Commonly it was accepted in the UK that property is handed in to a Police Station for repatriation, unless the finder can locate the owner directly - such as returning a credit-card to a branch of the issuing bank, or sending a driving-licence back to the DVLA.
[5][6] In discussing the history of finding, Alice Tay collected some cases (at footnote 36) where a finder raised an unsuccessful defence to larceny on the grounds that the circumstances of finding were such that no inquiry as to the true owner was required:[2] and cases where the circumstances were held to show no larceny: An issue may arise when a person takes possession of lost property with the intention of returning it to the owner after inquiry but later converts the property to the finder's use.
501: an off duty police constable found a bag of rabbit food lying by the roadside, took it home intending to hand it in as lost property but some time after decided to keep it for his own use.
[5] In California v. Greenwood (1988), the United States Supreme Court ruled that trash left at curbside for collection is effectively abandoned and subject to taking by anyone.
An example in popular movies is the 1946 Hollywood film, It's a Wonderful Life, in which the protagonist loses a small fortune to his business opponent, precipitating his attempted suicide.