I was dumping a bunch of books in the book drop at the library, it’s one of those bins you load, close, open, load, close, etc and don’t ask me how but my engagement ring snagged on the chute and to my horror I looked down as the chute closed and the diamond had ripped OUT, just an empty setting!!!! I looked around the drop for about 30 seconds and ran in and presented my diamondless hand to the librarian so I could go turn the book drop upSIDE down. First she wouldn’t allow me in, (like it was above my civilian clearance or something), but you KNOW I got in there! After we sifted through every book, searched every corner, I finally shoved my arm through the slot and could see a dusty lint covered shelf in the middle of the opening. Feeling around in the dark, I knocked something pebble sized down (a diamond??) down into a space and discovered there is a huge gap inside the wall!! You know the space inside a building between the bricks and sheet rock where it’s just framing? UGGGGGHHH! I could only reach down as far from my wrist to fingertips because of the opening and felt the top of two books that had been trapped down in their for Lord knows how long! I fished them out and gave them to the librarian and realized that if the diamond had fallen down in THERE, it would NEVER be found unless they came and seriously took APART the wall… we spent about 15 minutes looking. I cried and left all my info at the desk then went outside to call my husband about our insurance while they paged a maintenance guy to see if he could do anything, felt totally sick to my stomach having to tell him what happened. Right before calling, I scanned the ground again, (pleaseohpleaseohpleaseoh please) farther out this time and FOUND it! Upside down, so it wasn’t shining, was a cloudy day too and in the shade, have no idea how many people walked past it/on it!! it definitely came out when the slot snagged it but it just flung it a little ways. Oh my!! I was shaking for an hour after what a close call it was!! Before I found it, I had a million “why did I have to come to the library today?” etc running through my head and after “What if I’d left without looking here? What if some kid had picked it up and thought it was a RHINEstone???” Etc!! I bagged it up with a bunch of tissues and tape and then went to the mall to get it fixed, checking my pocket twenty times on the way there until they locked it up in the safe.
Anywho!! All's well that ends well, praise the Lord! Be careful at the book return! (and have your setting re-tipped every couple years, I found out the hard way!)
Do YOU have a jewelry horror story or similar to share, garbage disposal, pet swallowed etc? I'd love to know, share here, it'll make me feel better (and hopefully they too have happy endings!!!
Oh dear girl!!! I would have cried so hard as well!!! I'm soooo happy you found it!! *BIG BIG HUGS*
ReplyDeleteI have no horror stories to tell about jewelry but my mom sure has!!! And she has lost a couple BIG diamonds!!! Luckily she found them as well. *sigh*
Oh I have a story. Last summer when I went back to the UK to visit my family, I was helping my Mum in the garden taking the vine weed out of the hedge. They back onto a corn field which was just about ready to be cut. My gold bracelet came off; over my hand - it was still fastened ! I didn`t notice it missing until the next day. I covered all areas I thought I had been but nothing. A week went by, the corn field was harvested and we went back again to do some more to the hedge and my Mum found it in one of the furrows which had been made while the corn was cut. How lucky was I. I hope you are feeling better. I can sympathize though, the feeling when you realize you have lost it is second to none.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter fact I do...but mind is a very....very....sad ending....I lost my 1 caret diamond....first time....when to the jewelry store to see how much it would cost to replace it....while I was reaching into my pockets....found it.....had it fix....than about 6 months late...my whole diamond and mount broke off....never to be found....and yes I am still sick....I've sense replace it but not with the same size and shape...it'll do for now.....so you are bless to have found it....always keep checking it...
ReplyDeleteMelanie I am so glad you found it! I can only imagine how you felt.
ReplyDeleteI have a story, a close call actually. I was heading into a store, and went to open a door when someone on the inside came out - slamming the door and my fingers into a concrete wall - the only thing that kept my fingers from being crushed was my wedding band - but my engagement ring had not faired as well it was squished on my finger. I went to the jeweler who was able to get it off, then he commented how the diamond was about to fall off because the setting needed to be redone ... so as you say you need to get that checked every few years!
