Buried treasure has resurfaced in Mouscron, Belgium, more than a century after it disappeared. Michel Saelen, passionate about detection for forty years, regularly explores the fields in search of metallic objects in the hope of coming across a nugget. This has recently been done, as reported by our colleagues from The Voice of the North.
After obtaining permission from a local farmer to examine his land last September, the Belgian walked the grounds, armed with his metal detector. He came across a find rich in history: a gold wedding ring, perfectly preserved despite time. The ring would have indeed spent more than a century underground.
An object returned to descendants
To trace the origin of the jewel, Michel Saelen was interested in the inscriptions engraved inside. His investigations made it possible to determine that the wedding ring had belonged to a certain Angèle Deconninck, a farmer born in 1894 and who married in 1913. The wedding ring would have been lost shortly after this union, probably during an agricultural task . According to a family member, she disappeared while Angèle was handling manure.
Michel Saelen was therefore able to find the descendants of the owner of the wedding ring. His research led him to Francine Vandehereen, the farmer’s granddaughter, to whom he returned the family ring. Touched by this discovery, she assured the daily: “We never thought we would find this alliance. I’m really happy. I will keep it carefully and, one day, pass it on to my daughter.”
