A diamond ring found on a beach in St. Augustine, Florida was found by a random beachgoer, and the man went above and beyond to return it to its owner.
$40,000 Ring Found on a Beach
What would you do if you found a massive diamond ring on the beach? Would you look around for someone panicking? Would you report it to the police? Would you consider selling it to a pawn shop or keeping it for yourself?
One man had to make that decision when he was on Hammock Beach in St. Augustine in Florida. The diamond ring found on a beach had been lost by a woman from Jacksonville, Florida.
The finder, 37-year-old Joseph Cook, had been searching through the sand, an apparent normal activity for the beachgoer, as he has returned many items he’s found. According to Cook, this year alone he estimates the total worth of items he’s returned to be $60K.
So this is a normal activity for Cook, but a platinum diamond ring found on a beach could easily have been used for his benefit.
But instead, Cook took to social media, saying “If you know anyone who lost a platinum ring near st augustine. Tell them to message me.”
Continuing on, Cook said, “Let’s get it back to them. Share this. I want to return the other rings I found.”
Cook himself, who goes by Joedigger on TikTok posted the story:
@joedigger♬ See You Again – Nicole Cross
In an interview with Fox, a video Cook shared of when he found the ring shows him yelling “Whoa” in an excitement at the ring found on a beach.
He tells reporters his reaction was, “Holy Cr**. Is that real? Just the weight of it alone. Cause I find a lot of rings, but that one was exceptionally heavy.”
After finding the ring, Cook told reporters that he called around to local jewelers to see if they had any reports of lost rings, but they had not.
He even went into a jeweler and show it to them. After the jeweler told him that the ring was worth $40k, he told the jeweler, “I just said, ‘That’s been sitting in my scooter for almost a week.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
That’s when he posted his message to social media, hoping to return the ring found on a beach to its rightful owner.
According to cook two weeks after the ring found on a beach was posted on social media, he received calls from a Jacksonville, Florida number.
But because the number wasn’t familiar to him, he didn’t answer at first.
