Awhile back I posted this: You’re Divorced And Getting Remarried… What About Your Old Wedding Ring? to ask people what they did with there old wedding ring. 33 people responded, many to say they threw their rings away (typically into a body of water) and I have to say I didn’t believe you.
Not a “you” in specific but just in general the idea that at all these women toss their rings into the ocean (Neptune) stuck me as improbable. It’s nice, it’s a romantic but I just don’t believe it given the way people fight like dogs during divorce. They are going to clean the guy’s clock yet toss the valuable ring into the lake? Yeah, right.
So anyway, my sisters marry quite a bit. They marry like crazy and one of them has a ritual regarding the ring from her prior marriage (which is what prompted the question in the first place). She has the new man take charge of getting rid of the old ring… basically she sends him to the pawn shop with it and she has suggested I do same.
Now I only have one ex-wedding ring and admit to feeling very burdened by it. I wish I didn’t have it but would not throw it away. I would also not step foot in a pawn shop as I have stories about them and cannot see trying to sell the thing on ebay or any other way. Basically I just don’t want to deal with it so I asked the soldier what he thought about it. “Might you pawn this for me?”
Well he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Absolutely not! He has his reasons as well, stuff around bad energy and the fact it is none of his business and these things I respect.
So now I have this ring and I would like to be rid of it but how? Besides my dislike of pawn shops and the people who run them, I just can’t understand anyone wanting a used ring / ring from a failed relationship. Would you start your married life with another person’s messed up ring? I just want no part of it… of any of this but I do want rid of that ring. I just don’t want to hold on to it is all because it bothers me.
I have thought about sending it back the man who gave it to me but that’s not right. He’s remarried and has no need of me popping out of my grave. But here’s my question…
What do you think of pawn shops? Have you ever bought or sold anything at one? Would you marry with a ring of dubious history?
well, the ring i got rid of was worth maybe $50 bucks and there wasn’t a fight involved -i ended up having my bf committed to the psych ward. but i certainly can’t speak for anyone else who may have gotten caught up in the romance of the issue. nothing romantic for me.
personally, pawn shops make me sad. i’ve been inside a couple, and i think they are mostly filled with stuff like jewelry after breakups and stuff people sell to buy drugs for other reasons. i’d want a new ring myself, but i figure it’s anybody’s choice if they want something from a pawn shop or not.
hey, maybe you could use the gold kit or something like they show on those latenight tv commercials, or give it to a jeweler who could melt it down and recreate something new? just a thought.
I get married a lot, it seems. LOL This is my third marriage. I still have the ring from my first marriage, mostly because it’s worth about $40 and when I desperately need $40, I’ll pawn it. That marriage happened when we were both 18. It ended because we were really just too young, not because we didn’t love each other or because we fought. So this ring is not a burden to me. It reminds me that love does not conquer all; sometimes a little brain power is necessary, a little work!
My second marriage was a train wreck from it’s conception. It should have never happened and it took me forever to get out of it. I pawned that wedding ring and an expensive anniversary ring within a year of leaving. I laughed at the pittance they gave me for them; even though he’d never know about it, it gave me great pleasure to throw away his “treasures”.
I’d rather have no ring than a ring from a pawn shop, unless I could be assured it was from an estate sale. :p
Elsa, I suggest you bury the ring. Bury it somewhere out of the way, in the woods, in a state park or something. A place you’re unlikely to go again. Somewhere peaceful. Then fate can decide what happens to it.
No. I wouldn’t marry with a ring of dubious history. I’m too superstitious this way. In fact, friends of mine just moved into a house of a man who divorced his wife in it, and I kind of thought, “would I do that?” It’s the energy that gets left behind that – I don’t know – needs to be cleared.
Maybe the reason you found a lot of people tossing rings is because they do actually lose a lot of financial value after they’ve been bought – at least that’s what I’ve been told. So maybe the resale value is just worth chucking it and having the feeling you get from ridding yourself of it completely.
Hmm…
I bought my first bike at a pawn shop for $50 when I was 18. It was a hunk of crap but the freedom it gave me was awesome. It’s the only thing I ever bought in one.
As for pawn shops, in the city I live in, which has a massive drug/property theft problem, I feel like the profit off the miserable so I don’t like them, in theory.
I would be interested in buying your ring off of you. I lost the most beautiful cuff I’ve ever owned in my life this year and I feel very, very sad about it. Saying that, I lose all my jewelry eventually (is this Venus Neptune? I dunno) so you may not want to sell it to me!
