Thanks to Boy, Diamonds Are Still Forever : Good deeds: The 6-year-old was helping his mother at the grocery store when he found a package containing five rings worth $7,000.

A 6-year-old boy playing in the checkout line of a Ventura grocery store discovered five heirloom rings that a woman had dropped several days before.

The jewelry, which Ventura police said may be worth as much as $7,000, was returned to the distraught owner this week.

“He’s a sweet little boy,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. “I’m thrilled to death.”

Preston Reed and his mother, Stacie, were shopping Aug. 15 at Ralphs Grocery at 1425 Victoria Ave. He said he was trying to move the shopping cart closer to the clerk who was bagging their groceries when he felt the wheel bump against something.

He looked down and found a plastic bag holding five rings that bore a striking resemblance to a package of toys.

But Preston said he knew right away that this discovery was different from the other things he regularly finds.

“Diamonds,” he said. “It was diamond rings.”

Preston said he handed the rings to his mother, who gave them to the clerk.

Assistant Manager Dianna Osborn took Preston’s phone number and then stuck the rings in a drawer and locked it.

She said she did not think much about them until she examined them later.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh. These are worth a lot of money,’ ” she said.

The store turned the rings over to the Ventura Police Department the next day, and their owner soon called to ask about them.

“She was so ecstatic,” Osborn said. “She was in tears on the phone.”

The woman came in Monday morning to collect the jewelry, said Desk Officer Sandy Butler of the Ventura Police Department.

Butler said the woman told her she has sensitive skin and cannot wear the rings, so she carries them in a plastic bag in her purse.

They evidently fell out of the purse when she was paying for groceries, and she did not realize until Friday that she had lost them, Butler said.

Among the pieces of jewelry, which are uninsured, was an engagement ring belonging to her mother, the woman said.

“There’s a little bit of history attached to each one,” she said.

She treated Osborn and her husband to dinner at a Ventura restaurant and said she planned to give Preston a reward.