On a cold, snowy, wintry night, I was contacted about a ring lost in the back yard. After chatting for a while it sounded like an easy find. The sound she said it made meant it was either on the deck or just on the other side of the railing. I arrived and started searching. The deck was most likely but all I got was the same deck screw tone over and over. I moved to the other side of the deck rails. Deep snow and lots of it. Still no ring. I expanded the search area to cover the full yard. Still no ring. Under the deck with a pin pointer. Nope. I had her test throw a key chain ring. She threw it into the dark. Neither of us saw it go. A little later I found it on the other side of the deck rails. I was confused. The ring should have been there. I cleared a spot with no signals on the brick sidewalk and shovelled the deck snow onto it checking each pile each time. Still no luck (but she had clear deck). I repeated that with all the snow near the deck rails just in case they were masking the signal. Still no signal. I must have said it a dozen times. “This doesn’t make sense. It should be here.” Expand again. The side walk beside the garage ran along the fence. There was a 12 inch high and 3 inch thick strip of snow along the bottom of the fence. I ran my detector along it and got “the” signal I was looking for. I brushed the snow away and revealed a rim. I called her over and revealed the rest. What appeared was an engagement ring with a rather large diamond on it. The wave of relief and tears she shed were real. What happened in the moment led to regret but eventually relief. What I figured would be a short hunt lasted close to 2 1/2 hours. We didn’t quit and thankfully so.
Thank you Evan for promptly coming to my rescue! Thank you for braving the cold for almost 3 hours to find my ring, and for being so patient. I have never experienced that many emotions simultaneously when you finally found it, but nothing else seemed to matter except the joy I felt at that moment.
When finding thrown rings remember to stop and carefully inspect the ring for any loose or missing diamonds as your number one priority! If a stone is missing you at least have a fighting chance of securing all the sand, dirt or snow to a five gallon bucket from the drop zone to carefully sift though to recover a precious stone. Don’t forget to touch each stone with the tip of a wooden chop stick to see if its loose. If it wiggles or appears loose have a plastic container with a lid on the ready (not a cheap plastic bag) on hand to secure the ring for your client until they can get to a proper jeweler to secure the setting! When clients see this they greatly appreciate the extra care and concern provided…
Great recovery, this recovery is a great reminder if the ring got launched for what ever reason and they heard a ping to remember wooden fencing!
Cheers, #SeattleRingHunter