Sometimes, the most remarkable stories begin with an unexpected message in the dead of night. For Richard Guilford, a retired autoworker from Michigan, that message arrived after midnight and read: "Did you lose your wallet years ago? If so, it was in the engine bay of a car." The sender, Chad Volk, a mechanic from Lake Crystal, Minnesota, had just solved a decade-old mystery that spanned nearly 1,000 miles and more than 11 years.
Back in December 2014, Guilford was working at a Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan. He was repairing the electrical system of a 2015 Ford Edge—just another day on the job, or so he thought. Somewhere between the hustle of the assembly line and the demands of the clock, his tri-fold leather wallet slipped from his shirt pocket and vanished. "I can't take too much time to look for this because I gotta work. I'm on the clock," Guilford recalled, as reported by CBC. He and his coworkers searched more than 30 cars, opening doors, peering under seats, and checking every nook and cranny. But the wallet was gone. "No luck. Life went on," he said with a shrug.
The wallet was more than just a holder for cards and cash. It was a Christmas gift from Guilford's sons, filled with $15 in cash, his driver’s license, work ID, $275 worth of gift cards—including a $250 card from Cabela’s and a $25 card from Outback Steakhouse—and a handful of lottery tickets. Over the years, as Guilford continued his nearly 35-year career at Ford, he put the loss out of his mind. He retired in 2024, the missing wallet by then just a faded memory.
Fast forward to June 2025. In Lake Crystal, Minnesota, mechanic Chad Volk was finishing up a routine job at LC Car Care. He was replacing a set of cooling fans on a 2015 Ford Edge with about 151,000 miles—approximately 243,000 kilometers—on the odometer. As he tried to snap the air filter box into place, something felt off. "I messed around a little bit and then pulled it back out and the wallet was sitting on a little ledge where it needed to snap down. I pulled the wallet out and that's what it was," Volk told CBC. Inside, he found the entire contents intact: cash, cards, and a license featuring a much younger Guilford with a red-tinged beard.
Volk did some quick detective work. The work ID pointed to Ford in Michigan. A search on Facebook turned up Richard Guilford, whose profile confirmed his Ford connection. Volk snapped a photo of the wallet and the driver’s license, then sent a message: "Did you lose your wallet years ago?" The response was swift and stunned. Guilford could hardly believe it. "Crazy," Volk said of the wallet’s journey. Guilford agreed, marveling at the odds. As Ford spokesperson Said Deep put it, "Can you imagine the odds?"
The story only gets more astonishing when you consider the wallet’s journey. After leaving Michigan, the Ford Edge traveled across the country, spending time in Arizona—where summer heat can turn a car’s engine bay into an oven—before winding up in Minnesota, with its punishing winters. "The amazing part to me was it was so protected," Guilford said. "Think about this: 11 years, rain, snow. It was in Minnesota, for crying out loud. It was in Arizona when it was bought. Think about how hot a transmission gets in Arizona driving down the road. That's incredible." Despite all this, the wallet’s contents survived remarkably intact. The lottery tickets were faded, but the cash was crisp and the gift cards, astonishingly, were still valid.
Cabela’s, the outdoor retailer, confirmed that the $250 gift card in the wallet was still good, and even offered to send Guilford new cards to celebrate his luck, according to the Associated Press. The status of the $25 Outback Steakhouse card was less clear, but for Guilford, the real prize was the return of a family treasure. As he told AP, "It restores your faith in humanity that people will say, 'Hey, you lost this, I found this, I'm going to get it back to you.'"
Volk mailed the wallet back to Guilford in Michigan, money and all. For the retired autoworker, now a part-time auctioneer, the wallet has become a new kind of keepsake. "I'm going to put everything back in it and leave it just like it is, and it's gonna sit at the house in the china cabinet and that's for my kids," Guilford said. "They can tell my great-grandkids about it. We're big into stories. I like tellin’ stories. That’s just who I am." The wallet, once a simple Christmas gift, is now destined to be a family heirloom, a symbol of persistence and a testament to the unexpected kindness of strangers.
The Ford Edge itself has its own tale to tell. After leaving the Wayne, Michigan assembly plant, it was shipped out, eventually making its way to Arizona, where it racked up miles and endured relentless heat. By 2016, it had made its way to Lake Crystal, Minnesota, where Volk began servicing it. For nearly a decade, the wallet remained hidden, wedged between the transmission and the air filter box, enduring every mile and every season with the car. It’s a small miracle that it wasn’t lost to the elements or destroyed by the heat of the engine.
For Guilford and his family, the wallet’s return is more than just the end of a mystery. It’s a story to be told and retold—a reminder that sometimes, the things we lose find their way back to us in the most unexpected ways. As Guilford put it, "They can tell my great-grandkids about it." And who knows? Maybe one day, decades from now, one of those great-grandkids will open the china cabinet, see the old tri-fold wallet, and marvel at the improbable journey it took.
In a world where lost things often stay lost, this story stands as a testament to the power of persistence, the reach of modern technology, and the simple, enduring kindness of strangers who go out of their way to do the right thing. For Richard Guilford, Chad Volk, and everyone who’s ever lost something precious, it’s a story worth remembering.