Good idea. My brother was married and divorced 4 times. He took all his rings to a jeweler, who used the stones and some of the gold to make a necklace for my mom.
Mom loved the necklace. She’d look at it and say, this stone is Sharon, this one is Nancy, this is Connie, and this is . . . I forgot the name of the 4th wife!
Took it to a jeweler and sold it to him for the value of the gold it contained.
I didn’t have an engagement ring, just a plain narrow gold band. It’s still sitting in my jewelry box. While the marriage didn’t work out, it is a part of my life. I feel like it’s kind of a memento, and haven’t felt the need to get rid of it.
My goodness, did she look like Mr. T?
I have a semi-plan to have mine reset and give it to my daughter, perhaps for college graduation. For now it’s in a drawer, somewhere. It wasn’t terribly expensive.
My father had his melted into this glob he wears as a necklace.
I have a funny story to tell on my MIL. When she was engaged to my FIL they had a fight, and she threw the engagement ring at him. When they made up she asked for the ring back.
He said no.
Surprised, she asked why.
He said he had the diamond removed and made it into a ring for himself. He told her this wasn’t a joke, that while they may have fights, the commitment was for real and not to throw the ring away unless she meant to end it.
Suitably chastened, she agreed, and only took it off this year, a year after his death.
I’ve been planning on selling mine on E-bay and using the money for a tattoo and paying off some bills. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I had my old band cut down, had an emerald mounted on it, and gave it to current spouse as an engagement ring. She loves the ring and knows the history of it. 
I’ve been married twice. My biological daughter is from my first marriage. When I remarried, my second husband adopted my daughter. Mr. Adoptamom took my engagement ring from my first marriage and had her birthstone set to replace the diamond and gave it to her as a symbol of her three parents. (The diamond is still in the safe for her to do as she wishes with it)
She’s 24 now, and still cherishes and wears it.
I sold it. They were buying gold. Got about $20 for it.
Mine’s in a mug with a bunch of pens on my night stand. It’s just a plain white gold band. I’ll eventually sell it when I get around to it.
My wedding band set from my first marriage is in a ring box in my jewelry chest. I don’t know why I kept it. It wasn’t valuable or pretty, nor was it symbolic of anything I was sorry to see end. I just got put there, and there it’s been for many years.
:: shrug ::
I think my husband gave his to one of his brothers when he was broke. It was just a plain band, and not particularly valuable. But BIL made good use of it, as I recall.
That’s a nice sentiment & think it bears repeating.
Symbolically transforming something from the marriage into something for the person that was a product of that union.
Wish I woulda thought of it instead of taking the GW/Chef route & tossing my platinum band into the Atlantic.
I’ve got both the wedding bands in my jewellery/watch container. Right after it all went wrong I just took her’s off the sink counter after it sat there, unwarn, for a few days. (We didn’t take them off for almost any reason prior to that and put them on one another again if we did.)
They are unique and matching as they were custom designed by our jeweler. I hate to destroy them because I still think they are beautiful pieces of wearable art. I thought of resizing for a different finger but that would just be weird.
So they will just sit in that box for years to come. In a very strange way, it gives me some comfort that I have the set together.
Traded it to the jeweler for credit towards the next wedding ring. There was a perverse satisfaction in taking the last artifact of my ill-advised first marriage and converting it into a symbol of a much better relationship. No, this did not bother my spouse-to-be.
Add the Mighty Mississippi off the Ferry Bridge in Anoka, MN to that list.
But it was an engagement ring, not a wedding ring. Thank Gawd I found out what a cheating, lying…ahem… before the wedding.
It was very cathartic.
I kept it for a few years and sold it for gold weight (only because I didn’t live near a swamp or the bowels of hell to throw it into)
::rushes off to get certified as an open-water diver::
My ex wife’s engagement/wedding ring is in my toolbox. Has been for about 20 years. When we were breaking up she asked if I wanted it back and I took it. Then she made me give her my gold wedding band back.