King-vegan, you have opened up an interesting can of worms. LOTS of rabbit trail tentacles on this subject:
1) as was said by others here: The ring owner, who got ins. $, is now technically supposed to give the ring to the ins. co, or return the $$ .
2) And you guys are all wrong, that there needs to be "identifying marks" on a ring, in order for you to have a legal obligation to turn in such items. Because you see, every state has lost & found laws.
a) The criteria for what must be turned in, is a threshold value level of somewhere between $100 and $250, for each state (value thresholds vary a bit by state).
b) And the law makes NO DISTINCTION on when *you* think it was lost, and whether *you* think the person has given up looking for it, etc...
c) Also it makes no distinction on how an item is valued either (eg.: the melt value ? the store-bought value ? etc...). And while I know it's easy for us to go by the melt or pawn-shop value in our justification to keep items , yet ... I have a feeling you would be on the short-end of that legal stick, if you ever tried to use that rationalization. Because think of it: a brand new I-pod phone might have only $3.00 of "instrinsic value" (some plastic, some copper, some silicone, etc...). But OBVIOUSLY the thing is worth $300 or whatever, right ? So if you "found" it on the counter at the local pub, or "found" it at the bus stop, I'm betting that you (technically speaking) would be required to turn it in to the police, because they would be by retail or re-sale value, not "intrinsic melt" value.
d) Also: the law makes no allowance for you to do your own repatriation attempts through "found" ads on CL (or pinning a note to a telephone pole, etc...). It clearly says that it must go through proper police lost & found procedures
3) as for the discussion of "lost" versus "stolen", (when someone goes to make their insurance claim), here's the rub on that: You've got to remember that when someone loses their ring, they don't often know exactly where or when they lost it. Or even if it was "lost" to begin with. For example: they may think a) "I might have left it on the bed stand at the hotel room, and the dastardly hotel maid might have snatched it", or b) I might have left it on the sink in the restaurant's bathroom, when I went to wash my hands, and the next customer to use the bathroom therefore "stole" it. And all-the-while, the truth is, maybe they just lost it on the beach (and simply didn't know). So when that person tries to make an insurance claim, the insurance co. is going to ask for a police report. And when the person goes to make the police report, often-time it simply gets put down as "lost/stolen", because they simply don't know. Thus there's not necessarily "hanky-panky" going on in saying something was stolen, versus lost. It's just the way police reports read. Because remember too: In the eyes of the person who lost it, even if they DID "lose" it, is that the next passerby who finds it, and fails to turn it in, HAS IN FACT "STOLEN" it. So no matter how-you-slice it, it's still "stolen", if you fail to turn it in.
4) And don't be so quick to think that only things engraved with ins. mark #s, or names and dates , etc... are the items that have ID's in them. It's actually possible nowadays (as you might know kingvegan, since you are a gemologist), to micro-engrave diamonds with ID's, serial #'s, and so forth. It takes a powerful loop to see it (or perhaps a microscope?). And there's been cases of persons who tried to sell a diamond ring they'd found, only to get a pleasant surprise, that they were in possession of a "stolen item", when they went to try to pawn or sell.
