ring Tag
Two Lost Rings Found in Sausalito
Cynthia with her parent's wedding rings
Cynthia always wears her mother’s and father’s wedding rings, which are beautiful hand-made antiques from Chile. She was wearing them last weekend while gardening in her back yard. Unfortunately, when she flung some clippings over the fence, the rings flew off too. After searching fruitlessly for the rings, she searched the web for Metal Detector Rentals and found us.
Cynthia lives on a hill in Sausalito, with a view of the marina from the back. Like many Marin County back yards, her back yard slopes steeply downward. The rings were most likely somewhere on that slope. The first thing we did was to repeat the accident with a “ring on a string,” another gold ring attached to a bright red ribbon so that it would be hard to lose. After five tosses, we could see that the ring consistently landed in a zone starting about 10 feet down the slope. That’s where I started searching.
The hill was covered with thick ivy. Unfortunately, the ivy also covered large rocks, tree stumps, and even some old terrace walls. These hidden obstructions created lots of hollows and crevices that could conceal the rings. I attached the small 6″ search coil to my metal detector, but some areas were so small that I still had to search many areas on hands and knees with a handheld detector.
After an hour on the slope, I had covered the entire target zone with no luck. Further down the hill, the slope was too steep to search. But I still hadn’t detected the area above the target zone, closer to the fence.
Within five minutes of starting to search the new area I pulled out the first ring. Six inches away I found the second one. Both were just eight feet from the fence. The rings were as beautiful as Cynthia had described them, and she was extremely happy to get them back.
Click here to read more stories about finding lost rings.
Video of the story that aired on ABC-7 News in Ft. Myers, Florida
Here’s a link to a story ABC-7′s Paul Gessler did about me finding Mya’s Daddy’s wedding ring in the Gulf of Mexico: http://www.abc-7.com/global/story.asp?s=18067257
Lost Engagement Ring Found on Baker Beach San Francisco using GPS
Liam and Sarah with the lost ring, now found
Steph contacted me from Austin, Texas after returning home from a trip to San Francisco. While here, she had enjoyed a day on the beach with friends, and took off her grandmother’s engagement ring to apply sunscreen. She set the ring on the blanket, got distracted, and didn’t notice it was missing until back at the hotel. Steph tried looking the next day, but the ring was lost in the sand.
Steph found Ringfinders a few days later. We planned to meet her friend Sarah at the beach, so that she could show us where to search with our metal detectors. Then Sarah remembered that during the day on the beach, she had used the map feature on her iPhone to send their location to other friends who were on the way. Bingo! The map had GPS coordinates of the blanket’s exact location when the ring was lost!
We met Sarah and her fiance Liam at 7:15pm, a half hour before sunset. It turns out that Liam had also used his phone to send a map to other friends, so we had TWO phones with GPS coordinates of the hunt location! By the time we arrived, Sarah and Liam had already drawn a rectangle defining our search area. We found the ring within five minutes, buried near the center of the rectangle. Way to go, Liam and Sarah!
Immediately Sarah took a photo of the ring, and used her iPhone to send it to Steph. It turns out that Steph was at a wedding reception in Austin, and got very excited when she got the photo. She showed it to everyone at the table, and texted back that she was very happy.
We enjoyed the sunset with Sarah and Liam, then headed home happy.
Click here to read more stories about finding lost rings.
Steph's heirloom engagement ring
GPS map from Sarah's iPhone
Daughter’s Hand Once Fit Inside Dad’s Lost Wedding Ring, Recovered From The Gulf, off Naples, Florida!
Newborn Daughter's Hand in Dad's Wedding Ring
Every Father’s wedding ring is special. But, when Matt Wilson called us on Valentine’s Day and sent us this photo of his newborn daughter’s hand, easily fitting inside his ring… we knew we had to find it for him!
His miracle baby daughter, Mya, now a happy, healthy young girl, was born 12 weeks early and weighed in at only 1 pound, 10.8 ounces.
Now, years later, while having a photographer shoot their first family portrait, on a beach in Naples, Florida, Matt’s ring ended up in the drink!
He searched for the ring for hours, but ended up having to fly home without it. Then, thanks to TheRingfinders website, Matt was able to find us and sent us a map of the area and the photo of the ring.
