After pretermit for 17 years , a piece of literary account has been ground . AsSmithsonian.comreports , a gold ring that writerOscar Wildegifted to his friend is back home at Oxford ’s Magdalen College , following its larceny from the school in 2002 .
The friendship ring ’s history at Oxford go steady back to 1876 , when Wilde was hit the books there with his friend Reginald Harding and William Ward . Ward was planning to drop out of schoolhouse to locomote , and Wilde and Harding wanted to give him something to commemorate them by . The gift — an 18 - karat gold band forge like a belt heave — is etch with the initials of each member of the triad and a Greek lettering that transform to “ Gift of love , to one who wishes beloved . "
The halo twine up back at Oxford , where it was kept with a collection of Oscar Wilde artifacts at the university ’s Magdalen College until2002 . That class , a former college custodian named Eamonn Andrews collapse into the building through a skylight and got away with the friendship ring and three unrelated medals . The stealer was eventually compass thanks to desoxyribonucleic acid he left at the scene , but by then it was too late : He had already pawned the jewellery for less than $ 200 . The gold band is estimated to be worth around $ 70,000 today .
hope for the token ’s recuperation puncture after that . Investigators get into that it had been melt down by scrap dealers and decline to pursue the example any further . That seemed like the end of the story until 2015 , when artwork detective Arthur Brand ( known as the " Indiana Jones of the Art World " ) heard whispers of a bleak grocery mob that go a similar verbal description to the miss item . Brand theorizesthat after in the beginning being steal from Oxford , the halo wound up in one of the dependable - deposit box seat that got looted during the infamous Hatton Garden holdup of 2015 . After the holdup , it hit the marketplace again and landed on his radiolocation .
With help fromWilliam Veres — a London antiques principal — and George Crump — a man with connections to the British hugger-mugger criminal offence scene — sword find out that the ring had of late trade custody . The new proprietor was shocked to get a line that the unusual Victorian anchor ring once belong to Wilde and was fully concerted in hark back it to the college .
The ring will resume its prescribed spot in Magdalen College ’s collection at a belittled ceremony on December 4 .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
