Doug Hardy, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 2 of 5

Lost Wedding Ring Found – Franklinton

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I got a text from Julie, who explained that her husband had lost his rings. Rings plural? She explained that there were two rings that had been lost – one 5 1/2 years ago and a replacement ring that was lost a few days ago (more on that in a minute). It was the replacement ring that she had texted me about. They had searched for the original ring and been unable to find it.. I made the hour’s drive to her house and she explained the situation a little further. The newly lost ring (the replacement) had been tossed (long story) and Julie showed me the area of the woods where she thought it would have landed.

Julie then explained that right after they moved into this house 5 1/2 years earlier, their two dogs stumbled onto a yellow jacket nest in the woods. Julie grabbed one of the dogs and started to address that problem while her husband went after the other dog. The yellow jackets attacked him as well and in the process of swatting them away as he ran toward the house, his ring came off. They had looked for it at the time, but were unable to locate it. So, first ring lost 5 1/2 years earlier and replacement ring lost two days ago.

I spent probably two hours scouring the woods where she had pointed me, but no ring. Nails, bottle caps, pop tops, and other common things, but no ring. After talking with Julie again, we decided that moving the search closer to the house (into the yard) would be a good strategy. I turned my machine back on and almost immediately Julie yelled that she had found the replacement ring. I was disappointed that I hadn’t found it, but since the main thing is to get the owner and the lost item back together, it was still a great outcome. With the replacement ring found, I started looking for the “original”. I was only able to spend about 30 min that day, but promised to come back and try again.

On my return visit, I started where the yellow jacket nest had been and slowly worked my way toward the house. After about an hour of searching, I got a solid signal and uncovered the original ring. During the time between loss and recovery, it had sunk 3 or so inches down into the dirt and was additionally covered by leaf litter. The picture shows the ring and an excited Julie. Another happy ending!

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Lost Hearing Aid Found – Raleigh

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I got a call from Don, a nice gentleman who had lost a hearing aid while working outside on his property. I said I’d be happy to come out and see if I could find it for him — I then checked the property on Google Maps. Holy Cow! Don’s property was about 8 1/2 acres! (I could search for days and not cover it all.) Don met me when I arrived and explained that he knew exactly where the hearing aid had gotten lost. He’d been pruning a bush and when he turned his body, a branch snagged the little wire that connects the “in-your-ear” part of the hearing aid with the “behind-your-ear” part. He felt it come off and after checking his ear, was positive he had the location nailed down. He put a little landscaping flag in the ground so I could search in the correct spot. The most likely scenario was that the hearing aid had been “launched” by the branch into the bush he’d been trimming, so that’s where I started my search. Using two different detectors, I spent probably 20 minutes covering that bush top to bottom and side to side — no luck. I turned to back out a little bit and widen my search, when I saw the hearing aid caught on a branch, most probably the branch that plucked it out of his ear in the first place.

I took the hearing aid over to Don who was extremely happy that he didn’t have to buy a replacement (if you don’t wear hearing aids, you may not know – these things are not cheap!). It’s usually about putting a ring back on a finger, a necklace back around a neck, or a bracelet back on a wrist, so putting a hearing aid back in an ear was a first for me! Another happy ending!

 

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Wedding Ring Found – Cary!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I got a text from Vinit, who explained that he had been playing volleyball on a sand court and lost his platinum engagement ring. He had posted signs around the court in case someone else playing on that court found it, but when he texted me, no one had called him. This was one of those rare occasions when the person knew exactly where they were when the jewelry was lost, the item was lost in sand (which is great to detect in), and it was in a place with almost no trash to complicate things. It took me only about 10 minutes to find Vinit’s ring and get it back on his finger where it belonged. Quick recovery, happy ending!

