They don't get much stranger than this

Man gets ring back more than 20 years after losing it in ocean

Associated Press
Feb. 19, 2007 08:25 AM

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. - If you lose your class ring swimming in the Pacific Ocean, the odds of finding it aren't exactly high - especially more than 20 years later.

Apparently, suburban Philadelphia resident James Costantini has some kind of luck.

His parents recently presented him with his long-lost 1984 class ring from William Tenant High School. He had lost it swimming off the coast of Hawaii while on vacation with his family when he was 18 - more than 20 years ago.

A California man found it a year later while snorkeling off Maui and kept it as a souvenir. The finder, Phil Winter, says the topaz ring sat in his wife's jewelry box until recently, when his daughter saw it and wanted to wear it.

Winter decided that he should try to track down the owner and did so with the help of one of his daughter's teachers. The ring was returned in a box from a Maui jeweler, arriving at the Upper Southampton Township home of Costantini's parents on Saturday.

"I thought a fish ate it," said Costantini, now 41.