More about the cuff I bought: it was an antique Siam Sterling cuff with black enameling with goddesses from the Ramayana. I stumbled across a yard sale with these women selling off the belongings of their 98 year old aunt who was put into a home.
I paid $2 for it but it was the most attached I’d ever been to jewelry. Sometimes it would come unclasped but I’d always manage to catch it…but still feel sad as I truly lose everything, eventually.
I think this is why I’m not so attached to objects and their energy: I’ve learned the hard way I can’t keep them forever.
kashmiri, I will sell it to you absolutely. I have no idea what it is worth but you could have it for pawn shop price.
It is white gold with marquise diamonds, One decent size and 5-6 accents, same shape. It is very attractive but CUTS (Mars) your HAND (Mercury)if you work with it on, which I did…
My hand was bleeding the entire time I was married, go figure.
🙂
A friend of mine who marries a lot takes her rings to a locally owned jewelry store and asks them to either trade it for a different piece of jewelry, or to buy it from her, if the diamond is nice enough. They turn around and sell it. Now, whether or not they notify the new buyer that it was previously owned, I do not know.
So, if the diamond is nice enough, I’d go to a local jeweler and ask them what options you have. Sometimes they’ll trade you for a pair of earrings or a necklace. Maybe you’d want to trade it for a necklace or something that you’d give as a gift, so that you wouldn’t even have the next item in your home, but you wouldn’t be passing the actual ring on to someone? I don’t know.
Anyway, that’s what my friend does.
Rkkggg – thanks for that, it never occurred to me. I think it is a pretty nice ring. It was not cheap and it’s 15 years old so I imagine rings cost more these days? Maybe not. I am not a jewelry sort and just no nothing about it. I do recall we got high quality for whatever the size is but mostly I went for the look of the ring, dramatic, venus in leo.
I like the idea of selling or trading it to a jewelry store. Transmute the energy by sending it off to be remade.
My mom had the diamond removed and set into a really pretty pendant. The diamond in mine fell out, so I sold the gold to a jeweler to melt down and reuse.
Elsa everyone has given you some great ideas. You do whatever and send me a photo in the future, if that’s what transpires.
Personally I would do the most economical thing for you, but I’m a Taurus so I would say that!
i think i wrote about this site before but it’s called http://www.exboyfriendjewelry.com where women can sell all sorts of unwanted jewelry from their ex-beaus. like a pawn shop but it’s free, you determine the price, and all they ask is for a bit of detail on why you’re parting with your bauble.
wow elsa, i can’t believe your hand was bleeding like that…that’s a little metaphoric.
“wow elsa, i can’t believe your hand was bleeding like that…that’s a little metaphoric.”
yeah, we all knew that and I could have taken off the ring, I was surely invited to but refused. I was a Frito Girl back then and worked with my hands constantly, I has an open cut so long I am surprised I don’t have a scar, then again I have had a spontaneous healing (really) in my life before and if you’re me, none of this matters anyway.
Ooo, here’s a fun idea!!! Why don’t you think of a place where someone might find it who could either use it or find it and think “Wow! How lucky!” so the energy turns into something positive. On the one hand (haha) I understand about negative energy, but I also feel that it is incidental to the use of this object, and that it’s kinda not the fault of the gold and the stones that they are reviled instead of treasured. (I know it’s kooky, people. I sprinkle a lot of pixie dust most days and must have inadvertently spilled some on myself!)
Anyway, perhaps this object has another mission, and you could do something that for the person who finds would seem magical and lucky and all that. Of course, you give up the value of the piece, but what a wallop you would pack generosity-wise!
Actually Ive bought and sold from a pawn shop. They dont give you a lot (though gold IS up right now) but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Used ring with a dubious history? Sure, why not? I just dont believe that inanimate objects hold any kind of “bad luck”… with the divorce rate at 50% seems we make our own bad luck without help. Perhaps just the belief that it would be “bad luck” would be enough to cause said luck. Course Im a gold wh*re and wouldnt turn down a piece no matter where it came from. 🙂
imo part of letting go is detaching from things like monetary value.
besides, i was more a spiritual thing- a gift to the sea. she’s always given me the grace of taking things i need to let go of.
and it wasn’t a wedding ring, in my case. just something that needed to move on.
jewelers have no problem melting down metals and resetting stones. so it’d be a kind of recycling that you could get paid for.
the only way i’d want someone else’s wedding ring was if it were a family heirloom. and even then it would feel a bit weird.
