You can call him the ring finder. This Keys man searches for people’s lost treasures
Alex Corpion is a Key West treasure hunter.
No, he’s not out in deep water searching for emeralds and gold in shipwrecks. And he isn’t looking to get rich off his finds.
Instead, Corpion, a 43-year-old who was born and raised on the island, wields a metal detector. He roams the beaches almost daily after his plumbing job and also on the weekends in search of missing jewelry and other keepsakes that have disappeared at sea.
Some of those things mean more to their owners than precious stones.
And other items are actually precious stones.
“One thing I can’t get enough of is that feeling of the return and the appreciation of the people,” Corpion added. “Some of them are just blown away completely.”
Earlier this year, he was tasked by a couple to find a diamond engagement ring that popped out of its box into the ocean as the would-be groom went to pop the question on a boat trip, Corpion said.
They took him out to the sandbar where it had fallen into the ocean. The boat ride took about an hour.
Corpion said he found the ring in about 15 minutes.
“I will forever have a piece of treasure on my hand!” Molly Murphy posted on her Facebook page about the ring she was meant to receive from Evan Dunaway.
“She just bawled in tears,” Corpion said. “He got to finish his proposal after that.”
Lost rings and other jewelry keep turning up in Key West, a small town that doubles as an international tourist destination. People constantly come and go. When they’re out on the water, they often lose things they can’t always replace.
A Michigan woman in April lost a necklace that was a gift from her husband, she posted on Facebook. The charm on it was custom made.
“I’m absolutely devastated and praying someone finds and returns it,” she wrote.
A month later, Corpion found it.
“There’s a lot out there,” Corpion said. “I have three class rings right now.”
On June 9, Corpion was at Smathers Beach when he discovered a Coast Guard Academy ring. A name was inscribed on the band. He went to work.
Corpion took to Facebook to find the owner. He posted about the ring, complete with photos, on the Key West Lost, Found and Stolen page, which has more than 15,000 members.
He also reached out to another metal-detecting friend in Marathon, who did some research and tracked down the ring’s owner, Erich Klein, of Maryland.
Klein lost the ring to the ocean in 1992 while on spring break in Key West, his wife Bethany Orr Klein posted on Facebook on Wednesday.
Calling it a “gratitude post,” she wrote about how “the amazing Alex Corpion” found the ring “29 YEARS LATER in the same waters where it was lost!!!”
“Not only did Alex post the ring on multiple social media sites trying to find Erich, but also professionally cleaned and FedExed the ring to us,” she wrote. “It was unbelievable to see the number of people who reached out to Erich trying to reunite him with his ring.”
The Coast Guard Academy gave Klein the so-called “miniature ring” during his junior year, Klein told WLRN, which reported he works at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. These rings are meant to be given to a loved one. The Coast Guard hands out the bigger rings after graduation, Klein told the news outlet.
Corpion has been searching for these treasures with a metal detector since 2013. Before that, though, he spent six months as a volunteer worker on a salvage company’s boat out in front of Ballast Key, looking for a sunken galleon ship.
He’s part of The Ring Finders, an online directory of “metal detecting specialists,” its website states. Corpion’s entry says he works on a reward basis.
“You pay what it’s worth to you and what you can afford to have me find your lost item,” his entry reads.
He does have a $35 fee if the item isn’t found, his entry states. That’s to cover his fuel expenses but the fee could rise or fall depending on where the person lives.
But Corpion noted on Wednesday that he’s more concerned about finding the items. People can choose to reward him and decide the amount, he added.
“I’m not in this to make money or become rich,” Corpion said. “I will continue as much as I can to do what I can to change people’s lives.”
Corpion has been hailed as a hero by many for returning treasures that people thought they had lost for good.
But he doesn’t see it that way. He looks for the treasure but also removes plenty of trash from the ocean like bottle caps and beer cans.
“I just look at myself as being a good person and God blessed me with a good heart,” Corpion said. “Be a good person and good things will happen.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 9:22 PM.
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