Relics of broken hearts for sale on Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace is a lazy person’s eBay. Faded souvenir mugs, collections of unplayed Blu-rays, and overpriced, over-varnished items of furniture are all haphazardly uploaded online, connected to the social media accounts of sellers unashamed in their hopes of abandoning them.

Hidden among these virtual shelves of weird and forgotten items are vessels of lost love and broken promises: engagement rings.

Daniel English, pictured with his son Sage, is selling an engagement ring on Facebook Marketplace.Credit: Wolter Peeters

For the superstitious, a secondhand engagement ring is a bad omen for a relationship.

Daniel English, 24, said he had considered the misfortune a prospective buyer would gain on purchasing his abandoned engagement ring.

Regardless, three months ago, English uploaded four photos of the Michael Hill ring to Facebook Marketplace with the hopes of getting even just some of the money back.

The ring Daniel English is trying to sell on Facebook Marketplace.Credit: Wolter Peeters

English, based on the NSW Central Coast, is selling the ring he bought for his ex-partner in 2023 with her consent. After proposing on a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains, their relationship was strained by unforeseeable hardship last year.

The couple’s son Sage, now two, was diagnosed with cancer.

“It really affected us and the way we treated each other and the way we saw each other,” English said. Splitting up, they agreed, was in Sage’s best interest.

At first, English considered keeping the ring for when Sage was an adult or melting it down to make a necklace.

“But then again, I didn’t want to spend the extra money on bad juju” he said.

Ironically, he thinks second-hand engagement rings are “bad karma” but when asked whether he’ll warn prospective buyers, he laughed and said he wouldn’t.

Engagement rings for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

Sydney jeweller Victoria Buckley said the market for secondhand engagement rings is neither novel nor shrouded in bad luck. Family rings are passed down frequently and vintage engagement rings are particularly popular.

“If a piece is really stunning, if it’s a really beautiful well-made piece it will always maintain value,” she said of whether an item will sell despite possibly being a bad omen.

The ring gifted to Donna Clark was valued at $39,500. She is now selling it on Facebook Marketplace.

However, she said newer, homogenous designs were unlikely to fare the same way.

Buckley also said buying online can complicate verifying the actual value of the jewellery. Indeed, among the catalogue of rings sitting on Facebook Marketplace this week, one is priced particularly higher than the others but it seems to have the paperwork to prove its worth.

Donna Marie Clark, 59, is selling an heirloom passed down to her from a man who “wasn’t my stepfather but was like that to me”.

Kept in a safe for 22 years, the diamond ring, valued at $39,500, was given to Clark two months before his death. The gesture, she said, was “obviously very special”.

“I knew how much he really loved me.”

Clark does not want to sell her ring but financial strain has forced her hand.

“It’s really hard in these times to pay for things and I had to weigh up do I keep my house or do I keep the ring,” she said.

She is hopeful the ring will go to a loving home.

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