I still have my engagement ring…it doesn’t feel like a burden to me though, as I have mostly good feelings attached to that part of our relationship. I’ve considered having the stone reset into something I would actually be able to wear…maybe someday.
I don’t have any advice or anything but this reminded me of this George Jones and Tammy Wynette song haha — click my name for the You Tube video.
Rox, I can totally relate to what you’re saying. Considering all the people + all their objects, and how much we all fuck up in our lives…um, yeah…I get tired just thinking about it. Maybe I take this stuff for granted, I don’t know.
This whole conversation is so fascinating to me. It’s just in my blood to have these kinds of bonds.
Maybe it’s because my parents were both so poor growing up, my Dad has nothing but photos from his family, and my Mum has a few things from her family, but they are things like dried flowers picked during WWI and other WWI items from her grandfather, who died in service.
There is one piece of jewelry, and she’s nervous what to do with it as there are 4 daughters in the family.
Believe me when I say when my sisters start debating who gets it I pipe up and say “I’ll take the scarf and the dead flowers from war, thanks.”
Ha ha, don’t you love when you trip yourself up? I meant “it’s just NOT in my blood…” I re-read it and have to laugh at how I feel when I read my own typo. Cripes.
My mother was married three times. She used all the jewelry from her previous marriages and made rings for her new hub and herself. The marriage lasted until her death. They turned what they felt was ugly into something beautiful.
I should find a live volcano and throw it in, like Frodo did.
DR– I LOL’d! thanks!
I’ve never bought or sold anything in/at at pawn shop, and I won’t ever if I can avoid it. It just seems like taking advantage of someone’s sorrow. Picking the dead. I don’t need to bring that sort of thing home.
I absolutly would never take a ring of dubious history. Sure as hell wouldn’t marry with one. I don’t like rings to begin with and I’m not putting someone’s failed marriage/anger/desitution/desperation on my finger when I commit to something for the rest of my life.
Kashmiri – I hear ya! I had a ton of gold from my ex (ok maybe not a TON.. but quite a few nice pieces.. some earrings, an engagement ring, several nice necklaces)and I ended up pawning all of it a year or so after we broke up to keep my car on the road (my husband was out of work). The only piece Ive ever regretted pawning was the rope chain.. and only because I loved it. Not because HE gave it to me.. there was no emotion attached to any of the pieces for me…but just because I loved it!
My mother has several nice diamond rings she plans to leave to my daughters when she dies..but yk, if she doesnt or my sisters start throwing a fit – they can have them. There wont be any fighting from this gal.
I was one of the original 33 posters, and one who disposed of a wedding ring in the water. My ex-husband and I were very poor. My ring was (probably) silver (it never turned my finger green) and had no stones. I doubt it was worth any real money. I’m not sure how I would have handled a valuable ring like the one I have now. The one time I broke up with someone who had given me a valuable ring, I immediately sent it back to him.
Back in the day, my mom and I used to peruse a couple of pawn shops just for fun once in a blue moon. There were a couple near my favorite photography store and in a historic part of my home city. Back then it seemed more innocent. Today I find pawn shops creepy
I would rather marry with no ring at all than with one of dubious history. My ex-husband had a dubious history himself, so that’s why I tossed the wedding band into a body of water and sold the engagement ring. Maybe I should have tossed the ex into the body of water;)
Currently my (Aries) hubby and I have only titanium wedding bands that my hubby made by hand from a hunk of airplane-grade titanium. I wouldn’t toss this ring into a body of water for any reason, ever! 🙂
Pisces
Oh my God, what a great idea, you should melt it down! Like the Tin Soldier in Hans Christian Andersen! Not only does that fit so well for you, the Little Match Girl, but is this ex the Scorpio? It seems so appropriate to burn something Scorpio down in a fire and have it reborn as something else. Purify it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steadfast_Tin_Soldier
Maybe bury it in a place where you have significant memories, perhaps under a full moon or the same transiting moon as when you were married? A nice plant or small tree in it’s place? I don’t know the details of your marriage but maybe in memory of the good times…….?
My ex-husband is a good man, I consider the marriage, no harm no foul.
You know, if it was a ring from my own previous marriage, I might like to keep it, to prevent me from making the same mistake again! Like, if that energy is housed in the ring, it’s like a genie in a bottle. I just keep it on the shelf and there it is!
But I definitely wouldn’t want a used ring from someone else’s marriage (unless it was in the family, I’m a Cancer). I just don’t value jewelry enough to go to all that trouble to get a ring. Guess that’s why I have no engagement ring and my wedding band cost 80 bucks.