It took three trips out to the area, but I was able to find it and return it to the family.
”I still remember the day I got the voice mail from him. I didn’t listen to the entire message, because I heard him say, ‘Hey Matt its Larry. I think I have some good news for you…’. I called him back and he read me the date off the inside of the ring. It was amazing! I had given up hope of it being found… but Larry came through for us!” - Matt Wilson
Lost Rings & Jewellery in Saskatchewan
The 2012 ring and jewelery finding season is underway! If you have lost something of personal value and want to get it back, please give me a call, I will be glad to help you.
Cheers,
PJ
Our Fun in the Sun is Finding Rings & Things!
Wintering in Southwest Florida means BEACH TIME!
And one of our all-time, favorite things to do at the beach is to help residents and visitors recover valuables they’ve lost in the sand… AND IN THE WATER!
Here’s a link to some pics Naples Daily News freelance photographer Jason Easterly caught of us combing the beach for a gentleman’s wedding ring that was lost in the surf on Marco Island.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/mar/24/lost-ring-finder-gulf-of-mexico-beachcomber-naples/
Platinum Wedding Ring Recovered from The Gulf of Mexico, off SANIBEL ISLAND, FL
While checking-out of The Sundial Resort on Sanibel Island, Mike realized his platinum wedding ring was missing! It had rarely left his finger since his marriage to Erika, ten years ago. But, now, it was GONE!
His best guess was that it was lost at sea… a casualty of playing football on a sandbar, 20-30 feet off the beach. He emailed us a map outlining where he thought it might be, and when the wind and tide were right, I drove out to the island and got to work.
Hours of thoroughly searching the area, in knee-to-waist-deep water, turned up nothing but junk. But, I wasn’t about to give up and returned to give it another go, finding it in the dip between the beach and the sandbar.
Funny thing is, when it happens… when you find yourself staring down into your scoop at that ring… time tends to stop in it’s tracks! You blink a lot, as if to make sure your eyes are working right, and then you just stand there for a minute, in awe.
Minutes later, I’m on the phone for the best part of all… Mike’s reaction when I tell him, “I found your ring”!
The inscription: Love Always, Erika!
(This was my favorite wet find of 2010… 2011 & 2012 will follow.)
Lost Wedding Ring Found in East Bay Back Yard
CJ was happy when we found her gold and diamond wedding ring
CJ called me when, after spending a whole afternoon weeding and cleaning her back yard, she noticed her wedding ring was missing. The good news was, she hadn’t left her 100-year-old East Bay home since she last saw the ring. The other news was, she had worked in every part of the back yard and side yard, including the wood pile, compost piles and green waste bin.
It was nearly a week before I could detect the yard, because we’ve had a lot of rain. When I arrived, CJ showed me everywhere she had worked that day. I focused on the main yard, where CJ had done the most work, including a lot of weeding. On one side of the yard were two compost piles, each about five feet wide. My initial scans turned up lots of metal junk, including nails, screws, lead, aluminum and brass. I can tell my metal detector to ignore certain metals like iron, but that’s not always a good idea, because you can also lose faint gold signals that way.
I got a lot of signals in one low spot between the two compost piles. Most showed up as iron, but another signal was also evident. I dug into the soft dirt and pulled out a total of six nails and deck screws, and there were still more signals coming through. Target number seven turned out to be CJ’s beautiful gold and diamond wedding ring.
Amazingly, the ring was 4-5 inches underground. Because the compost piles were loose and soft, dirt had washed down into the low area during the rain. Early searches could have buried it deeper. The moral of this story is, don’t disturb the area where you lose your ring, and dig everything!
Here’s what CJ had to say:
“Thank you Dave! If I hadn’t been watching – the entire time - I would not have believed how and where you found my wedding ring, today!
“There it was amid the wood screws and rusty old nails under almost 6 inches of mud after only 5 days of rain. Your experience, patience, and expertise, really saved the day! A less experienced detector may have dismissed the cache of metal screws and the ring would have been lost to me, perhaps forever.
“We are so relieved and so grateful. I will be happy to recommend you to anyone.”
Click here to read more stories about finding lost rings.
Gold and diamond wedding ring lost in East Bay back yard
The gold wedding ring was hidden among nails and screws