A metal safe has just appeared in front of a downtown Toronto museum and people are wondering where it came from.

The well-worn safe, a Cashguard brand with an old-style combination dial lock, appeared in front of Mackenzie House on Bond Street this week, according to Carlos E. Tovar Schoener, who snapped a photo of the box. The safe had a sign on it that reads: "Free to any home."

Schoener posted the photo in the Weird Toronto Facebook group on Wednesday. He was told the safe was dropped in the yard of Mackenzie House, but the facility couldn't keep it and left it out front.

A spokesperson for Mackenzie House says the safe was not the property of the museum and was noted by staff as having no historic significance.

"It was estimated to weigh approximately 300 lbs.," the spokesperson tells blogTO.

By Thursday morning, the safe was gone and museum staff have no idea who took it.

While the sturdy-looking item might have proven useful to stash cash or cannabis in, one person wondered how someone would figure out the combination to open it. Another suggested a safecracker could fix that, or that it might be used for some kind of art installation instead.

A Cashguard safe listed for sale on Kijiji for $150 (or best offer) mentions that the combination on these boxes can often be reset with a special reset key for the particular model in question.

So while it's not clear who put the box there or why, it might prove useful for whoever took it.