S/O: wedding ring found

4EvR&4AlWz · April 2014

So, I posted a few weeks ago that DH's wedding ring was lost. He was sitting in the ocean, running his hands through the sand and then walking a bit in the water and when he went to slick his hair back, realized it was gone after about 10 minutes in the Ocean. He and his friends looked by sifting through the surf for a few hours but never found it.

When he told me about it, I created an image with a picture of the ring, wrote the inscription of our wedding date along with another "unique phrase" and offered a reward and shared it on a few Naples, FL Facebook Community Groups, with friends who lived there and on Craigslist Lost and Found. I also emailed pawn shops (and heard back from one pawn shop who advised me to file a police "lost" report so that if anyone recovers it and tries to pawn it, it has to be checked against the police database first). I also had DH pull up the satellite image and mark exactly where they had gone in and where he was when he realized he had lost it and provided a more detailed picture. I also created an email address lostringinnaples@gmail.com

I had received about 8 emails from people who were out looking with their metal detectors. One guy is a semi-pro recoverer. He's found gold nuggets in Alaska, parts of Roman Chariots in Italy and has discovered hundreds of rings (including a 2k diamond engagement ring that was never claimed) in various parts of the country.

He lived about 30 miles away from Naples but went out on the Thursday after DH lost it, spent about 5 hours searching (he had been watching the tides so this was the first best day given the rain earlier in the week) and he found the ring. He had sent me an email with the title of the Latin inscription of our ring.....the Latin is what kicked this email from the inbox to the Promos folder.

Even though I had checked the email at least every 2 days or so, I never checked the promo folder b/c it was usually just junk solicitations. Anyway, we were home over Easter and I was just going through the Promo and Social folder and I started screaming for DH when I saw our Latin phrase sitting as the subject line....Ironically, the date on that email was the day of our 16 year dating Anniversary (Titanic and Red Lobster way back in 1998). There were also some followup emails since he had sent the email a week prior and he included a photo of the ring on his finger too!

Anyway, I tried calling the guy and finally reached him. DH and I were well prepared to offer a nice reward. I had asked him what he wanted for his return and he had said "whatever you think is fair." Well, I didn't want to insult the guy and I didn't know what is customary so he had said $2-300 and i told him I was planning more than that so I paypalled him what he requested and told him I'd send the rest after we received the ring.

I later learned the pawnshop value for the ring was only 5% of the actual value of the ring because pawn shops don't consider diamonds as value...interesting fact!

He had found it in about 2 feet of water and it came up in his scoop which he estimates it must have washed a little closer to shore given the tides he estimated when DH lost it. This guy I learned over the weekend had a $3,000 metal detector and water searching capabilities and equipment so it wasn't just the run of the mill metal detector.

He mailed it (insured, registered, sign for, etc) on Monday so I am eagerly awaiting its arrival!!

We had already filed an insurance claim but it wasn't finalized yet because we hadn't gotten the form notarized so we had that cancelled and we are still waiting to see if our jewelry store can return the new ring DH ordered (they just got it in the day we found out the ring was found).

So, as crazy as it sounds, I can't believe all of this and how irony and its miraculous discovery panned out.

sarahandtim · April 2014

Wow! That's amazing! I would have never considered people are that hard core about their ocean searching (for lack of a better term). Good for you guys!

northhillsbride · April 2014

Wow - what a huge undertaking. I know I wouldn't have gone that far to have the ring recovered; but then again, DH's ring is not all that valuable (monetary wise).

I'm glad you found it!