Question about savings bonds?

[Brandalyne]

So a strange thing happened today. A woman came to my door to ask about my neighbors who are a nice elderly couple. They happen to be the parents of my human resources manager at work. The lady told me that she had knocked on their door but they didn't answer.

Anyway, this lady lived about 20 minutes away on the other side of town and had found an envelope containing the man's ID and about 50 US savings bonds from between 1988 to 1998. I told her that I would call their daughter and make sure they got them back. I did get ahold of their daughter and they are coming over tomorrow to get them. Apparently they were taken in a home break in.

First I think its totally cool of the lady to give them back. She said all she could imagine was an old couple who had worked hard all these years for them.

But I was wondering about savings bonds like if they get stolen do you just lose the money or is their a back up system or record on file for instances like theft or fire?

[kimiko]

I'm assuming that these saving bonds are government bonds like I bond, H bond, EE bonds, etc.... and not corporate bonds. In the case of lost, stolen, or damaged bonds paper, you can request to have them replaced. See Treasurydirect.gov. That info is located in the indepth section of each type of bond.

Any other type of bonds....I have no idea. Hopefully someone else can answer that.

[GrimJack]

Nowadays, you buy them online and never see the paper. DH was buying different kinds of bond but with the current collapse, both bonds and stocks have fallen so bonds are not a good buy right now.