Why do service academy rings end up on Ebay and other resell sites?

pmoney33

Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
Messages
27
Noticed a common theme when looking for new shirts on resale sites that every so often a service academy ring is sold...? Seems like a very cherished and important piece of jewelry that isn't something you buy but you earn. Any insight as to motivations or reasons why graduates sell their rings? Or even why people buy these rings?
 
Or the rings were passed down from generations before, and the current owner needed the money more or didn’t care about the heirloom aspect.
 
I was trying to be diplomatic with my reply, but @AROTC-dad removed the nuance. ;)

See the source image
 
Some grads are not "into" their rings. In my day, mids were essentially "forced" to purchase a class ring, whether they wanted one or not (don't believe this occurs today). I could see some of those people selling them because they never wanted them in the first place.

Sadly, some people need the money.

Older rings likely come from estate sales or from relatives who have no need/desire for an academy ring.

While a few may be stolen, it's pretty dumb to resell them on Ebay, since the owner would recognize his/her own ring and notify Ebay/the police.

As to why people buy them, my only guess is that they want to pass themselves off as grads. Beyond that, I have no clue why someone would spend close to $1000 for a ring from a school they didn't attend.
 
Rings get lost....the finders are either honorable and try to find the owner (its' really not that hard), or not honorable and try to cash in. (Often the honorable person gets rewarded).

Funny lost ring story ...My P3 crew landed at an AFB for fuel in the middle of the night back in the late 80's. As we were taxiing out , my Nav asks what base we are at (that in itself was funny,,,the Nav not knowing where we were, but in his defense we were flying airways so the Nav was sleeping when we decided to get gas and landed). When I told him, he admitted that he had left his ring on the bathroom sink in Base Ops. Fortunately for him, 4 of the 5 Officers on the Crew were Naval Academy grads (and all junior officers), so without question, we taxied back (a long way in the middle of the night), shut down and retrieved his ring. I'm sure the folks in the Tower got a kick out that (and told plenty of Ringknocker jokes)
 
sometimes people need money. Maybe the person was disgusted with the military. Could be a hundred different reasons why people do the things they do.
 
Once again, I see a post about lost, stolen or available Academy rings for sale and will direct forum members to Jack Reacher. But this time with more specificity: see "The Midnight Line" by Lee Child. No one picked up the hint in my last post.
 
Most of the academy rings on those sites are fake. To many these rings look authentic, but when compared to an authentic ring the faults in the fake rings become obvious.

The easiest way to spot a fake is by the manufacturer, unless whoever made the fake finds the manufacturer or makes a lucky guess - West Point Association of Graduates keeps a record of the manufacturer for each class.

For example, eBay has a very nice West Point Class of 1951 diamond ring listed for $1,500. But in one of the pictures the manufacturer engraved on the inside of the ring is Herff Jones. Herff Jones did not make the 1951 ring. The fraudster guessed wrong.
 
Some of the fake military rings are comical. Check out this U.S.Army "Paratrope" ring offered on eBay.

In fairness to the counterfeiter spellcheck probably missed it since paratrope is an actual word: A paratope, also called an antigen-binding site, part of an antibody which recognizes and binds to an antigen. It is a small region of the antibody's Fc region, part of the fragment antigen-binding, and contains parts of the antibody's heavy and light chains.

1578585414885.png
 
Dang, a Paratrope ring would be pretty darn special.
🤣🤣🤣
 
The real question: Do Paratropers blouse their trousers?

Follow-up: If so, do they use the antibody's heavy and light chains, in lieu of elastic straps?

:biggrin:
 
Once again, I see a post about lost, stolen or available Academy rings for sale and will direct forum members to Jack Reacher. But this time with more specificity: see "The Midnight Line" by Lee Child. No one picked up the hint in my last post.
As a reader of thesen novels, I knew exactly what you meant. Stil have a hard time seeing Tom Cruise in that rule
 
Some of the fake military rings are comical. Check out this U.S.Army "Paratrope" ring offered on eBay.

In fairness to the counterfeiter spellcheck probably missed it since paratrope is an actual word: A paratope, also called an antigen-binding site, part of an antibody which recognizes and binds to an antigen. It is a small region of the antibody's Fc region, part of the fragment antigen-binding, and contains parts of the antibody's heavy and light chains.

View attachment 4314
Its funny how many fakes have spelling errors. Whenever you see a thing on TV on how to catch fakes, misspelling seems to always come up. You would think that if someone bothered to create a fake that they would bother to spell check their wording. I realize that much of this stuff comes from Asia where English isnt their first language.
 
Once again, I see a post about lost, stolen or available Academy rings for sale and will direct forum members to Jack Reacher. But this time with more specificity: see "The Midnight Line" by Lee Child. No one picked up the hint in my last post.

I got it the first time around, as I’m a happy fan of Reacher, Rapp, Harvath, et al. But I resisted the urge to leap down the rabbit hole.
 
Back
Top