A large number of Americans have purchased class Series E savings bonds in the past, but have forgotten to cash it back in.

According to reports, the U.S. Treasury owes Americans some $17 billion in Series E savings bonds, which was introduced as incentives mostly for military personnel, but later on repackaged as a safe way to invest.

The problem is that, a good part of these bonds, which were sold from 1941 to 1980, have been forgotten, or even worse, people who have them may not know they do. The owners of these bonds could have died, leaving their bonds stashed away someplace where no one would know.

The good thing is, there might be an easy way to check if a Series E bond is supposedly in your possession.

If you suspect that you have a Series E bond purchased after 1973, you can visit http://treasurydirect.gov directly, and just punch in your social security number into the web site’s Treasury Hunt function.

If you have a bond dated prior to 1973, it may be a bit harder because records are only kept on microfilms, but personnel from the U.S. Treasury and the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators are more than willing to run a background cross check.

[with references from Parade]