Time to Return the Towels

At the Mayflower, the amnesty was also prompted by a desire for stories.

How on earth, for instance, did that five-gallon punch bowl disappear from a 1940s Christmas party? What tale might lie behind the recovery of a champagne flute, say, from the Kennedy inaugural ball? And whatever happened to the lost gold banquet service acquired at auction in 1948 from the estate of Evalyn Walsh McLean?

Pending the remorseful return of objects to the front desk, McClinsey has turned elsewhere: The fancier the hotel, the likelier its contents will appear on eBay.

On the online auction site, the going rate for Mayflower loot is $6 to $10, he said, although he bid $50 for an old champagne bucket that the seller's father had pinched from the hotel, along with a bottle.

The bucket and other items salvaged off eBay sit between gold-leaf colonnades carved with rams' heads in glass display cases in the lobby's mezzanine.

A silver plate marked "Rib Room" recalls the now-defunct restaurant in which longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ate every working day.

The origin of two giant glass yardsticks possibly used for beer-chugging contests, marked with the Mayflower's signature ship and sold on eBay eight months ago, has flummoxed the hotel's cocktail bar employees.

Two room keys, purchased for $10 each, which McClinsey says date to the 1930s and 1950s respectively, recall the pre-electronic card era and a prescience for their departure in guests' pockets or purses.

Nailed to each is a coin embossed with the Mayflower vessel. The flip side reads: "Please drop in any mail box. Return postage guaranteed."