Do keep us updated!
A bit of a nothing post this, but I’m interested in the wallet story too, FWIW.
I’m surprised at the interest in this lost wallet: 4,558 views so far!
LOL. We’re famous. grin
Quite a few of us have been quietly watching this thread. It’s fascinating stuff in its own way, especially as the 1970s in an interesting era in that it’s recent history. Find a 1940s wallet, and it’s interesting in a museum-y kind of way, but the person is likely dead, and the stuff inside is getting old enough to be quaint. But a wallet from thirty years ago is a much more interesting proposition in a way. There’s the thrill of being potentially able to find the person, and the nostalgia that a lot of us will remember the sort of stuff inside. I’d say 25 - 50 years is the best sort of window for this type of thing.
As for the stuff “deliberately left in walls” as posted upthread, I remember a brilliant newspaper story from the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of years ago. I’m sure I’ve posted it before here, but it tickles my funny bone enough to post it again:
Two or three years ago, a young couple bought an apartment built in 1972. The first thing they did was steam off the revolting early 1970s wallpaper. In uncovering one particular section of wall, the guy found a message to the future from a long-suffering husband of thirty years previously: “So you didn’t like it either? It’s shit, isn’t it?” 
We uncovered some crappy 70s wallpaper under the nicer 90s stuff in my parents house. I was surprised to find the wallpaperers (sp?) signed their work off as a matter of course.
Also surprised to find you could hide many many bodies under the floor boards, the wooden floors of the house are about a metre or so off the concrete of the foundations. When Dad and I were cutting holes to fiddle about with the piping for the radiators, we considered hiding valuable down there when off on holidays.
And add me to the list of those dying to know how this turns out!
how 'bout checking with local newspapers in iowa? they may be able to give you some info.
We have contact info for the man in Iowa.
When my parents replaced the wallpaper in their kitchen, my Mother invited us all to write a message to the future on the bare wall. My father wrote: “I hate steaming off wallpaper, too.”
I’ve just got to know how this turns out.
Oh and I feel kind of guilty because I just painted over my wall paper, even though I’ve been brought up better than that!
My old “in the wallboards” find, which is relatively common but still weird.
I opened up a bathroom wall to find a big pile of hundreds of rusty razor blades at the bottom. Apparantly, old medicine cabinets had a slot cut in them to dispose of your dull razor blades, which then just fell into the wall to be forgotten 
Status: The first name—last name combination of the wallet owner is rare; fewer than ten adults in the United States have it. It comes down to finding out middle names or initials, and dates of birth, to determine who of that handful of people is the wallet owner.
We do not think the wallet owner is dead because we have his Social Security number, and he does not appear in the Social Security Death Index (for most years since 1973, 93 percent to 96 percent of deaths of individuals aged 65 or older were included in the SSDI).
You have one other possibly relevant piece of information, as well: The wallet’s owner presumably works or worked in construction, or his wallet wouldn’t have ended up in the house in the first place.
Once, my roommate bought a new house and invited me to rent the loft space. It had a gable in the back, with two dead-air spaces on either side.
I wanted to run my phone connection from one side to the other without visible wires, so I went thru a built-in storage trunk under the gable window, through the side into one dead-air space. After pulling some phone wire through, I looked around the space. Sitting on the floor in the corner was the remnants of a sandwich and a soda, left there by a builder! :eek: Gross!
I let my roomie/landlord know about it. Dunno if he had words with the building contractor.
I thought the wallet might have been stolen, perhaps by another worker on the job, money removed and then dropped into the wall to avoid getting caught w/ it. Just one possibility I know, but you’d think there might be a couple of dollars in a guy’s wallet.
I was renovating a house I own, a few years back, and I found a train schedule from 1918. It was in remarkable good condition.
Not quite the same time frames, but about 8 years after I graduated from university, a builder at uni was doing something to the ceiling vents in the women’s toilets in the psych department. He found about 6 purses and wallets, including mine which had been stolen from my bag. He attemped to send them all to the addresses found in the wallets - mine was my parents address. I had a little trip down memory lane looking at the old driver’s license, bank card, student id card etc. The purse was still useable but by then I could afford a much nicer one!
I’m a (sometimes) believer in serendipity, and I think you should make whatever effort you can to track it down. Either the path of searching, or the people you meet on the way could turn out to be very significant to you.
The California Civil Code linked to requires the finder to turn the lost property over to police only if the value is $100 or more. The contents of this wallet have no monetary value.
No luck so far, but here’s where it stands…
1 – sent an email to an address at Graceland.edu that Walloon found. That was Sun, no response as of yet. Possible my email was tagged as spam…
2 – called the CA American Legion office, they have no record of him, even though I have his card. They say if he’s no longer a member, or became a member in another state, they wouldn’t have access to his records. Suggested I call the national office.
3 – called the national American Legion office. Again, no records. But they say that just means he’s not currently a member. They promised to email some other phone numbers I can try, have yet to receive said email. I’ll contact them again tomorrow if I have nothing by then.
4 – Walloon found some other ph#s, and I’m going to give them a try tomorrow.