Decades-old wedding ring found on B.C. beach; search for owner begins

WHITE ROCK, B.C. -

A mystery has surfaced on a Metro Vancouver beach.

A decades-old wedding ring was found by a self-described "ring finder" with a history of tracking down treasures, but now he's searching for something else: the owner.

Armed with a metal detector and a pair of galoshes, Chris Turner spends hours and hours searching B.C.'s shoreline for lost items.

Earlier this week he found something buried in about 45 centimetres of mud and gravel in White Rock. What he found was a gold wedding band, and he thinks he's already met the woman who lost it.

"This has been there maybe seven to 10 years, waiting to be found," Turner told CTV News.

Of the owner, he said a woman approached him all those years ago, telling him she'd lost her ring.

Turner and a friend searched the beach where they were first approached for years. In that time, he found all kinds of rings, he said.

One even made headlines on Thanksgiving weekend in 2020, because it belonged to actor Jon Cryer.

"I started my search and within probably about four minutes – three to four minutes – I found his ring. I was shocked," he told CTV News in an interview at the time.

But what he didn't find was the ring belonging to the woman who approached him about a decade ago. Until now, possibly.

"This one stuck out in my mind because she said it was a plain gold wedding band with an inscription, and this is a plain gold wedding band with an inscription," he said.

The inscription, "1957" is a clue to a mystery that Turner said he'd love to help solve, even after all these years.

"The ocean is mysterious. I believe it gives you what it wants to give you, when it wants to give (it to) you."

Now, he's searching for that woman he met on the beach, hoping to return the tiny circle of gold.