Lost Wedding Rings To Be Auctioned

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29067, 2 December 1959, Page 2

Lost Wedding Rings To Be Auctioned

Two wedding rings and a diamond engagement ring found in city buses during the year will be offered at auction today at the Christchurch Transport Board’s annual sale of lost property.

If French horns, plastic tablecloths and wedding rings could have talked they may have had some tales to tell yesterday when the articles to be sold were on display at the auctioneers’ rooms.

Under what circumstances were the wedding rings lost? Were the wives too ashamed to admit that they had lost them to call at the Transport Board office? Did the woman who lost her fur wrap forget that she had been riding in a bus?

“Women! Women would lose their heads if they weren’t firmly attached,” said a transport board official yesterday, who estimated that 90 per cent, of the articles handed in were left behind by women.

The things women most commonly lose are shopping bags. There were about 30 plastic string bags in a collapsed heap of rainbow colours and a dozen or so canvas and wickerwork bags. One whole crate was full of paired gloves, which will be sold in lots of five or six. They are mostly woollen and fabric gloves, with some men’s leather gloves. A large cardboard box was filled with umbrellas—short, stumpy ones, which looked as if they had been left behind by hard-working and harassed housewives. There were a few men’s umbrellas and quite an assortment of walking sticks. But these did not arouse any great interest. Almost everybody has lost gloves, shopping bags and umbrellas at some time. French Horn

But what, one wonders, is the story behind the French horn, complete with case. . Was the break-up party of the orchestra wildly hilarious? What small boy could have forgotten the pair of black flippers for underwater swimming? Was he so absorbed in “Barlash of the Guard” that he .left them behind, only to forget the novel the next time while busily playing the mouth organ? Did his mother purposely leave the mouth organ behind in her shopping bag the next time she went out? Who can tell?

Among the lost toys, a knitted Annie Oakley doll and a large teddy bear were sitting forlornly in a wicker shopping bag. looking as if they had given up all hope of being claimed and were waiting paitently to be sold Some of the goods are labelled with their late owners’ names. If Anita Thomson goes to the sale today she can buy back her red shoe bag, with the shoes and gym shorts still inside, and A. J.

House can collect his grey socks with the blue band at the top. Every effort is made to trace the owners, especially of wallets and purses, but sometimes this is impossible. There is a whole crateful of purses to be sold—minus contents. All unclaimed money is banked. Cameras and Watches

The goods were heaped in appropriate piles at the auctioneers’ premises yesterday. Bed linens, pillows and towels—including babies’ shawls and an attractive cot cover of white fur, decorated with a dog with blue eyes and pink tongue, were grouped on one table. Discarded clothes -coats, cardigans, bathing trunks and even underwear—were on another. In the unclassified section was four “pop” records, including "I Love You, Baby,” and “Boiled Beef and Carrots,” a packet of magnesia and some firelighters. Cricket and Rugby boots, gym shoes and a pair of ballet pumps were stacked up against a pile of school lunch baskets, representing 22 hungry children. Among the valuables to be sold today are four good cameras, six watches, 20 fountain pens, eight cigarette lighters and 30 pairs of glasses, besides a large amount of costume jewellery. Although the women who ‘lost their wedding rings would seem to be the most careless they did not give the transport board the biggest surprise. That came from a woman who left something behind they decided not to auction —her corsets.