You might try to find him and offer to return the items? The internet makes this easier than ever these days.

A story:

My mother sang with a choral group out of Beaumont called the "Melody Maids". My mom would insist that I tell you that they were NOT USO, lol. Apparently some USO performers had less than stellar reputations? I digress...

While on tour of Europe one summer (mid/late 1950s) the group's itinerary coincided with that of a traveling Army baseball exhibition team. The singing group and the baseball team traveled around Europe together and became quite friendly. One of the soldier/baseball players apparently took a liking to my mom and gave her his Army Parachutist wings. Her memory was that the badge was his original--the one he had actually been awarded at Jump School.

Fast forward 50+ years and she ran across the jump wings in a box of memorabilia. She started feeling bad about it for some reason and in conversation--told my daughter and I about the wings and how she got them. My mom remembered the soldier/ballplayer's name, the state he was from, etc. My daughter (somewhat of a computer whiz) went to work trying to find him. I believe it took all of 15-20 minutes to locate him and some contact info. It appeared that he was still alive and probably reachable.

Long story short, my mom ended up calling him, having a conversation and offered to send his wings back. Almost tearfully, the 70+ year-old former soldier/ballplayer told her he would love to have them back. She put them in the mail and confirmed that he had received them.

Bottom line is that you never know what some of this stuff really means to the people that they belong to? My $0.02.