If one steals, swears falsely, then repents, he must find the owner or give it to an agent of the court. If the victim never shows, what eventually happens to the returned article. Is there a statute of limitations?
Barry Epstein, Dallas, USA
The article still belongs to the "victim". The court holds it (or its value) for him, with no limitation.
D. Zupnik
But that would imply a storehouse of items that have been held for hundreds of years! That obviously didn't happen. There had to be some resolution if the victim never claims it. Forget the theory or the halachah. What happened in practice?
What happened in practice is the Halachah, and thus we cannot forget the Halachah.
Beis Din was authorized in certain cases to sell the actual article and keep a record of the debt to the true owner. (Such records indeed were kept for as long as Beis Din existed.)
As for the existence of a storehouse with items, why is it so obvious that no such thing existed? After all, it was quite a rare occurrence that Beis Din actually had to keep the item until the true owner claimed it, because in order to have such a situation, you would need to have (a) one stole an item, (b) he swore falsely that he did not steal it, (c) he admitted that he swore falsely, and (d) the victim of the theft, to whom to return the article, could not be found.
D. Zupnik