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Husband Accidentally Sells Wife's $23,000 Wedding Ring For $10 (VIDEO)

Oops! Husband Accidentally Sells $23,000 Ring For A Pittance
The Huffington Post Canada

A California man has found a new way to give his wife grounds for divorce.

Eric Cloutier is probably in the dog house after accidentally selling his wife's $23,000 wedding ring at a yard sale for a whopping $10. Yep, you hear that right, 10 whole dollars!

Here's how it happened: Cloutier's wife, Racquel, hid her diamond ring in a watch box so that her two-year-old twins wouldn't find it -- just before she went to a hospital to give birth to her fifth child.

While she was in the hospital, husband Eric decided to have a yard sell to keep their children occupied. You can probably guess what happened next: Cloutier put the watch box - which contained his wife's $23,000 ring (we can't believe the price either) -- out for sale for just $10, and someone bought it.

Racquel realized the ring was missing the day after she returned from the hospital on June 5.

“I go into my husband’s closet, can’t find the box, and then he tells me he sold it. I said, ‘You sold it? What do you mean you sold it?’ I immediately started crying,” Cloutier told ABC News.

Eric, who was a runner-up in a 2010 World Series of Poker event, "feels really terrible."

At press time, the ring still hasn't been returned. "I’m trying to remain optimistic but I don’t know anymore," said Cloutier. "There’s a small chance whoever bought the box doesn’t know the ring is in there."

Let's hope whoever bought Racquel's ring (and oh yeah, the watch box) is a good samaritan and returns it to its owner. Luckily, there are some good people in the world such as the homeless man who returned a woman's engagement ring after it was accidentally dropped in his change cup.

See more lost wedding ring stories:

Ring Mishaps
On The Brooklyn Bridge(01 of05)
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Disaster struck when Don Walling proposed to girlfriend Gina Pellicani in 2009, at the Brooklyn Bridge's pedestrian walkway. But it wasn't because she said no -- in fact, it wasn't Pellicani's fault at all. It was Walling himself who dropped the ring through a crack in the bridge onto the busy roadway below. Although the couple (and onlookers) were horrified at first, Walling was able to retrieve the ring -- and only the band was bent in the fall. Looks like it ended happily ever after. (credit:AFP/Getty Images)
In A Zoo Exhibit(02 of05)
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Santa Ana Zoo visitor Sheila Clark was walking through the Amazon's Edge exhibit when her wedding ring and her engagement ring fell onto the deck where she was standing. Although she managed to save her wedding ring, her engagement ring fell -- right into the eight-foot watery exhibit. Luckily, with the help of Zoo Director Kent Yamaguchi (who waded into the muck himself), Clark was reunited with her ring. (credit:Alamy)
In A Trick-or-Treater's Candy Bucket(03 of05)
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After a long night of handing out candy on Halloween in 2009, Ohio woman Elizabeth Olson suddenly noticed that her 3-diamond anniversary ring had gone missing. In the process of tossing out candy into pillow cases and buckets, she had thrown in her ring too. No word yet if the ring has been found. (credit:Alamy)
In A Holiday Park's Vacuum Cleaner(04 of05)
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In May 2009, Anna Laskey lost her engagement ring after leaving it on the bathroom floor of a luxury hotel in England (she was bathing her daughter and forgot to put it back on until the next day). Laskey feared the ring would be lost forever, but ring was found in the bag of a vacuum cleaner used by the park - the only machine out of 30 that had not been emptied the same day. (credit:Alamy)
In A NASCAR Race(05 of05)
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After touring the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage at the Michigan International Speedway as part of a fan promotion, Andrea Wieland couldn't find her ring -- anywhere. With the help of staff, friends and the MIS Facebook page, her 13-diamond ring was found a couple days later by a crew member (it was in the garage). (credit:Getty Images for NASCAR)

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