7 Amazing Stories of Lost and Re-Found Wedding Rings

If you’re married, you’ve almost certainly misplaced your wedding ring at one place or another and even if you’ve never actually lost it, you probably know someone else who has. After all, a little band of gold or platinum is pretty easy to lose track of, even if it is important to hold on to. But while many people lose their rings, it’s pretty rare to actually find them again. Even so, it has been known to happen. Here are some of the most amazing stories of people who have lost their wedding or engagement rings, only to find them again. Image Via Jason Pier in DC [Flickr]

Hidden in Some Weeds

Anthea Capewell lost her wedding ring and engagement ring in 1976, when they fell off her finger as she closed her garden gate. After a long and thorough search, she and her husband could only find the engagement ring. Eight years later, the couple moved out of the house, which is why it was even more amazing that 33 years after the ring was lost, Anthea received a call from her old neighbor who claimed to have found the ring. The neighbors discovered the ring buried in some weeds underneath a hedge that was shared by the two homes. The discovery was such a pleasant surprise for the couple that Anthea and her husband immediately decided to renew their wedding vows in the next year.

In An Old Toilet

In 1974, a year after Donna Claver was married, the pregnant woman set her engagement ring on the tank lid of her toilet while she put lotion on. Unfortunately, the ring slipped into the bowl. Despite Donna and husband Terry’s best efforts, including unbolting the toilet and shaking it vigorously, the ring was stuck inside the hole at the bottom of the bowl and couldn’t be removed. Because the couple was too poor to afford a new toilet, they eventually gave up and put the fixture back in place, expecting to never retrieve their lost ring. As the years went by, the Clavers moved out of the home and it was sold over and over, but just last year, Terry happened to be roofing a house across the street from his old home when he noticed the new owners carrying the toilet to the trash. Remembering his wife’s lost ring, Terry climbed off the roof and told the gentlemen he’d be happy to throw the toilet away for them. He then took the fixture to his shop and broke it with a sledgehammer. Finally, the ring was free. Amazingly, after a little cleaning, the ring still looked brand new 36 years later.

In a Dog Food Bag

Toy surprises are usually reserved for cereals and Cracker Jack boxes, that’s why when Krista Berg discovered a man’s wedding ring in the bag of NutroMax she bought for her pup Otto, she figured it wasn’t meant as a bonus gift. Whereas most people would probably invoke the law of finder’s keepers, Krista decided to call around. When no one at the dog food plant had lost their ring, she tried calling the store where she bought the food and got in touch with Mike Stoddard, the rightful owner of the wedding ring. Mike was glad that Krista found his ring and not someone else, noting, "most people would just keep it.”

In a Garbage Truck

When 77 year-old Bridget Pericolo put her wedding and engagement rings into a Dixie cup for safe keeping, she certainly didn’t expect the adventure that followed. It all started when her husband thought the cup was trash and tossed it away with the rest of the garbage. Unfortunately, by that time, the local trash truck had already come by and collected the couple’s garbage bags. Bridget immediately called the local sanitation department, only to have the supervisor tell her that the truck couldn’t be stopped until the end of their route.

At the end of the day, Bridget’s husband Angelo met up with the two drivers of the truck and sifted through the entire truck of garbage, over ten tons worth, until they discovered the bag from the Pericolo’s house. After about 45 minutes of searching, Angelo returned to his wife of 55 years with a smile on his face and a ring in his hand.

On a Carrot

Lena Pahlsson was in the middle of an epic baking session, just before Christmas of 1995, when she removed her ring and placed it on the kitchen counter. At some point during the day, the ring disappeared and Lena and her husband, Ola, looked everywhere for the lost jewelry item. When they remodeled their kitchen a few years later, they even took the opportunity to search behind all the appliances and under the floorboards to no avail. Finally, the couple gave up hope on ever finding the ring. Sixteen years after the ring disappeared, Lena was outside, pulling up the last of the carrots in her garden when she noticed something strange about one of the carrots. The tiny vegetable had a strange thing wrapped around it. When she looked a little closer, Lena realized the carrot had grown inside of her wedding band. After a quick cleaning, the white gold band adorned with diamonds looks as good as new again. While no one knows for sure how the ring ended up in the garden, Ola has a few theories. “We thought maybe it had fallen in to the compostable food bin. Perhaps it ended up in compost that was spread over the vegetable patch later,” he said. Alternatively, he has speculated that maybe the family’s sheep, known for sneaking in and munching on the family’s kitchen scraps, had a hand in the disappearance.

At the Bottom of Some Sea Baths

The Dawn Fraser Baths are a tidal flow salt water pool in Australia, unlike normal pools, this means these baths are filled with salt water and silt, making it hard to find anything lost in the bottom. Fortunately for Joanne Norman, who lost her engagement ring while playing water polo at the baths, scuba diver Brad Lovell was available for hire. She tried to find the ring herself, but noted, “the bottom of the ocean pool was covered in silt and constantly moving. We tried to find it but with the (fading) light we were forced to give up.” Joanne tried hiring a few local salvage divers to look for the ring, but she had no luck until she got in touch with Mr. Lovell. That’s because Brad incorporates a metal detector into his salvage diving to help him find specific items underwater. Brad got the idea for his business as he used a metal detector on the beach and was often interrupted by divers and swimmers asking him to help them find something they lost in the shallows. His idea to combine the practice with scuba diving has proven quite fruitful as he has since been hired to find a number of items lost under the ocean’s surface including the wedding ring of world surfing champion Layne Beachley. “The gratification I feel when reuniting people with a lost engagement or wedding ring is indescribable,” he says.

In the Mud of A Dirty Harbor

Just like Joanne Norman, ecologist Aleki Taumoepeau lost his rings in murky ocean water. In Taumoepeau’s case, he was searching the waters of New Zealand for invasive plant species. When the ring disappeared in water ten feet deep, Aleki tossed his anchor overboard to help him mark the spot. He recorded the area and then returned to his wife of three years who offered to buy him a new ring. "I just said 'No, I'll find it,'" he said. Three months later, he returned to the location and searched for the ring –to no avail. He then returned again, over a year later, and dared to dive into the freezing waters during the area’s winter season. Finally, he spotted his old anchor and then immediately saw the ring. "I couldn't believe that I could see the ring so perfectly," he said, "the whole top surface of the ring was glowing." As you may have guessed, Aleki’s ability to spot a “glowing” ring in the normally murky waters of New Zealand has earned him a new nickname amongst his friends…that’s right, he’s now the “Lord of the Ring.” Image Via tata_aka_T [Flickr] Have any of you lost your wedding rings? Did you end up finding them again? If so, do you have a tale that can rival these stories?