W&ET Featured Monthly Article Vol. 35 Feb. 2001

Feature

Vol. 35 Feb. 2001

Found! AFL Championship Ring
By Paul Hudson

Commemorating the Buffalo Bills' 20-7 win over the San Diego Chargers in 1964, Chuck Burr's cherished AFL Championship ring had been lost since 1970. (Photo reprinted with permission courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator)

I am sure that most detectorists who have found valuable keepsakes such as rings, bracelets, or chains have been somewhat curious about their finds. Who owned it? When did he lose it? What were the circumstances? These and other questions add that touch of mystery which makes our hobby so fascinating. And if, by chance, the owner and his story can be uncovered, then the hobby is doubly satisfying: the finder's curiosity is satisfied, and the owner's treasure is restored.

It is for this reason that the gold ring which I found on July 12, 2000, in 5' of water at a Canadian beach halfway between Fort Erie and Port Colborne, Ontario, was an especially satisfying discovery. Because this ring not only identified its owner- it also told its own story in its inscription!

I had been snorkeling for about an hour with my Fisher CZ-20 and had accumulated a typical collection of coins and one small gold ring when I got a strong ping on the detector and fanned the sand. (No scoop is necessary on this gravelly section of an otherwise sandy popular swimming beach.) What emerged was an extraordinarily large (26 grams) gold ring. At first I thought that I had found a school ring, since its bulk and general shape were similar to most high school and college rings.

Paul has found scores more rings and hopes to trace and return all of them eventually. After all, that's part of the challenge of treasure hunting!

When I waded ashore, a couple of tourists from nearby Buffalo, New York, who had been watching me, wandered over to satisfy their curiosity. I let one of the fellows, Jim Kuzdale, examine the ring since I have found several school rings from the Buffalo area. Upon looking closely at it, Jim let out a yelp and announced, "This is no school ring, it's a Buffalo Bills championship football ring!" And its inscription said it all:

1964
Buffalo Bills 20
San Diego Chargers 7
AFL Champions
Burr

Now Jim and his friend who read this inscription are avid Bills fans, and in fact Jim, when he was 9 years old; had actually attended this pre-Super Bowl title game with his father. Jim also vividly remembered a lot of the game's details (such as a separated shoulder injury by one of the Charger players in a play that turned the game around for Buffalo). All in all, these were two very excited Bills fans.

My curiosity regarding the ring's owner- Chuck Burr, who was the Buffalo Bills' assistant general manager and public relations director- and the ring's history having been satisfied, it was now time to contact the owner, inform him of the find, and arrange for the return of the ring.

Once more wearing the memento he thought was gone forever, Chuck Burr (left) met author Paul Hudson on the U.S.-Canadian border, where they and their families celebrated the ring's return.

I phoned the Buffalo Bills' head office a few hours later and left a message with the receptionist about my discovery. Early the next day, I received a call from Chuck Burr. He was positively ecstatic! He said that he could still remember that hot summer day in 1970 when he and his family were tossing a beach ball in the shallow waters of Skerkston Beach and suddenly, in horror, he saw a flash of gold flying in an arc into the waters of Lake Erie. The 1-1/2 hour search by Chuck and his family was all in vain. Six years after winning the championship ring the Burr family was resigned to the reality of never again seeing this prized and meaningful treasure.

However, thanks to modern detector technology, Chuck would get a second chance to wear his ring. In arranging the return, Chuck and I decided to make the "hand-over" scene into a special occasion for both our families. We agreed to meet at a restaurant in Fort Erie on the Canadian - American border, halfway between our homes. And what a cheerful, convivial rendezvous it was, as Chuck, his wife Julie, and daughter Kathleen met my wife Vera and me in that quaint little restaurant overlooking the swift waters of the Niagara River. So it was that one of the main rewards of metal detecting was realized, as a long-lost ring was returned and a new friendship was forged.

* * *

There is a sequel to this football ring episode. For a number of years I had been planning to track down some of the owners of the 60-odd high school and college rings which I had collected, and which I believed were traceable to the young men and women who had lost them in the Fort Erie to Port Colborne region of Lake Erie. Almost every school ring has the three vital bits of information necessary to identify its owner: school name, graduation year, and the owner's initials. Thus, with a little effort, it is quite possible to trace the ownership of most of these little treasures. But like a lot of people, I am a great procrastinator and had let the rings sit idly in display trays in my home.

