eBay encounter by chance returns Utah family’s long lost charm

A Utah woman was reunited with a long-lost family charm after she randomly came across it on eBay.

Joan Eccles said her stepfather, Augusto William Conti, was serving in New Guinea during World War II in 1944 when he sent a pair of matching charms to Eccles and her mother, Agnes Inez Redfern, for Valentine’s Day.

The charms, crafted using coins, were respectively inscribed “New Guinea, To My Darling Joan, 1944,” and “New Guinea, To My Darling Wife, 1944.”

Eccles said she has held onto her charm for the past 80 years, but her mother’s was believed lost after she died in Georgia in 1963.

Eccles said she was browsing eBay recently and was shocked to see her mother’s charm listed.

Her daughters, Vikki Fredrickson and Staci Wilson, reached out to the California-based seller and discovered it had been purchased at a flea market.

Fredrickson and Wilson bought the charm and presented it to Eccles as a Mother’s Day gift.

“It’s a story of hearts coming back together, where both literally and physically she has a memory back, and we have this to continue on in our family for decades, years to come,” Fredrickson told KSL-TV.