Finding $40,000 Ring Might Be the Easy Part
Tracking Down Owner Full of Obstacles

By Ben Hubbard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 6, 2008; C03

A $40,000 ring lost in the mud in a Tysons Corner parking lot? Not unusual, said Ronnie Mervis, whose company sold the 3.02-carat ring and is helping in the search for the unidentified owner. What is unusual, said Mervis, is that the finders are going out of their way to find the rightful owner.

"Most of the items that get lost don't reappear," said Mervis, owner of Mervis Diamond Importers in Tysons Corner. "They get lost and they're gone, even those with laser inscriptions." This one had no such identification.

"I can't tell you how many people will leave them on a beach towel so they don't get lost in the ocean but don't worry about them getting lost in the sand," he added. "People are just very careless. That's why we have lost-and-founds."

He said his company can measure the angles of a diamond's cut to help identify it. But those measurements aren't like a fingerprint, he said, and it would be hard to trace a ring to a specific customer.

"It would be easier if it goes the other way, if someone comes to claim it and says, 'My name is Jones.' Then we can search for it. Otherwise, it's a needle in a haystack."

The ring, found recently by Keith and Linda Stetzer, had a Mervis stamp on it, and they took it to the company to seek its help.

If the owner is found, it won't be the first time.

Last month, a Michigan woman was reunited with a class ring she had dropped in Lake Michigan in 1954. A man in Bakersfield, Calif., got his class ring back after losing it 15 years before; the bank teller who found it recognized his name.

Then there was the Utah woman who, in 2005, tore apart her dishwasher, dryer and garbage disposal looking for her $7,000 engagement ring. Her husband, a sheriff's deputy, was working at a security checkpoint and spotted the ring -- on another woman's finger.

And yesterday, Craigslist showed that, just in the past week, several people were searching for lost rings, most class rings or engagement rings. There are many reasons people lose them, said Mervis and his son, Jonathan. Women lose weight, and the rings become looser. They take them off to wash the dishes, and the rings slip down the drain.

There might be more hope of finding a ring than other items, said Jonathan Mervis, because people will put more effort into the search.

"If you lose a watch, you can easily go back to the store and buy the same watch," he said. "But an engagement ring is one of those things you want to have once in a lifetime. It's not something you can replace."

As for how such a pricey ring might have ended up in the mud in a parking lot, he and his father had theories.

The son thought it could have belonged to a woman returning to her car with lots of bags. Maybe she had a child with her.

"There was probably a lot on her mind and she didn't notice until later," he said.

His father imagined more drama. Perhaps it was dropped by a thief suffering a pang of conscience. Or better yet, a woman encountered her fiance at the mall, with another woman.

"They had a confrontation in the parking lot, and he got in the car with the other woman and drove off," he said. "As a parting shot, she threw the ring [in the mud] and said, 'That's where you belong.' " His son doubted that: "That was a valuable ring. No one throws that on the ground."

Bryan Hoton, a security guard at the Tysons store, opted out of drama:

"It was too big," he said, and it just fell off. "Happens all the time."