Plus I also agree with the other folks here that said it’s like profiting off other people’s misfortune. Creepy.
I used to think pawn shops were sad, until I had to use one last spring. I took in some silver coins, took a loan on them, then went back once a month for a few months to pay the interest until I could repay the loan and get them back.
I had to show my ID, which made me realize that it’s not all stolen stuff. Plus, I stood in line with guys who were pawning equipment–all kinds of stuff, power tools and I don’t know what all.
The area I live in is very working class, heavily Latino, and a lot of these folks work construction/lawn-type jobs and were really suffering when the economy was tanking so badly.
And I have to say I was impressed by the families–men standing in line with their kids–doing what they had to do to feed their kids or pay their rent.
I am first-generation American and it made me think about what my parents and grandparents did to give me the opportunities I have had and how hard life can be, but also how resilient people are. And how quick we are to judge! I didn’t expect to find myself there, but I was having a financial crisis, and suddenly what I thought about myself and the reality of my life crashed into each other. That might be weird, but the lines were always long, so I had nothing to do but stand there and observe these folks and ponder them and me.
The pawn shop people were very nice, and reminded me of many healthcare workers I’ve met. No judgment, just problem-solving, helping people manage when life is threatening to get unmanageable.
Anyway, I can’t really imagine myself being married again, so I can’t see buying a wedding ring from anywhere. 🙂 But it seems to me that if you believe that inanimate objects contain energy, then the pawnshop part is irrelevant. A brand-new diamond might have come from the worst possible mine in South Africa, where men were dying in the next shaft over while your very diamond was being extracted, or your “new” ring might actually only be a new setting, and the diamond might have once belonged to a Jew who died in Auchwitz, while the pawnshop ring might have the energy of a still-married mom who sold it so that she could feed her kids. IOW, any ring from anywhere might have amazing, strong, profound energy in it just as easily as it might have negative, or destructive energy, imo.
My engagement ring is from a pawn shop. My husband and I were single parents when we met and very poor. I didn’t want a ring that i saw in every jewellry store, I wanted something unique. So we went searching, not just to pawn shops but everywhere. I found my ring in a pawnshop and we bought it because of its uniqueness. The bank is gold lace (not solid) and a very antique style of setting. So we bought if for $300. We were engaged for 8 years (2nd marriage, no rush) and we married he took the ring to a jeweller to copy the design into my band. The engagement ring was altered at that time to update the setting of the diamond. We have now been married 10 years and we have always “felt” that this ring was not part of a divorce or heartache, but the original recipient passed but the ring lives on.
I understand peoples fears of buying an object with a bad history and i too draw the line at say, a power of sale home. I just couldn’t “benefit” on somebody else’s loss. I wouldn’t feel right. The first house my husband and I bought was for sale because of divorce but we lived there happily for 11 years and sold to move to a more mature area.
To each’s own I guess!
I pawned my (very small) diamond earrings for laundry/food money in my early twenties. I felt okay about it.
when I was just separating from my ex I put my ring in a silver tea box on the kitchen window sill. it disappeared. I suspect he has it which is just fine by me (if so, tho, the sneaky factor kind of bothers me a bit, but not his having it). the stone was from the engagement ring of his former fiance anyway. perhaps it could be seen as having had a bad effect but that’s not my take on it. it just shows he’s a cheap bastard.
I have a friend who has a ring that was made from pieces of his ex wife’s engagement ring and their wedding bands. He wears it as a reminder that you can make something good out of something bad, and that all our experiences make us who we are.
I was married for 10 years and my wedding band also cut into my hand.Very pretty but very poky ring. My ring disappeared about 4 months before we broke up. I searched everywhere for that ring.. but suddenly it was gone. Never to be seen again.
Gold’s up to $1200 an ounce — I’d be overcoming my inhibitions and pawning that ring in a New York minute. I was eyeballing my own diamond ring this morning, and it has nothing to do with any wedding. 🙂
But make sure you don’t get taken for a ride and get it appraised by a few different buyers — you should be able to get 50 percent of its original value. Some will try to scam you and give you only 20 percent or some such.
You know what I did with my wedding rings – I kept wearing it because I’m not divorced.
You know what you did? Stole my photo and used it to talk about divorce and failed marriage.
Classy.