Sandra
You were so lucky you found it. I had a similar story only we NEVER found it. Cheering practice for my daughter & I was a mom cheering coach having a meeting with my girls (middle school 13 yr. olds)when one of the girls told me to look at my ring something was wrong...the whole head feel off & we spent about 2 hrs. or so looking for it in the gym in the parking lot, everywhere & it was never found. Hubby bought me a new one 3 years later because we were paying for our son's first year of college when I lost it. I was devastated. It was not insured, so you know its insured now. Lesson learned. It was winter so maybe when I pulled off my gloves, thats the only thing I could think of at the time.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I only wore my grandmother's engagement ring (from 1922) for special occasions. I swear I put it into my jewelry box. When I went to retrieve it the next time it wasn't there. I dumped everything out and checked again and again. I was obsessed for 2 weeks-like a crazy woman, scouring the house in the most stupid places (on top of curtain rods, in the fridge???) I thought maybe it had gotten vacuumed up by my daughter, etc. I was so sick about it. I decided after two wks. to go through my jewelry box once again and there it was, all tangled in a necklace. I put it on, and haven't taken it off since- in 30 years!!!
ReplyDeleteMelanie- I am so happy that you found it!
Oh Melanie I am so happy that you were able to find it.
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand how you felt. I had only been married about 8 months when I was putting away some clothes in the dresser and sure enough my ring got caught on the dresser and when I pulled my hand out I had an empty engagement ring that looked just like yours. I cried the whole time I was madly ripping out every piece of clothing. I was also lucky enough to find the diamond. Thank you for the reminder I do need to get my ring re-tipped.
I tell you my stomach was getting sick as I read your story. So glad you found your diamond. I knocked my diamond out of its setting in a toilet stall at work and the diamond landed in between the holes of a drain on the bathroom floor. I held my breath as I carefully picked it up. My setting was a 4 prong and so I took it and had it remounted on a 5 prong.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that you were able to find it. I was surprised to read the other day that four-prong ring settings were not very secure! My mini horror story was years ago a few days before my August birthday. My mom had saved up from her babysitting/ nanny jobs to buy be a ring with my birthstone, Peridot. It was to be my first real piece of jewelry since my birth and culturally it was adding to my financial security just in case anything ever happened. The bag the store had put it in had a hole in it and somewhere between buying it and driving home, it was lost. We scoured the parking lot for it and my mother vowed to never buy another real piece for me since because it was some sort of bad omen. More than a decade later, neither of us have purchased jewelry for me and are still worried about it.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh!!!! What a scare!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI lost my original wedding set.....pregnancy...gained a bunch of weight. So I put them on a chain and they were lost or stolen in one of our many moves. :( It was not worth much in money....we were sooooooooo poor when we got married. But it was priceless to us and never ever has been found.
I lost 2 diamonds in less than a year!! -- I now have a new band of diamonds - sheez. So glad to read YOU found your's!
ReplyDeleteOn our way to Tucson,Arizona one year we stopped at the petrified forest. We did the drive thru tour, went to the gift shop and of course made a pit stop in the public restrooms. I felt very hot and sticky so I wanted to wash up really well. My rings felt tight, so of course I removed them and just laid them on the sink. Well, you know what happened. A good ways down the road I realized that my ring was missing,turned around. Went to check with lost and found, no ring turned in. Left my name and address. A year later I received a call, someone had turned in my ring that day, but my lost report got put in the found report bin. Luckily they discovered the error and sent me my ring!!!
ReplyDeleteI have an extremely similiar story but my diamond fell out in a country western bar!! I wouldn't let anyone leave the building until I checked the bottom of their shoe! I did end up finding it outside in the welcome mat. One of the worst nights EVER but I can guarantee you that night is still talked about by some that were there even after 2o years LOL! I am so glad you found your diamond, I totally know the sickness you felt in your stomach.