However, two events prompted me to get moving on this project of identifying and returning school rings to their proper owners: first, the public excitement surrounding the discovery of Chuck Burr's ring (there was a flurry of radio, TV, and newspaper coverage in the southern Ontario and western New York areas); and second, a similar ring discovery which I had made in 1988.

Twelve years ago, I was scuba diving in Skerkston Quarry, another popular swimming spot only half a mile from where I discovered the AFL ring, when I found a University of Virginia gold ring, graduation year 1953, with the initials W.F.C. inscribed on the band. I was able to trace the ring to William F. Cuddihy; a retired electrical engineer that had worked for NASA and was instrumental in the 1976 Viking project which placed a probe on Mars. Mr. Cuddihy was now living in Yorktown, Virginia. Like Chuck Burr, he was elated with the news of the find. And like Chuck, he described how he had watched helplessly as his ring flew off his finger into the watery depths so many years before- 35 years in Mr. Cuddihy's case. My wife and I also got to meet and befriend the Cuddihy family as we drove down to their home on Chesapeake Bay, where we were treated with true Southern hospitality.

So, a combination of present and past discoveries of memento rings, and the obvious elation of their owners, finally got me moving on my long-delayed project. The media flurry also helped a great deal, since Buffalo's local TV station, WIVB, got into the act by borrowing my two trays of school rings, isolating those which belonged to schools and colleges within the Buffalo viewing area, photographing them, and displaying them on their widely-viewed news program. Then they went one step further by setting up a website page (WIVB.com) showing all 32 rings but only two of each ring's identifying "signatures": school name and graduation year. It was up to any viewer who could identify his ring to respond by matching his name with the initials on the ring. I was dubbed the "Lord of the Rings" in WIVB's nightly newscasts, and when the Associated Press picked up the ring story, it got printed in several American and Canadian newspapers.

Mary Anne Smith (left) and Michele Pratt (right) were thrilled when Paul presented them with their long-lost high school class rings.

At present I have been successful in returning four more rings to their owners: Michelle Pratt saw her Lancaster High School ring on the web page, as did Mary Anne Smith, and I met both ladies near the Peach Bridge which connects Fort Erie and Buffalo. Again, the TV and newspaper media were out in full force for the "ceremony" of returning the rings. It turned out that Michelle had lost her ring only one week after her graduation in 1984, while leisurely floating on an innertube. Mary Anne's ring dates back to 1959 when, wading in the waters of the same beach, she suddenly realized that something was wrong. Upon checking her ring finger she realized with a sinking feeling that her ring was missing. In capturing their stories, the TV and cameraman also revealed my reward- plenty of happy hugs from two happy ladies!

Then about a month later I was able to return another two rings when a couple of WIVB viewers spotted their rings on the station's web page. The history of one of these rings is especially interesting because it contains a touch of soap opera intrigue. A young fellow by the name of John J. (I will use John's last initial only to avoid possible embarrassment) who graduated from Buffalo's Bennett High School in 1963, gave his new school ring to his girlfriend as a token of their going steady. However, later that summer as John and his steady were enjoying a day at Sherkston Beach she was shocked to discover that John had been two-timing her. Outraged, she yanked off the ring and flung it into the surf where it was to remain until I found it over thirty years later. When WIVB researchers contacted John they also tried to discover the whereabouts of his "not-so-steady" girlfriend of the '60s, but they were unsuccessful in their search. So John came alone to our Fort Erie meeting where I returned his Bennett High School ring this past September.

I must admit that I, too, was a bit disappointed that I couldn't meet both John and his ex-girlfriend at the same time, as it would have been a very interesting rendezvous. (To whom would I have given the ring?)

Hopefully, as more viewers log onto the WIVB web page, the remaining school rings, whose dates range from 1928 to 1989, will eventually be reunited with their owners. Only time will tell.

PAUL HUDSON, 64, is a retired high school history teacher. He has been detecting since 1981, mainly in the Niagara region.

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