Dave Boyer, Author at The Ring Finders

Chad and family were enjoying the beach at Warren Dunes when his gold wedding band disappeared in the sand.  Looking for the ring was not successful, and they had to go back home to the Chicago area.  They looked up the Ringfinders and sent me an e-mail late on Tuesday night asking if I could help him find the ring.  I had commitments for Wednesday morning and all day Thursday, but leaving the ring on the beach for two more days was risky, considering all the metal detectors that are out there every day.  My Ringfinder partner, Gregg Larabel, called Chad on Wednesday morning while I was tied up and had Chad send us a map of the beach pinpointing where he lost his ring.  Gregg and I agreed to go hunt for the ring late on Wednesday and luckily the beach was not too crowded at that time of day.  Because Chad’s map was so accurate, I found the ring in 15 minutes about 10 ft from the water line.  We called Chad with the good news and dropped his ring in the mail the next day.   Finding a ring always puts smiles on our faces!

On July 4th, 1997 Larry was playing volleyball in front of his aunt Laurie’s cottage on Hess Lake when he lost his huge gold wedding band in about 3 ft of water.  Laurie came up with picture to confirm that date.  Old picture shows Larry in the center of the picture with his hands on his hips.  He and his friends spent a good deal of time looking for the ring and finally gave up.  He purchased a new ring and went on with his life.

Last week Gregg and Doug Larabel and I decided to hunt a sandbar in that area of the lake.  After about three hours of hunting we headed for home dead tired and left the lake from a friend’s house right next door to Laurie’s house.  Laurie spied us and said that her nephew had lost his ring in front of her place many years ago and asked if we could find it.  We did a few swings around the area in front and told her we would be back to do a more thorough search at a later date.

This week, Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder and I came back to do that more thorough search for Laurie.  After about an hour we were having no success and were about to give up when I hit a good signal and there was this huge gold ring in my scoop.  The inscription inside the ring said “love forever LLB 7-22-78”.   After 20 years Laurie was not sure if this was Larry’s ring or not, but after a few phone calls we confirmed that this was indeed Larry’s ring.  The initials are his wife’s and the date is their wedding date.

Larry lives only a few miles from us and on the way home we delivered the ring to Larry.  It cannot get much better than this!!

 

 

Katherine is the first cousin of my son’s best friend from high school and I am friends with her grandfather.  They had heard about Ringfinders and knew I was involved, but with the number of years gone by from when the ring was lost they assumed it was futile to look for it.

O.D., the grandfather, finally mentioned the lost ring to me and I immediately said, “Let’s go and get it.”  Katherine had been playing in waist deep water at the campground beach four years ago when she noticed her white-gold ring with three stones was missing.  Gretchen, Katherine’s mother, and Katherine were working at the campground this week and we made arrangements to meet there for the hunt.

Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder, and I arrived at about noon and in about ten minutes I had the ring in my scoop.  Katherine knew exactly where she was when the ring was lost, and this made for a fast recovery.

Gretchen and Katherine were watching us from the beach and we called them over and presented the ring to Katherine by having her take it off my pinky finger.  They were delighted to have the ring back, and Mom even shed a tear or two.

It is always fun to return a ring, but especially rewarding when you are friends with the family.

 

Received a request from Jon K asking for help in finding a ring for his good friend Krissie from Chicago.  Krissie and her fiance were vacationing at Jon’s cottage over the holiday and keeping cool by playing catch with a tennis ball in about 4 ft of water.  On one throw she felt her ring fly off and did not see where it landed. Considering the 4 to 6 inches of silt on the bottom of the lake, their chances of finding that ring were near zero.

Jon and his friend met me at the cottage and gave me the story of how Krissie had lost the ring.  I started to grid the search area and each time I got a signal, Jon, wearing mask and snorkel, would dive down and retrieve the item for me – much easier with the thick silt on the bottom than using a water scoop.  With only some bottle caps and other junk found we decided to call Krissie to see if she could give us any more details on where the ring might have been lost.  She said her fiance was standing next to an underwater tie down for a boat, and she was about 30 feet away throwing the ball to him.  That information was key to giving us a more specific area to search. I soon got a high tone signal and I gave Jon the sign that this one had to be it.  I marked the spot with the wood handle end of my water scoop and Jon dove down with the pin-pointer to locate the target.  He came up with the ring in his hand and a big smile on his face.

With a few hoots and hollers for the neighbors watching us and a few pictures we ended the day on a high note for everyone.  When I got home I had already received a heart felt thank you voicemail from Krissie.  She said she bought that ring at Tiffany’s about 12 years ago, has worn it daily since then, and it means the world to her.

 

 

Gregg Larabel, my fellow ringfinder, got a call from Derek whose fiancee (Brooke) lost her engagement ring in the woods behind her apartment while looking for her cat.  She had put her ring in her jacket pocket before entering the woods, and after returning with the cat she found her pocket empty.  After Brooke gave us the story we marked off an area approximately 60ft x 60ft where she went in the woods.  The terrain dropped off sharply there, and the floor of the woods was covered with matted leaves and brush, making for tough searching.   After 2 hours we called in a friend, Dan B, to help us.  It was getting late and the three of us decided to give it one last shot before calling it a day and planning a return trip.  I walked down the hill into the woods and began searching about 20ft beyond the borders we had set up.  I got a good signal, took a closer look, and there was the ring lying in plain sight, right on top of the matted leaves.  To put it mildly, Derek and Brooke were ecstatic and can now concentrate on the upcoming wedding and reminisce in their later years of the day she lost her ring and the day it was found.