ReplyDeletePatricia
the PaperTemptress
Oh my! My stomach was just sick for you while I was reading your story. I'm so glad you found it! My friend lost her diamond at work, or on the way to work, and never found it. One night she came home to find rose petals making a trail from the door to the bedroom where she found a little gift box with a new set from her dear hubby. Romantic ending to a sad event.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I have a story and it doesn't end well. I had only been married about six months. I had gone to two store, and hadden even realized anything was missing until I was driving home. I glance at my engagement ring and the diamond was missing. I didn't know how or when it happen, I just went home crying my heart out. I still have the setting, but no diamond.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you found yours.
I seem to be good at losing jewelry. My first big loss was my birthstone ring from my mom and dad. I was out digging dandelions in the yard. I think I was 8 or 9. Ring gone.
ReplyDeleteGot me a new ring. But in high school, two of my best rings disappeared. My mom said I let them go down the air vent, but I think my brother stole them. Very depressing.
Dawn Griffiths lost her ring a few months back. She was out riding on her husband's motorcycle. :(
SC
I was in the "boot camp training" part of a mission trip -- we leaders were doing team building and training with 40 high school students, camping out in an old school building, getting ready for the sparse accomodations and grueling 40 hour bus trip. The shower rooms in our training facility had wooden grates above the drain / floor and, of course, my precious ruby/diamond should-have-been-my-engagement ring (a precious gift 15 years after we married) went sliding off my hand and down between the grates. It was perilously close to going down the drain. I reached, fished, and finally gave up. Dejected, I told my friend (the trip leader) what had happened, and to my surprise he didn't ignore the problem but summoned another leader, a former engineering student. Yes! He and I fished and used every able implement to grab that ring, just out of reach. About a half hour later, we plucked it off the drain floor and I immediately called my husband to come pick it up. No jewelry on major trips ever since! Whew!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter called me one day crying, she had lost a watch her sweet husband had given her, we prayed about it and my comment to her was, "God could make it fall out of the sky." About 6 months later she was in a closet and felt something hit her back, she turned around and saw her watch on the floor! We think it must have gotten tangled in some of her clothes -- or God made it fall out of the sky!
ReplyDeleteWhat a scary and upsetting experience. So happy it turned out well.
ReplyDeleteOh Mel,I would have been a basket case but I am sooooo glad you found your ring.Good ending to a bad beginning.
ReplyDeleteOh, the horror! I lost the very first ring that my husband gave me at his cousin's house. We thought that their pre-schooler had dropped it down the toilet after I had showered. His cousin and family moved several years later and they found my ring inside the bathroom cabinet underneath the very bottom drawer. It took a strange bounce when their son knocked it off the bathroom counter. Well, they mailed it to me without telling me that they had found it. My husband was travelling internationally when it arrived on my wedding anniversary, of all days!
ReplyDeleteReally glad you found your diamond Melanie! My lost jewellery incident isn't nearly as harrowing as yours. My sister gave me large gold earrings (22kt) quite a few years ago. I was dismayed one day to see that I was only wearing one earring. I re-traced my steps as best as I could with no luck. My Mom found my earring in my sister's garden about six months later. :)
ReplyDeleteMy very best girlfriend lost her diamond. It was back in the 70's when people had shag carpets. She had no clue where she had lost it, and had just given up. Two years later, when she and her new hubby were getting ready to move from their apartment, she was vacuuming for the last time, she found it on the steps. It was tucked in the shag and sending out a little sparkle. Those steps had been swept, and even shampooed many times. It was just amaing. So glad you found yours, Mel!
