There’s another Ravens Super Bowl XLVII ring up for auction, and this one has a backstory.
When Ravens receptionist Toni Lekas’ Ravens Super Bowl XLVII ring was accidentally dropped into the Chesapeake Bay, it was just the beginning of her wild, and somewhat nightmarish, tale.
On Aug. 3, 2013, during a Middle River Yacht Club party, Lekas’ boyfriend lost the ring in the water when docking a boat. A rope caught his finger and yanked it off. An exhaustive search that night and even a hired diver looking the next day couldn’t find the ring.
Lekas eventually gave up and filed an insurance claim and a request to the NFL to create a replacement ring, which were both approved.
However, the day after BaltimoreRavens.com published a story about the lost ring on October 23, 2013, another diver travelled up the bay, was pointed to the approximate spot by a local, and found it in about 10 minutes.
That man, who Lekas declined to name, then unlawfully kept the ring for nine months. By law, he was required to notify Lekas that he had the ring. It’s not finders keepers.
The ring surfaced at Smyth Jewelers in Timonium on July 24, 2014. Crazy enough, the man brought the ring in to the store in hopes that he could exchange it for an engagement ring for his girlfriend.
Management at Smyth Jewelers called Lekas and told her to come over immediately. When she met the man who had been holding the ring with her name on it, “he went white.”
“I said, ‘Where’s my ring you thief!’” Lekas said.
Lekas threated to call the police, but the Smyth Jewelers management convinced her not to. They gave the man the engagement ring he desired and told him to never come back.
“[The people at Smyth] said what they’re going to give him will never hurt them, but they want me to have my ring back,” she said. “It was very nice.”
With her original ring finally back in hand, Lekas called her insurance agency, which told her to send back one of the rings so they could sell it to recover their loss. Lekas wanted to keep the original, so she sent back the replacement.
The replacement ring, which is not the same ring the players received, is up for auction and is made by Jostens. It features 10-karat white and yellow gold and has 243 round-cut diamonds.
The ring had a starting bid of $7,500 and is currently up to $9,000 with four bids. Goldin Auctions estimates it will eventually sell for more than $30,000 on July 31.
It’s not the first Super Bowl XLVII ring that’s been auctioned since.
Former Pro Bowl running back Jamal Lewis’ ring, which he got as a gift from Owner Steve Bisciotti as a Ring of Honor member, sold for $50,820 in February. Former Ravens reserve running back Damien Berry’s ring sold for $43,008 last year, according to The Baltimore Sun.