 

Jacob from Detroit lost his wedding ring while swimming off a sandbar in Pratt Lake in July of 2016.  Although he searched with a rented metal detector at the time, he did not find the ring.   When he contacted Chuck Raison, my fellow ringfinder from Baldwin, Chuck called me to help him on the hunt.

Jacob sent us a picture of the lake, marking the area where the ring was lost.  In July he had also marked the spot in the lake by placing a toy sand pail on the bottom of the lake where he lost the ring.  It was a beautiful day when we cruised out to that sandbar in Chuck’s fishing boat.  With no wind to speak of, the lake looked like a glass table top.  The water was crystal clear, and we could see the bottom of the lake and fish swimming around.  There are lots of houses on the lake shore but nobody was stirring, and the only sounds we heard were the singing of birds.

For this time of year we wore our 5mm wet suits, making for a comfortable hunt in the chilly water.  I was hunting in water about shoulder deep when I caught sight of that toy pail that Jacob had planted on the lake bottom.  Doing a careful search around that pail I found his ring not more than 10 feet from it.  Good thinking Jacob!  We called Jacob and we learned he was only about 20 miles away, attending a meeting.  We packed up our equipment and headed to his location to deliver the ring.  Pictures of his ring, Jacob and the equipment used in the recovery are attached

My hunting partner and fellow ringfinder, Gregg Larabel, received a call from Cindy S. saying she lost her ring in her bedroom and they could not find it.  Gregg and I showed up at her house after she got off work and met her husband, Paul, and Liz the family dog, then received the story of the lost ring.  Cindy and Paul were just waking up on Saturday morning and Cindy took off her three rings to apply hand lotion and handed them to Paul to put on his pinky finger for safe keeping.  He laid the rings on the bed for a moment before he decided that wasn’t a good idea, and handed them back to Cindy to put on the night stand.   Cindy took the rings without really looking at them and put them on the night stand.  She realized the wedding band was missing when she went to put them back on.   They searched the bedroom for hours without finding the lost wedding ring, and, deciding it was unlikely the cat ate it, Cindy got on the internet and found TheRingFinders.com.   Gregg and I decided to start the search in the bedroom, and with the help of Paul and Cindy we dismantled the bed and searched everywhere in, around, and under the bed.  No luck.  I then started to look next to the dresser at the foot of the bed and after moving a small pillow on the floor and with the help of a flashlight I saw the glint of the white gold ring hiding in the pile of the carpet.   How the ring got way over to that side of the room is the real mystery but we were all happy to see it back on Cindy’s finger.

Matt and some of his friends were tailgating before the college game and throwing a football around for entertainment.  To keep from losing it while throwing, Matt took his ring off his throwing hand and put it on his other hand for safe-keeping.  About twenty minutes later he noticed the ring was missing.  His buddy, Derek, got on the internet and posted for help in finding Matt’s ring.

So fellow ringfinder Gregg Larabel and I visited the college campus site and got permission from the campus police to hunt for the ring.  But we found the area so littered in metal trash (lots of bottle caps and pull tabs) that it was really time consuming to hunt.  We spent about an hour, but because of other commitments we had to leave before finding the ring.  Three days later I went back to the site and set up a grid of strings across the area and started a thorough search.  A groundskeeper came by and told me that for about ten years people have been parking their cars on the grass and partying before the football games.   Ten years!  Now I understood all the trash.

With the metal detector beeping almost constantly on those bottle caps, I lucked out and spotted the ring lying in the grass.   Nobody had stepped on it and pushed it into the dirt.  I gave Derek a call and texted him pictures of the ring.  He gave me an address to drop the ring off to a friend that lives on campus and said he would send me a picture of Matt with his ring back on his finger.  Congrats to Matt. I hope he is out of the doghouse now!

This time the ring was lost on the beach.  Brittany had taken her ring off, placing it in her beach bag for safe keeping while she played with her kids in the water.   But when she reached home the ring was gone.   She went back the next day to look for it, but had no success.

Metal detecting hunters search that beach daily, so hunting partner Gregg Larabel and I weren’t optimistic about finding the ring when we made the trip to the park three days later.  It was really helpful that Brittany had provided us with pictures from their day at the beach, enabling us to pinpoint the exact spot where she had been sitting.  We started a grid of the area, and after 2 passes I found the ring about 10 feet from the sign post shown in her photo(below).

We gave Brittany a call and since she had just finished work nearby she said she would meet us in the parking lot.  She arrived with her mother and father, and Gregg showed her some of the junk we had found.  Her comment was “It’s ok, thank you for your help in trying to find my ring.”   I then said, “and I also found this” and showed her the ring.  Her face lit up like the sun and she had hugs for both Gregg and me.  Mother and father also got out of the car and joined in the celebration.

 

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Jasmine H. from Okemos, Mi. lost her wedding ring (3 rings soldered together) about a month ago.  Driving down the road, she tossed a cigarette out the car window and the ring went with it.  Since it was at night, she searched the road with a light but came up empty handed.  After over 20 years of marriage she and her husband replaced the ring with a new one, assuming the original was gone forever.  In one last chance she searched Facebook and found the RingFinders site and called Gregg Larabel who is registered for the Lansing area.

Today, Gregg and I met Jasmine at 10:00AM in the area where she lost her ring.  The sides of this rural, two-lane road had been mowed recently which concerned us initially, but it turned out the short grass made hunting for her ring a lot easier.  After about an hour of searching I got the signal of her ring about 5 ft. off the blacktop under some sand and pebbles.  We called Jasmine over and had her check in the sand right at that spot.  She was overcome with emotion when she uncovered her ring.  After a month of being lost and being run over by mowers, the ring had come thru with no damage.  With hugs and high fives it was a sight to be seen.  And you wonder why we love this job!