ReplyDeleteHow emotionally exhausting!!! What a great ending though. I was engaged 3 days when I took my ring off to wash my hands in a ladies room. Not being used to wearing a ring, I left without it. This is a place that employs thousands of people. About 1/2 hour afterwards when I was typing (yes, old days), I noticed my bare finger. I can't tell you the fear that gripped my heart. I ran back in to the ladies room. Someone must have thought I was having a severe problem or something! It was gone!! I cried the rest of the day. I called security, but nothing. THe next day, security called me. Some kind soul had spotted it and knew it meant something special to someone and brought it to the security guard on duty. Relief is such a small word for the feeling I felt!! I'm so glad it worked out ok for you too!
ReplyDeletewow, so glad you got it! I can imagine the horror & all the emotions. I threw mine away with a paper towel after washing my hands and taking it off to put lotion on. thank God I realized it soon enough to retrieve it!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, so glad you found it Mel!!
ReplyDeleteI dont have a ring story, just an earring one...hubby had saved for 6 months to buy me a pair of studs, got them on my birthday, dog ate one of them next day...I waited and checked poop for 2 days...2nd day ....FOUND IT!! ROFL....I get sick just thinking about it....gagged the whole time...bleh...
SO glad you found your diamond, Mel -- that was pure luck (or the good Lord watching over you)! No horror stories myself but a friend came close. Was washing dishes and happened to notice her very large diamond was missing from its setting. Searched through the soapy water and found it! Good thing she noticed it when she did and hadn't pulled the drain plug yet!
ReplyDeleteOk,first glad you got it fixed and all is well. This is why my engament ring is in a box. When we replaced our wedding rings, I decided just to have a wedding band.
ReplyDeleteThe horror story would do with my sons retainer. He just got it replaced and put it in some napkin and accidentally threw it away but didn't say anything for a few hours. My hubby took him back and tried to find it but to no luck.
i have a story. several years ago when i got engaged i was living in NYC. I had been out personal shopping for some family members and was loaded down with a plethora of shopping bags. As i was standing on the nyc subway platform one of the shopping bags ripped opened. As i attempted to untie my hands from all the other bags my engagement ring went flying off and rolled off the platform straight onto the subway track. I immediately preceded to run after it and would have jumped onto the track myself had a stranger (seeing the whole thing) not stopped me. I was a mess! i had to run up to the token booth agent to ask him for help. 2 hours later a maintenance person came by with a special apparatus to be able to "fish" for the ring. Meanwhile during my wait there were mice everywhere and i tried to shooo them away as i heard that these 4 legged critters like bling. ugh....the worse 2 hours of my life ever.Plus once i did get the ring back i had to wait to get home to clean/disinfect the ring. So the whole ride on the train was a nitemare thinking i would get robbed too plus my fiance at the time had been waiting for hours to pick me up at my stop. with no cell service underground he had no clue what i was going through and thought i was joking with him when i told him the whole story. I wish!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any diamond in my engagement ring and wedding ring right now. The diamond in engagement ring lost when my family and my fiance went vacation n after from the pool...I saw no diamond in my ring. It kinda hopeless to find it around or in the pool. My wedding ring..I forgot how it lost. We planning to get only the diamond since we got it in the other country and had wed there. Hubby wants to buy another ring for me, but I refused since the meaning of the ring will be different. So till today I don't have my wedding ring in my finger. Hopefully we can buy diamond that I like. I'm happy you found yours. I know that feeling. Roni
ReplyDeleteMel, you may write a book with these blog comments! Yours will tip the literacy list! I'll mention it to the librarians in the Midland Empire Reading Council!
ReplyDeleteMy story involves a 1920s City water office cash desk where citizens paid water bills. It was traditionally high. The cash drawer and the undercounter ate away at the engagement ring tips. One pull and diamond by a God blessed miraculous 'thread', several wraps of Scotchtape and shaking business and quivering at the edge of crying voice for days. A thin band replaced that removed Scotch tape covered wedding soddered to engagement ring set for well over three years while money was saved $5 a paycheck, baby birthing with many medical bills for extra care days and doctors 87K back then, and one totalled car wreck. . .more but we are safe and you get the idea. That band has been passed to our DIL with a fresh loving inscription. We hope she cherishes the love it represents to pass on to GD who just learned to ride a bike yesterday! Diamond!? Yes, it is easily 'id'ed with two carbon 'eyes' in its center looking back at you under a scoped loving joy smile. Wouldn't you know those four prongers failed again at the jeweler's as she showed us the fault line needing repair! so in comes thin band number two! youngest son's one-day-to-come-wife in waiting for God's introduction will have it with a fresh loving inscription at an appropriate occasion. Ah! Must be time to check those prong tips; thanks for the reminder.