I am sorry, Ben. I did not know that was your picture. I meant no disrespect and will remove it from the site. 🙂
Well see now I feel bad! You were the last in long list of sites I found who were using my photo, guess I could have been nicer about it! Feel free to keep using it since you were humble and honest in your response. I’m nothing if not inconsistent! 🙂 x
It’s no problem at all, Ben. I am married myself and if I saw my rings on a post like this and my picture without credit, I would have had something to say too! No sense associating your rings with a post like this. Have a great day! 🙂
Wedding ring reused for second marriage! That’s what my husband’s long time friend did. His Taurus self reused the rings (yes, second wife wore his first wife’s ring) for his second marriage. His third wife at age 66 refused and they each not only have new rings, but bought a second set of rings also. We visited recently and they coordinate which rings they wear each day. I don’t know what to think of that. He is also a noted re-gifter and won’t pick up a check ever!
I used the diamond from my first marriage and put it into a new band. I let the jeweler keep the gold band because I wanted it gone, but was too practical to waste a diamond (Mercury 2nd).
I now have that ring sitting in my jewelry box. I don’t want to give it to any of my kids, unless they really want to take it. I refuse to pawn it and get a pittance for what it is worth. For now, it’ll sit there.
When I get married again, my husband will have to buy us brand-new rings. I’m not risking it again.
I threw mine in the river. Don’t regret it at all. Moon in Taurus in 2nd house – if it doesn’t have value TO ME, it doesn’t have value, to me :). I worked in a pawn shop, it was all just merchandise, if the money for the item is more important than the object, well, then {shrug}. You could put it in the collection basket or donate to Goodwill if you really wanted it to have a nice departure.
I’ve got to be one of those people who said I disposed of my first wedding ring in water/ocean.
The ring couldn’t have been valuable. It wasn’t gold. It had no stones. We were poor.
I got rid of it about 6 weeks before my remarriage. I didn’t want it anywhere near me when I entered my new marriage.
Neptune was in at 29 Capricorn in my 7th. It was time to unload the burden of keeping it around. I had a business trip scheduled to France (country of my failed first marriage) and the plan was to be at Mont Saint Michel. It was not ‘romantic’. It was a ceremony I made in order to have a complete break with the failed marriage.
I don’t know what I would do with a more valuable ring. I doubt I would pawn it. I would certainly never buy one.
I have been selling broken jewelry at a new and used Jewelry place. Much classier than a pawn shop, and I don’t have to worry about rates or mail. They have a good local reputation, and have been around for a while.
My family owns a pawn shop and so I pretty much grew up working in one.
A lot of criminals are caught due to pawn shops- one of the first places police go when there has been a robbery is to pawn shops. Legit pawn shops have to get a photo ID and a fingerprint and they send descriptions of items to the police dept. that they buy or loan on. Without that things just get sold on the street anonymously.
Also, they function as an underground economy for a lot of honest and hard working people.
That being said there are some shady ones out there but I think it is increasingly difficult to be that way and keep the doors open.
Working at one all those years made me a more compassionate human being.
My wedding ring was stolen. I went to zales, franchise jewelery store, and saw that they had a pre-owned case in the back. A ring set similar to mine cost $125 (hubby purchased mine for almost three).
I didn’t see a problem having someone else’s ring. I don’t think you can acquire someone else’s bad or good energy in that way. You don’t know them. If you sat in a subway car bench, and the seat was still warm, are you soaking up this persons energy? If theres an exchange of money, and a five dollar bill was once stolen do you get that negative karma? I sure hope not!!!
“I just can’t understand anyone wanting a used ring / ring from a failed relationship” The children from that relationship would want it quite possibly.
My only ring representative of my prior marriages cost about $30. It was a gold angel carrying a heart with a small diamond in it. It was bought as an engagement ring but actually given to me to wear as one after we were married. The band came from Walmart. When I divorced, I hung both rings on a nail in the wall that used to hold a picture of our family (my ex, his daughter, myself and my boys). I don’t know what he did with it from there.
I can’t imagine pawning my rings from Ox if anything ever happened to us.
I have purchased items at pawn shops. But, not jewelry. I just can’t do it. And, no, I wouldn’t use a pawned wedding ring for my own. The thought of it hurts me on a level I just cannot explain.
I think my ex bought my ring from a pawn shop.I didn’t think to ask him at the time. Now I feel that that was a REAL clue to our relationship. There are alot of things I should have asked. Not even so much that he bought it from a pawn shop but that was not how he represented it. He seemed to be more about the show. He gave me poetry he would plagurize and tell me he wrote for me. The lies went on like that. Got to where I couldn’t believe anything he said.
Now that I think about it I can see my neptune rising at work.
I still have it in my jewelry box.