One thousand lire, deposited on 25 October 1963 in a bearer booklet of the Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste, remained there for over sixty years, forgotten together with crumpled scripts and stage costumes in an actors’ trunk, a trunk which then ended up in a garage in Pieve del Grappa, in the province of Treviso, where it remained closed for decades.
It was Umberto Libassi, a 72-year-old theater actor originally from Margno, in the province of Lecco, who found him. The booklet had been in his name since he was a child: his parents, also actors, had opened it to him when he was nine, probably as a gift for some ceremony, as was the custom at the time.
The pleasant discovery
Taking into account the legal interest, monetary revaluation, capitalization and compound interest accrued between the date of issue and the date of discovery, the value of the booklet would exceed 50,000 euros. This was estimated by a consultant of the lawyer Stefano Rossi of the Italian Association of Rome, to whom Libassi turned to start the reimbursement procedure.
On a legal level, the issue is not simple. The Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste no longer exists: according to the lawyer, the reimbursement obligation would fall on Unicredit, which absorbed the old institution, and jointly on the Ministry of Economy. As for the statute of limitations, the lawyer maintains that the terms have not expired: the effective day begins from the date of discovery of the title, since the interested party was unaware of the existence of the credit before that date.
Libassi’s case is not isolated. According to the Italian Association, in Italy there are approximately 10 million old credit instruments – including postal vouchers, bank books and BOTs – that have never been collected and are potentially still valid.