Keep Looking UP!
I love happy endings - don't you??
ReplyDeleteMy sil lost one diamond from her 3 stone engagement ring. It was quite new at the time & the couple were 'sick' with sadness. The fact it was insured was no consolation what-so-ever to them. But they spoke with their insurers anyway - wait for it - the ring was insured BUT they HAD the ring, it was a diamond they lost - tough luck! Happy ending, they eventually found the diamond on a friend's driveway many days later. They had been visiting her house on the night they missed the stone!!!!! Apparently they should have insured EACH stone as well as the whole ring. HUH!
Mary Mac
oh dear,im glad to wear a fake these days.No-one looking can tell the difference but i dont have to worry about damage or loss :)
ReplyDeleteOkay, you asked for it. My first wedding band was an antique gold band from Service Merchandise, we were poor students! We were camping at a lake around the date of our first anniversary. I was sitting on a large innertube and someone tipped me over. My hands flew into the air and my ring flew off my finger! It is somewhere at the bottom of the public beach at the park at the Lake of the Ozarks! Now, 35 years later we still laugh and I have since purchased a diamond wedding ring.
ReplyDeleteI would have been bawling my eyes out for sure! I've got 2 rings captured in tissue and a baggie right now waiting for a trip to the jewelers. I dropped my grandmother's ruby ring (given to her by grandpa on their 45th wedding anniversary because he thought they wouldn't make it alive to their 50th - which they didn't - and then given to me by my mother on my wedding day as my 'something old') and the ruby popped out of the setting. Then, the next day I noticed the center diamond was wiggly in my 10-year anniversary ring (a gorgeous gawdy ring personally designed by DH over several months of consultation with our jeweler and then given to me one month early because DH was going on an international business trip and he wanted me to have it 'just in case'...um...no...I want YOU just in case). Oh my, what stories our bits and baubles could tell.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story and I'm sooooo glad you found your 'bling'.
I am so happy that you found it. My story didn't turn out as well. I had an opal ring my sister had given me. I went out to dinner with a friend and when I got home the stone was missing. I search the car, area and contacted the restaurant, but it was never found. The worse part was I was in college at the time and didn't have money to buy a new stone. I had to pick up more hours at work so I could replace it. I am so glad your story turned out better!
ReplyDeleteakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. sooo glad you found it. What a scare!
ReplyDeleteMelanie
ReplyDeleteWhat a story. I have one too but not quite as bad. About 10 years ago I worked at a College. I was a secretary there and one morning while opening the office my hand got jared in the front door of the entry hall. I felt my ring getting jared. As I looked down at my hand my stone fell out. I always wear a Tanzinite stone that we purchased on a cruise to St. Thomas. I love that ring and Tanzinite stones are worth lots of money because the mines are becoming empty. I was down on my hands knees crawling around looking for the stone that feel out of the ring setting. I was sick. Finally a co worker came by and helped me. We didn't find it as we scoured the floor. Then after one more look in the dark hall I finally spotted it on the rug in the corner where it must have bounced to. I was elated just like you. I still look at the stone now in my ring and hope it never becomes loose or falls out again.
Guess many others out there have had similar happenings? Paper hugs...Leanne
Melanie, so glad your story turned out well! LOVE your blog and tutorials, btw! My story was losing a side stone in my engagement ring - twice! Jeweler told me it would keep happening if I didn't change the setting, so new ring for me! When the hubs saw it, wanted to know if we could have "engagement s3x" again, YESSS! (21 years and 4 kids later, lol!)
