Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo in their book The Misfortune tell about an incident that occurred in July, 1981. Two men, Harvey Bugner and Edward Egan, were walking by the New York City offices of AT&T, then known as “the telephone company” when they spotted an envelope on the sidewalk in front of the AT&T headquarters. Inside that envelope was $10 million in negotiable securities payable to the bearer.

Theoretically this meant that they now had in their possession documents that could make them suddenly very, very wealthy. Fortunately, Harvey and Egan are honest men.  The men returned the securities to an official of AT&T who said a messenger from the securities firm of Goldman, Sachs and Company had accidentally dropped the envelope on the sidewalk.

But here is what is surprising about thi…