 

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Wedding Ring Found – Clayton!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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We don’t get much snow here in this part of NC, so two small snows in the span of about 10 days was pretty unusual. Even more unusual was the call I got from Alex, who had lost his wedding ring while sledding! Alex’s neighborhood has some hills, but unfortunately his property isn’t situated the right way, so he was sledding on a neighbor’s property. After one of the sledding runs, his hands were wet and when he shook the water off, the ring made a quick exit onto the hillside. Alex had secured a metal detector to try and find the ring himself, but had not had any luck; at that point, he contacted me. To his credit, he made a note of several nearby visible features, so when he took me to the area where he thought the ring would/should be, I had a solid starting point based on his landmarks.

The grass was similar to what you’d find on a golf course fairway, and being wintertime, it was all brown. It only took 15 minutes or so to locate the ring, which was — surprisingly! — very close to where he thought it had come off. The ring had fallen through the dead layer of grass and was sitting flat on the soil, maybe 3 inches below the top of the grass. Those of us on TheRingfinders joke that “it’s never where they think it is”, so it was refreshing to find Alex’s lost ring quickly and easily. The sooner I can get the lost item back to the owner, the better. Another happy ending!

 

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Tantalum Wedding Ring Recovered – Durham!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I was contacted by Nick, who had lost his tantalum wedding ring while playing with the dog. He was in the backyard and gave the dog toy a toss; when he let go of the toy, his ring flew off and cleared the fence. Although every situation is unique, I had run into this scenario before, so I’m thinking “No problem! I’ll get the ring back in no time!” Nick had said on the phone that there were some briers and I again thought “No problem!” I got to Nick’s house and he pulled up a video from his house camera that showed him losing the ring. With the whole thing on video, I’m again thinking “No problem!” The area that Nick showed me (where he thought the ring had gone) was about 60′ x 60′.

I searched for maybe 30 minutes and gained a whole new appreciation for briers. I promised to return with thicker clothing, a machete, and a friend. Between my two visits, Nick and his wife had cleared a portion of the briers, so when my friend John and I got there, we alternated searching for the ring and hacking/clearing/hauling remaining briers. By the time we finished, probably 40′ x 40′ had been cleared enough for us to use our detectors, but no ring.

In a last-ditch effort, I searched an area that was far to the left of where Nick thought the ring might have gone. After several beer and soda cans, I managed to turn up the ring for him. As I’ve come to understand, it’s not just “A” ring, it’s “THE” ring. In this case THE ring decided to hide in the briers but is now back where it belongs!

The first photo shows the ring after I pulled it out of the mud in which it was sitting. The second photo is a very happy Nick!

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Buried Coins Recovered – Cary!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I was contacted by a gentleman who needed help in locating some buried treasure on his property. (OK, you have my attention, tell me the rest of the story.) It turns out that he had placed some valuable coins in a 6″ diameter PVC pipe and buried the pipe vertically in the rear of his property. He said the cap on the top of the pipe was 4 or 5 inches below the surface. (So far so good, but here’s where it gets interesting.) The cap and the pipe are PVC, so I can’t pick them up with my detector. The coins by themselves would have been easy to detect, but he said that because of the length of the pipe, the coins were at least 18-24″ below the top of the pipe, making them 22-28″ below the surface. Yikes! I have a detector that can go that deep, but this is a neighborhood and the electrical interference from all the houses was considerable. After a slow scan of the area where he believed the coins were buried, I got two very faint signals on the detector and brought out my 4′ metal probe to check out these two possibilities by poking down in the ground and feeling for disturbed soil. Once the detector had given me an idea on where to probe, I was able to locate the PVC pipe fairly quickly.

The first picture is a portion of the coins that were inside the pipe. After he sent me the picture of the coins, I could see why he was so anxious to get them back!

If you have valuable items buried and can’t locate them, I can help. Contact me and we’ll figure out a plan.

