Lost engagement ring found after 11 years

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (NBC) -- Toni Flowers Perkins had been collecting pull tabs for years, donating them by the bag full to Shriner's Hospital but she never thought that through it she would get something back she lost more than a decade ago.

“I just started picking out the colored tabs and I noticed something really shiny and I thought uh, that's not a tab,” said Perkins.

Christy Marsden got the pull tabs from Toni’s Facebook page where residents swap things back and forth.

Toni and her husband found the bag among Christmas decorations, “The strange thing is we've had this bag forever, but this one bag seemed to never make it to Shriner's,” said Marsden.

It was while Christy was picking out the colored tabs that she spotted Toni’s engagement ring.

It takes much more than just a glance to differentiate between the diamond ring and one of the pull tabs.

“I jumped online and said I think I have something you might be looking for,” said Marsden.

Perkins said she couldn’t believe it and said, “It fit still and I was in tears.”

Perkins lost the ring 11 years ago.

“I was doing dishes and cleaning the house and then I noticed that night I couldn't find it, tore apart the house, trying not to tell [my husband] first,” said Perkins.

“I moved stoves and fridges and got into creepy, crawly places that no one wants to go,” said David Perkins, Toni’s husband.

And they gave up looking.

But then came, what they say may have been fate, “11:11 is everywhere, it’s just our thing, has been for years. That’s why we got married on 11/11/11.” And after 11 years Toni got her ring back.

“It wasn't mine so I figured what am I going to do, bring it back to them. I was just here for tabs not a ring,” said Marsden.

And like the ring, the Perkins have come full circle. They started collecting to help others and they were the ones helped in the end.