IMO makes no sense to bury/cremate it with the body. More likely it will disappear into the pocket of somebody at the funeral place along the way.
Grave goods are certainly a popular feature of human culture since forever. So I fully understand and appreciate the sentiment. Nowadays I can’t see choosing to make them something of real value as opposed to sentimental value. That’s certainly the way we went with both of my parents’ burials.
As to your poll, I chose “Pass to my wife”. But that’s really “Pass to my wife for her to do as she chooses with it.”
IOW, no other further strings or suggestions attached. Whether she sells it, reworks parts or all of it into something she can wear, gives it to a younger relative years later, flings it angrily into the swamp on the way home from my funeral, whatever; that’s all on her to decide what makes her feel good as time goes on. I’ll be beyond caring.
IMO detailed bequests with long-lived or complex strings attached to them are a dick move; don’t do that to your loved ones who’re already upset about losing you.
You also didn’t ask the third possible question along these lines. Namely:
Assuming your spouse hasn’t issued specific instructions, what will you do with their ring if they pre-decease you?
My wife’s ring is an interesting and non-traditional arrangement of diamonds and gold. On the correct finger of the correct hand there’s no mistaking that it’s a woman’s wedding ring. But with just a smidgen of work I believe it could become a suitable pinky ring for larger me while still being true enough to the way it was when she wore it. Which might be a nice way to keep her memory close.
My choice wasn’t up there and that is “let my spouse decide what to do with my ring”. As a result I picked the closest option and that was “pass ring to spouse”. She may want it on my body (or not) but I’ll let her make that choice.
I have heard that crematorium workers might quietly pocket any jewelry found in the cremains.before they go into the cremulator. Perhaps some places have a policy that any items found are passed onto the spouse or relatives…
As for the question, I had not thought about, but assume that Mrs Ded would most likely take my ring.
I’m wearing my great-grandfather’s wedding ring. The story is that my grandfather took it off of him and left a check in the coffin to cover it. I would certainly expect to pass it on further, or that it would be sold.
I also have a gold tooth. It’s not an heirloom, but I’ve told my wife that I think it would be wasteful just to put it in the ground.
Not positive about this, but I have learned from watching TV that you may not be legally married and you and your spouse will have to travel to the same place where you were married and get the original officiant to remarry you with a ring if you want it to be legal.
I believe that’s only the case if you’ve removed your ring for the very first time since your wedding, and after a series of wacky events you accidently flushed it down the toilet.
Of course, once you arrive at the location you were originally married and have tracked down the officiant (or his granddaughter), and are starting the ceremony, you will find the lost ring has been in your pocket this whole time.
To answer the original question - my wedding ring is tungsten carbide, because that’s much cooler than gold, but its metal value is essentially zero. So if my wife wants to keep it, she can, if she wants to bury me with it, that’s fine too.
You know those odd people who are afraid of spiders, or injections, or whatever?
Just reading about people having a ring on their finger gives me goose bumps. Don’t you guys know that your ring will get caught on moving machinery and it will rip your finger off ?
When I got married, I offered to have a tattoo on my ring finger. My wife thought that having a tattooed hand was the worst possible option, so I’m going to my grave without even a virtual ring.
My mother had intended that my father’s ring should stay with him and be cremated along with his remains. She was devastated when she found out that my brother had taken the ring instead of leaving it with dad’s body, I don’t think she was every truly able to forgive him for that.
She wore her own wedding ring for at least 30 years after dad passed away, eventually it was removed when she broke her wrist and her fingers were swelling a bit so the hospital removed the ring when they put a plaster cast on. She kept it, and instead wore it on a gold chain (the chain is half of my paternal grandmother’s watch chain, I had the other half on my 18th birthday) until 16 months ago when she was in hospital for the last time. She’d lost so much weight that the chain was digging into her skin, mum took it off, gave it to me and said “look after dad”. She died a couple of days later, and I am still “looking after dad” for her.
When I die, assuming my partner is still alive, it will go to him. Unless I decide to have it cremated with me, I really don’t know. It has huge sentimental value to me, and although it may also have a financial value, that really doesn’t matter to me at all.
I’m single but, when my parents were killed, I took my mother’s ring and my brother has my father’s ring. I wear it on the ring finger of my right hand which, on occasion, has caused people to falsely assume that I’m either divorced, widowed or separated.
I had a similar question as @Fear_Itself. Trying again with greater delicacy …
Per wiki crematory furnaces operate at ~800-1000C. At that temperature gold gets real soft, maybe even gel- / goo-like but is not liquid; it certainly isn’t being vaporized into the atmosphere like the bulk of the body is. At that temperature diamonds are simply unaffected.
After the cremation process the remaining bone hunks and any sorta-misshapen former ring would be run through a grinder to produce the usual granular light gray rock-like stuff we recognize as “cremains”. Presumably that machine can shred a soft metal like gold even cooled off to room temp. And may well be able to fracture diamonds which despite having insane surface hardness at a micro scale are also brittle on a macro scale.
Bottom line: you’d be able to see and pick out diamond chips and metal shards from the decedent’s ashes pretty readily.
It would never have occurred to me before this thread to try to cremate jewelry, and now that I’ve done the research I know I won’t be planning that disposition for my or anyone else’s rings, etc.
Mr. Salinqmind was cremated, didn’t wear a ring. The funeral director asked if he had any jewelry on, or metal implanted in his body, before cremation…I wear just a thin gold band daily, though I have a dozen other gemstone rings in my jewelry box. Everything I have is going to my daughter, I should think she would take my ring before I, too, was cremated.
My mother wore her wedding ring from the day she was married until It wore thin and the band separated maybe 60 years later. I had it repaired and she put it back on. She was buried wearing it. Not that I did not trust the funeral director (he has buried all of my relatives) but I personally closed the casket befor eshe was buried next to my Dad