallet lodged in the floorboards.

Inside the plastic wallet were some generations-old clues to its age and owner’s identity: a 1944 pocket calendar, ration stamps, old faded photos, a handwritten emergency contact card — and a Boy Scout membership card.

The well-worn membership card looks like the one below, which has a copyright date of 1939. So it makes sense that a Boy Scout in 1944 would carry that version of the tri-fold card.

Sloan tracked down the wallet’s owner: 85-year-old Clare McIntosh, who initially assumed Sloan had the wrong guy.

“He said, ‘Well, I haven’t lost my wallet,'” Sloan said.

McIntosh “thought at first it must be some sort of a joke,” he said.

See the story

Here’s the report from KCCI-TV, which has racked up nearly 2 million YouTube views:

What’s in your wallet?

This cool story got me thinking about the Scouting-related items we carry in our wallets today.

For me, it’s my Boy Scout membership card and BSA business card.

What about you?