Ethics question about found jewlery

[chickened]

Has anyone seen my gold ring? I lost it about ten years ago, it has my SS# on it but cannot remember what it is.

 

[mandelyn]

Does your local news channel need a "fluff" story? Call them and say you have a ring from the area, that you've held onto for 10 years, and you still want to try to find the owner. That would reach a lot of people if they run something like that.

 

[flyingtnh]

I missed if you mentioned which school it came from, but based on your proximity to Ft Knox and the fact you say it's ginormous, I'm betting it's a Senior Military College ring (Norwich, VMI, Citadel, etc). Those are traditionally up to about 32pennyweight. It will have enourmous sentimental value and probably has some combat time on it (I know mine meets both criteria).

Since it has an SSAN, you might approach either the school or the Ft Knox public affairs office.

 

[coloradochick]

I would try one more time also. I know I would want mine back.
Mandelyn has a good suggestion about the fluff piece on the news. Denver stations do this stuff all the time.

Also I would definitely put it out there on Craigslist in several cities if you need to.

I would feel guilty meelting it down or selling it. But that's just me

 

[sgtmom52]

Quote:

Much has changed in the past 10 years ~ things are much easier to trace now on the internet. Personally I would not be able to sleep if I took something knowing that it was lost and there was a chance that I could return it to the rightful owner even after many years!

This is an incident with a class ring in my area that was found and returned after being lost for 52 years!

 

[twentynine]

You guys must have missed the post where they are removing the SS# from the ring. So they can sell the ring with a clear conscience.

All I can say is how hard could it be to locate the owner---

Man's ring that's 50% of the people in class eliminated right their
School is on the ring
Year of graduation--- norrows it down to a few hundred at most
Owner's initials are on the ring--- gets it down to a few

 

[ChooksinChoppers]

Quote:
Well I think that is just WRONG!. nuff said

 

[HeatherLynn]

The SS does me no good. I have no way of using it. It is a college ring but even the school said they have no way of finding the student. I asked the police and due to the length in time they had no interest. I was told its mine. That was helpful. I even tried putting it in the internet. Removing the SS was a means of protecting the person. I did not want to sell it and put someones SS out there where it might be miss used. Its bad enough to lose a ring. Its worse to lose an identity. Just cause I cannot find out info does not mean someone who has a bit more skill at stealing peoples information could not.

We tried to find the owner 10 years ago. I have spent the last few days giving it another round of attempts. I just wanted to make sure I had followed through in all the ways I could. I have done so. Apparently ethically doing everything you can in good faith though isn't enough. I am just going to drop it back in the drawer and forget it. I had considered selling and donating the money to a local struggling family but you all have me thinking that there is no right way to handle this if I cannot find the owner. Maybe next time we pull out the ring there will be something on the internet that is helpful or someone will answer our ad. Thanks for the help all. Signing off

BTW owners initials are not on the ring, That would have been helpful. Also the school is not going to hand me a list of their graduating class of 1989. That is against their confidentiality policy.

 

[Spookwriter]

The answer is that you need to do what you feel led to
do with the ring. Keep it or sell it, the choice is yours.

Let's say you do keep it another ten years. Then what?

You have said that you have made a fair effort to find the
owner. Still unclaimed. So yes, it is your ring to with as you
see fit.

I would consider it yours.


Spook

 

[ChooksChick]

You can find a list of graduates on classmates.com or reunion.com, as well as the class page on facebook. I would be heartbroken if I knew something I spent a lot of money on that clearly was of great sentimental value was in someone's grasp and they didn't make all the efforts possible and profited from my loss. The local news would be my next try, and I'd really relish the mystery and good feeling from reuniting it with its proper owner.

I put myself in that person's position and can't see how it would ever sit well on my conscience to do anything less that all that was in my power. If it was my brother's, husband's, father's ring, I would want that for them, too.



Just my $.02