The mystery of this story revolves around a bowl — a glass globe of a bowl, with a scratched wooden lid and white painted letters fading to silver, telling its purpose.

That’s not the mystery part.

“Please donate your change for Noyes Home for Children,” it says.

And though it’s old, and though it no longer belongs to the Noyes Home for Children, the bowl collected money for several months of the year, and the Noyes Home will get that money before Christmas.

But how did an object from St. Joseph’s past find its way home, when it nearly became another dusty collector’s item? That’s the mystery.

Here’s how it began ...

A few months ago, Ty Huffer and John Sonderegger stopped by a local antique mart.

The two men, co-owners of St. Joseph Auction and Antique Mart, thought they’d just check around at Hatfield’s Antique Mart. That’s when Ty, a lover of St. Joseph architecture and history and a collector of St. Joseph’s past, saw a large glass bowl.

“It caught my eye,” he said.

Ty, who’s also an auctioneer, has lent between 40 and 50 pieces of his collection to the Wyeth-Tootle Mansion. Among his finds are an Aunt Jemima cooking oil pan from Quaker Oats and the bulletin board once at the entrance to Steven’s Hat Company.

He saw the silvery white writing on the bowl requesting donations for the Noyes Home. It looked like it was from the ‘40s, he thought.

“That’s what I collect,” he said. “So I bought it without hesitation.”

Sixty five dollars later, Ty and John made their way back to their antique mall. Ty figured he’d put the collection bowl in his rec room with his other treasures.

“Well,” John said, “it never made its way to his basement.”

Since they were going inside to help another dealer set up, Ty feared the bowl might be stolen in his truck.

So he brought it in.

And on his way past an old black-and-white checkered soda fountain, Ty sat the bowl down.

About two hours later, he returned.

And that’s when the mystery began to unfold.

There, in the bottom of the bowl, sat a crisp, folded dollar bill.

Well heck, Ty and John thought, the bowl looks good there.

“John said, ‘Why don’t we just go ahead and collect money,’” Ty said. “‘There’s already a buck in there.’”

Ty called the Noyes Home to make sure it was OK to take up the collection. And, he asked, did they know anything about the bowl?

They didn’t.

“I don’t know how it ever came out of their possession,” Ty said.

Somehow, it came into his. And instead of filling it up with fish or quarters or candy, the bowl convinced Ty to use it as it was meant to be used.

And you know what? People kept folding up dollars and dropping them in.

To encourage giving, John offered people totes and bird feeders for a dollar donation. And though they haven’t counted the money, they figure they’ve collected $250 or $300 dollars, so far.

“It ain’t a ton of money,” John says, “but, you know.”

Ty, John and the other owners of the antique mall plan on presenting that money to the Noyes Home before Christmas. They hope next year they’ll have more to give.

But they have no answers to their mystery — who put that first dollar in the old collection bowl?

Perhaps that doesn’t matter, though.

Maybe what matters is that the dollar inspired giving and the giving will help kids for Christmas, and the bowl, once sitting in antique marts and auction houses, is again living the life it was meant for.