A MOTHER found a cherished ring in a pawn shop just down the road from where it was lost two years earlier.
Linda Rylands, 46, of Rhostyllen, Wrexham, bought the ring for her son to celebrate him passing his exams when he was 16.
But it was no ordinary ring. It was a 10 carat American graduation ring from 1962 which she found second hand at a jeweller’s in Ellesmere Port.
She bought it because it had the initial A on it – her son’s name is Aaron.
“It’s really unique,” she said. “We were told ‘You’ll never find anything like that ever again’.”
But son Aaron Squire, now 18, had to take the ring off in the kitchen to prepare food while studying hospitality and catering at Yale College, Wrexham.
He put the ring in his pocket, but later discovered it was gone.
“He asked everyone,” Linda said. “He got to the end of that day in tears. It was a really special present.”
That was two years ago and Linda said she had been searching for a similar one ever since but never found one.
“I always thought ‘I wonder what ever happened to it?’” she said. Now she has found out.
“I thought I’d have a quick look in the pawn brokers on Lord Street – and there it was,” she said.
The ring was on sale for £145 at The Exchange in Wrexham but the storekeeper agreed to let it go for £100.
“He reckoned it had been there over 12 months,” she said, “but it’s been gone for two years.”
Linda, who lost her job as an admin worker just before Christmas and is living on a tight budget, said she did not know where it might have been.
“I couldn’t just leave it,” she said, so she went to the cash point to get the £100 – though more than the £65 she paid for it originally.
On the way she bumped into police officers who accompanied her back to the store, but they told her she would have to produce photographic evidence that it belonged to her son to get it back.
“I’m still in shock,” she said. “It’s all’s well that ends well, but I’ve gone through a lot of emotional turmoil with that ring.
“And I want to warn people to make sure they get their valuables marked or at least insured.”
Chris Derbyshire, store manager at The Exchange, said: “We do use every procedure, including a system called CheckMEND, to ensure the items we buy are legitimate and belong to that person.
“If a laptop comes in it’s easy to determine who the owner is as it has a serial number.
“But with a ring we can only treat it as a piece of gold, there is no way to trace its history.
“We do always try to do right by our customers and help them out, but we have to be careful because we lose a lot of money through scams.”