West Point Class of 1987

David Fee, Steve Wingard and John Sipes all think this could be their ring so we may have found the owner. David has already caught the seller in a lie when the seller said his name is not the one engraved in the ring when he has said on the site that there is no name in the ring. Not somebody who will just cooperate.

Below is the response from David McClellan who is involved in the ring recovery program and it talks about their experience with these no name rings and their current financial status. They usually pass on these no name rings but could try to take it on with our support. They haven't made their own decision yet but it appears we can help them make the attempt.

Either way, the Ring Recovery program is a worth while cause and can always use our donations. Their website for donations is:

https://secure.west-point.org/ring_recovery/

I know we just showed outstanding support for the WP-ORG Fund Drive (63 donations for a total of $6275 which put us second in the classes and was over 5.5% of the total collected) but this directly touches our class.

Do we ask the Ring Recovery guys to help us get this one back? If so, we need to step up to the plate. If, in the end, we do not identify the owner we can turn the ring over to the AOG ring program where old rings are melted down and included in new rings so the LGL has an ongoing link through the class rings.

Mike Lyman

 -------- Original Message --------
Subject:  USMA 1987 Class Ring on E-Bay
Date:  Fri, 12 May 2006 21:45:31 -0400
From:  mcclellan_dm < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it >
To:  mlyman < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it >, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Tom, Mike:

This is one of the ring recovery guys sending.

Bill O'Neill, '92, who heads up the effort will have to make a decision on whether to recover this ring.

Along the way, here are some thoughts, from my window:

 - The seller has stated in response to a query from ring recovery that there is no name in the band. This exchange can be seen by viewing the questions and answers the seller has posted in his eBay listing. Ours is the very first question and the exchange is the bottom exchange. We usually assume that the statment that there is no name means just that but this may not be the case. We would not know unless we viewed the ring.

 - The seller is avoiding answering questions, and this can be seen by reviewing his tangential answers to pointed questions. He is not someone who is pleasant to deal with.

 - Notwithstanding the number of graduates in a class who may earnestly believe that a certain ring on ebay is their wayward ring, lost for many years, the facts under cold light persitently show that this is not the case. Ring recovery has had a notable lack of success in recovering and locating with an owner class rings that do not bear names. Rings from the Classes of 1990, 1994 and 1997 come quickly to mind and as a result of such acquistions, we normally do not recover class rings that do not bear the owner's name.

 - This ring is perhaps overpriced. As an unnamed West Point class ring it should be selling under the $1200 mark that is required by the seller for an opening bid. The recent astronomical escalation in the price of gold to $700 an ounce may be the reason this one is so high. We don't swallow well when we have to face an opening bid that is higher than what we believe the final bid of a ring might really be.

 - Ring recovery has been in a flurry of recovery activities having just recovered rings from the Class of 1918 at $1496, the Class of 2001 at $1280.99, the Class of 1931 at $820, the Class of 1938 at $300 and the Class of 1952 at $400. In short, our funds are low but we are holding off soliciting donations until the current wp.org semi-annual fund drive is completed. While we don't think we would really undercut that effort, it is a courtesy that we surely wish to extend since we depend do heavily on that organization for use of their very handy comm links.

Conceptually, an alternative might be that ring recovery could compete to buy the ring if the Class of 1987 so requested and we had class financial support. We could use our experience to go thru the bidding process to see if we could secure the ring. If we did, we would receive the ring, take archive photos and send it on to the designated member of the Class of 1987 for determination of who should finally receive the ring. Would there be any support in the class for this course of action?

With these remarks, I'll stand by until Bill has a chance to review the traffic. He may have some better thoughts. In the meantime, if questions come up please ask! Be glad to respond.

Very respectfully,

David McClellan
'01 father ring recovery