BATH, Maine — More than 30 years ago, JLM gave a plain, gold wedding band to JHM as a token of their love.
But early last summer, a bag boy at Brackett’s Market swept the man’s ring into a dustpan, setting Kimberly Brackett on a months-long search to find the owner.
The small, downtown grocery store has a history of returning found objects to their owners, from wallets and purses to cellphones, an envelope full of cash and even a sapphire ring lost by a tourist who retraced her steps.
But as of Tuesday evening, despite nearly 200,000 people seeing Brackett’s plea on the Brackett’s Facebook page, neither JLM nor JHM had claimed the ring.
“I had one good lead, and I called the family,” Brackett said Tuesday. “But they said, ‘Nope, [our ring] wasn’t engraved,’ so it wasn’t their ring.”
Brackett called Bath police, and then posted about the ring on the store’s Facebook page. She also posted a note on the store’s door.
“I had it up a long time, but after awhile I didn’t hear anything,” she said, so she “stashed” the ring hoping sooner later JLM or JHM would appear.
“I’d think they’d be hunting it down,” she said. “You’d think, with the initials being what they are — both names begin with J — you would think it would be such an easy thing. I just hope people keep re-sharing [the Facebook post] and they find it.”
When Brackett changed her calendar at the end of December, she was reminded of the ring, and posted again on Facebook a handwritten note with a picture of the ring.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the post had been shared more than 5,100 times. Nearly two dozen comments include one who notes, “If the date is 11/6/76, it’s mine. I don’t, however, want it back.”
Brackett has kept some details about the ring to herself, to ensure it gets back to the true owners. The ring is inscribed with a date, presumably of the marriage, and is “damaged in a certain way” that only the owner could identify.
Brackett, who has co-owned the market with her husband, Steve Brackett, since it opened 18 years ago, said she hopes the market can maintain its reputation for getting items back to their owners.
“People are so good in Bath about turning things in,” she said. “It’s just sad. This is one of those things.
Anyone with information about the ring can call the store at 443-2102. The true owners will be able to answer a few questions, Brackett said, and the ring will be returned. But they better have the right answers.
“We’re not going to give it out to just anybody,” she said.