Very Small Gold Earring Lost In Grass South Portland, Maine, Found With A Metal Detector

On Friday, July 18th, Gary Hill and I were returning from Short Sands Beach York Maine, in York Beach, Maine. We had a successful recovery, after Gary had recovered a lost pendant. As we were approaching the Town of Wells, Maine, my phone rang. The caller identified herself as Sarah. Sarah told me that she was at Scratch Baking Co., in South Portland, Maine and she had just lost a very small gold earring. As she and her daughter, Eliza were eating lunch, outside on a bench, she had felt and seen the gold earring, become entangled in Eliza’s hair. As Sarah went to grab the earring, from Eliza’s hair, Eliza spun away and the earring fell into the grass and acorn shells. They had been searching for the earring, for a half hour and just couldn’t find it. She asked if I could help her. I told her Gary and I could be there in approximately 45 minutes, as we were still on Rt 1, in Wells, Maine. Sarah and Eliza would continue to search for the earring, as Gary and I made our way north, to South Portland Maine and Scratch Baking Co…

Once Gary and I arrived we saw Sarah and Eliza sitting on the beach, under the tree. They told us they still hadn’t found the earring. Gary had brought his 8” sniper coil, as this would work best for extremely small gold items. We decided that Gary would start grid searching, with the Minelab Manticore and 8” sniper coil. I would visually search and run my pinpointer through the grass, hoping to get lucky. After approximately 20-30 minutes, the earring still wasn’t found. Just amazing how these things disappear from sight. Gary and I decided to switch roles. I would grid search vertically, where Gary had searched horizontally, to the street. Gary would now visually search and man the pinpointer. After about 5 minutes, I received a repeatable target of 06 – 07, on the VDI screen and the sweet sounding low tone of gold. I still couldn’t see the target but could definitely hear the target. I reached down and moved the grass and still couldn’t see the target. I then moved a few pieces of broken acorn shells and staring back at me was an extremely small gold earring. I looked over at Sarah and Eliza and said “I found it”. Sarah jumped right up and came towards me, saying “Did you really? Thank you so much”. This earring would not have been found by just visually searching. How did the earring end up under the broken acorn shells? We may never know for sure but most likely the shells ended up on top of the earring during the initial search, by Sarah and Eliza. As they were walking, in the area and running their fingers through the grass, they may have inadvertently moved the shells, onto the earring. Either way, Sarah now had her gold earring back and was very happy with that. Sarah and Eliza are from Massachusetts and had been in the area, when they stopped at Scratch Baking, for lunch. The lunch turned out much longer than they had planned and they were very excited to be getting back on the road, to drive home. That is one reason, why there are so few photos. We didn’t want to hold them up any longer than necessary. Gary and I were also happy to be heading home as we had now been on the road, searching for lost items, for 6 1/2 hours. After two successful recoveries today , it was time to go home, get something to eat and reflect on our day. We absolutely love doing this for others and have the best job in the world.