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Wedding Ring Recovered – Clayton!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I got a text from a woman whose husband had lost his wedding ring while doing yard work. Not an unusual story – it’s actually fairly common. He had lost it several weeks earlier and although they had searched (including a neighbor with a metal detector), they had not been able to locate the ring. His birthday was coming up in a few days and she wanted to surprise him with the ring that he now believed was gone. We made arrangements to meet at the house so she could show me where he thought he had lost it. The property was fairly large and she said that he had covered probably 2/3 of the property with his yard work, so I was anticipating a lengthy search. The husband thought it was in “the burn pile”, an area where they burned branches, sticks, and other yard waste. She thought it was in the pile of sticks yet to be burned (and I was dreading having to move all of the sticks to get down to the ground!). I figured I’d start my search in those two places and work outward. Starting with the burn pile, I first pulled up a burnt aluminum can, but my second target was the ring! Fortunately they had not done any burning since the ring was lost, so while it was sitting in burnt soil, the ring itself was just fine. She’s planning to surprise him with the ring at his upcoming birthday dinner.

 

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Mom’s Wedding Ring Recovered – Greensboro!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I was contacted by a woman who had initially lost two rings, but had found one before calling me. While we were speaking about the when and where, she told me the backstory. Both her parents had passed and she had a ring from each. She decided to wear the two rings around her neck, but had the rings together on a hoop earring, which was in turn, looped onto a gold chain. She was spreading straw onto newly seeded grass in her back yard, and in rearranging the straw with a rake, she saw her father’s ring on the ground, which is when she realized that the hoop earring had opened and dropped the rings. As you might imagine, the hoop wasn’t strong enough to hold the rings securely and it had opened up. Finding the first ring was a good indicator about the location of the second, but she had searched extensively and hadn’t been able to locate it. After having her show me the areas where she’d been working, I started the search. After finding the usual yard trash (small pieces of aluminum, iron nails, screws, and a few pennies), I was able to locate her ring. In her own search, she had unknowingly stepped on it and pushed it down into the mud. Although it wasn’t visible, my detector wasn’t bothered by the mud and I was able to recover the ring. Given how important the rings were to her, it was great to see the joy in her eyes when the missing ring was recovered and returned!

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Diamond Wedding Ring Recovered – Wake Forest!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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I received a text from a woman who had lost her wedding ring after a “discussion” with her husband. He saw the ring fly up in the air, but it was nighttime and they hadn’t been able to find it the next day. As I was out of town on vacation, I contacted two friends and asked them to visit the woman and see if they could locate the ring. They each went to her house and searched but were unable to find it. When I got back to town I contacted her and asked if I could come out and give it one more try. She agreed and I made the hour drive to her house. Her husband explained the backstory and then detailed where they had looked for the ring, which seemed to cover all the obvious possibilities. I didn’t see much point in going over ground that had already been searched, but it seemed like he had thoroughly searched all the out-of-the-way places (in the rain gutter, on the roof, in the flower bed, etc.). Anyway, I decided to really scour the yard on the off-chance that it had been missed. On my third sweep across the front yard I got a solid signal and found it! As you can see in the pictures, it’s an impressive ring and when the husband told his wife that I had found it, she was absolutely beside herself. Very glad to be able to reunite the wife with her ring. Another Happy Ending!

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Wedding Ring Recovery!

  • from Raleigh (North Carolina, United States)
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Got a call from a gentleman whose wife’s ring had gotten lost in the front yard. He was positive he knew where the ring was, but had not been able to find it, which is when he contacted me. We set up a time to meet and he took me through the scenario about how it came to be lost in the yard. It’s a somewhat personal story, so suffice it to say that there was a marital discussion and we’ll leave it at that. The good news: front yards are usually grass and are usually mowed, which makes recoveries easier. The bad news: front yards are typically where water lines, cable connections, and electrical power come in from the street, so it can be difficult to pick out a ring signal with all the interference and background noise. Apparently the ring-finding spirits were with me this morning and I was able to find the ring in 15 minutes or so. Although the husband is the one I spoke to, he assured me that his wife would be thrilled to have her ring back on her finger. Happy Ending! PS – Please excuse the gaping mouth in the photo – I was talking when I took the picture.

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