Last night, just as I was heading to bed, my phone dinged with a message.
“Sorry for the late text,” it read. “Lost 1.5 carat diamond earring in a flower bed. Call tomorrow… or Monday… or now.”
Well… of course I called now.
David explained that his wife Jennifer had lost her earring while working in the flower bed earlier that day. They believed it was somewhere in the pine straw around her hydrangeas. It was insured, he said… but it was a sentimental gift that meant a great deal to her.
Earrings are my least favorite type of jewelry to recover – they are sooooo tiny. But there was no way I was saying no. We made plans for me to head to the next county over the next day and give it a shot.
Fortunately, they had the matching earring. That gave me a huge advantage. I ran it under my Minelab Equinox 900 to check the VDI and tone.
Park 1? Nothing.
Park 2? Bouncy low tone.
Beach 1 and 2? Nada. 😬
Gold mode? A nice solid signal. Now we’re talking.
The search area was small but tricky—pine straw, landscaping debris, and plenty of potential junk targets hiding underneath. Jennifer stood nearby, clearly anxious, asking what she could do to help.
My answer?
“Pray.”
(Which, honestly, I do with every swing when I’m working a recovery.)
Almost immediately, I got a promising signal—perfectly matching the test earring. My excitement didn’t last long… after chasing it with my pinpointer for what seemed like forever, I pulled out a teeny, tiny scrap of tinfoil.
Next target? A small nail.
Then more foil.
A screw.
Even a Christmas light connector.
I started weighing my options—carefully remove the pine straw or move to another area she had worked. Just then, I caught another shallow 2 VDI tone right along the edge of the flower bed where it met the monkey grass.
I knelt down, reached in with my pinpointer, and gently pushed the grass aside…
…and there it was.
A flash of sparkle.
That unmistakable wink of a diamond looking right back at me. 🙌
I’m not sure who was more surprised—me or Jennifer—but I can tell you this: there were happy tears from both of us.
That feeling never gets old.
The best reward isn’t the find itself—it’s the look on someone’s face when you place a lost, sentimental piece of jewelry back into their hand.
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