ReplyDeleteOH how I feel your pain. I have 2 stories, one mine and one my friends. I had a beautiful Sapphire ring the my husband game me from him and at the time our 2 daughters for my 30th bday. It had 3 total stones, the center one quite large. In 2003 I opened a bead store and at some point during our construction process and/or bead distributing the large stone came out. We went through every stinking bead cup in the store (hundreds) and looked under every cabinet, shelf, corner and vacuumed with a canister vacuum to no avail. Broke my heart. Until the day I sold the store 3 years later I still looked for that stone. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteNow my friends story was AMAZING. She has a 3 kt gorgeous diamond engagement ring (this was many many years ago)and the stone came out at the beach of a lake we were boating at. We always went to this same spot with all our friends and their boats. Couldn't find it anywhere. The next day her (now husbands) best friend went to the same spot the next day and saw something sparkly in the water. And you guessed it...there it was just sitting in the sand a little ways into the water line. :) She still has it to this day, some 20+ years later. :)
I am so glad you found it!! God is good.
ReplyDeleteWow that had to a been a nightmare, I could of imagined the horror, shaking and pit in your stomach. Glad there was a happy reunion.
ReplyDeleteJackie
OMG I'm so glad you found your diamond. I know that horrible feeling I lost the diamond from my engagement ring a number of years ago. I was getting ready to go to go for some medical tests and was scared to death about that. I was sitting on the commode shortly before leaving for lab and happened to look at my hand and let out an anguished wail when I realized my diamond was GONE! I quickly tried to look for it, but didn't have much time because I had to go for my tests. When I got back home I searched high and low. I emptied trash bags I went through everything.When my husband got home from work he went through everything. While he was going through the trash yet again, then getting ready to go through the vaccuum cleaner bag, I sat down to try to compose my thoughts. I mentally retraced my steps. Went to the pantry, reached for a box of granola bars that I had taken a bar out of that morning. I took out the remaining bars, shook the box upside down and heard the sound of something tiny hitting the floor. I dropped to my knees and there it was!!! THANK YOU LORD!!!! We immediately took it to the jeweler who told us the prongs had worn down. Oh and my medical tests came out OK too so I was doubly blessed.
ReplyDeleteMan I can relate! I was a cashier at a grocery store when I lost my diamond. I discovered it just before my shift ended. My manager and I and the cashier who was taking over my register all looked for it. I went upstairs to balance my cash and when I came downstairs the other cashier had found it. It had gotten wedged between the conveyor belt and metal piece where the bags were hung. My manager rescued it for me. A few days later I was at work and it was not busy. I was standing and looking around when something shiny on the floor caught my eye. It was a diamond - checked my ring - it was my diamond. Back to the jewellery store and they reset it. A few years later, I was putting some office supplies in the trunk of my car when my ring got caught on the plastic bag but I was in a hurry to get back to work. It wasn't until I was washing my hands in the ladies room that I realized my diamond was missing again! Well I was 2x lucky but the 3rd time I wasn't. My boss & 2 other employees tore the ladies room apart looking for it and also turned off the water to check the drain in the sink. I went back to the store, reported my loss, looked all over the parking lot where I had parked my car along with 3 store employees but my diamond was nowhere to be found. Luckily, it has always been insured and I had a new diamond put in the setting but it just isn't the same. The lady jeweller who reset the new diamond told me that she gaurantees her work and I have had the prongs checked a few times since then and the jeweller I take it to can't get over the fact at how well it has been set.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found yours again.
I am happy for you. I did not have such luck. After my Mom died, I decided to wear her Mother's ring. It fit well and was washing dishes. When done, I turned on the garbage disposal and heard clank clank. You guessed it, one of the stones was gone! I put the ring away and will some day replace the stone but have not as of yet!
ReplyDelete