Jim Wren, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 22 of 31

IPhone lost at Ocean Isle Beach NC, Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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Jessica called me a little before 9 am asking if I rented metal detectors. I informed her that I don’t, but I use metal detectors to help find things for people. She asked if I could find an iPhone she lost in the dry sand. We went back and forth with a few questions and answers, ending with me telling her I’d be there in about 45 minutes.

She gave me the address where she and her family were staying. When I pulled into the driveway she came out of the house with her friend, Maria and said to follow her to the beach access. Once we got on the beach, she said that she had left it on the beach the night before and had tracked it to a general area of where she had been. The area was roughly 20ft by 20ft, and thank goodness it was all dry sand. I started a grid search from the dry sand to the high tide line. On the fourth line I got a good signal, and the numbers were all over the place on the Equinox 800, so I knew I had found her phone. I used my foot to spread out the sand and uncovered part of the phone, and reached down and picked it up. She couldn’t believe it was found, thanks to her putting me in the right area, it made for a quick and easy search. When we found it, it had no power, so when she got back in her car and plugged it in, it started charging up. Thankfully, there seemed to be no damage.

Jessica, thank you for trusting me to help find your lost phone, and have a great rest of your vacation!

Jim

     

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Man’s Gold Wedding Band Lost in the Ocean at Ocean Isle Beach NC, Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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This adventure started when I got a phone call from Alicia at 11:15 am, asking if I could help find her husband, Sam’s, wedding band. She told me that one of her girlfriend’s father had recommended The Ring Finders, sure am glad he did. I started getting the details and it sounded like a good challenge. She said that she and Sam got married yesterday and after a full day of fun, it was time to relax. Not sure how many were involved, but Alicia said a whole lot of people (wedding party and family members) decided to take a midnight (literally) swim in the ocean. I asked her how deep they were and she said “torso” deep, so anywhere from shoulders to naval, which if they’re short, it’s not too bad. Taking a quick look at the tide tables, they were swimming about an hour to an hour and a half before high tide, big help! Low tide for today was around 8:30 pm so I told her I’d be there close to 5 pm. I had nothing going on, so I took a ride up to do a recon on what I was up against. When I got there, Alicia came out and confirmed the area, and roughly, how far out they had been. I was thinking I’d be back at about mid tide and work the outgoing tide and should have a pretty good shot at finding the ring.

I got back there right around 5:30 pm, and got to meet some of the family around the pool, a great bunch of people! Made my way out to the beach, and decided to do a perpendicular grid search (shore line to water). I got about half way through my third grid line and got a banging signal on my Equinox 800 that was registering 22-24 on the VDI. I was about thigh deep and dug a scoop of sand, checked the hole and it was clear. Washed the sand out of the scoop in the surf, checked the scoop and nothing. Hmmm, maybe I had a small target that fell through the holes in the scoop. Checked the hole again then around the hole and got the signal again. Took another scoop of sand, checked the hole and the area around the hole and I had the target (again) in the scoop. I walked up to the wet sand and dumped the scoop, checked the pile of sand and found the target. Spread the sand out with my foot and saw the outline of a ring in the sand. Washed it off, confirmed the inscription that Alicia said was in it and knew I had it. I took a picture and text Alicia saying “Bingo!” She immediately text me back and said she was on her way back to the house. Total search time was between 20-30 minutes. Made it back to the pool that the family was still gathered around, had a cold beer with them and waited for Alicia. She was so excited, she just knew the ring was gone forever.

Most of the rental houses on the beach are named, this house was no different. Ironically the name on this house was “The Memory Maker,” I’m sure that Alicia and Sam will remember this adventure for a very long time.

Alicia, thank you so much for trusting me to find your lost treasure. Hope and pray for only the best for you and Sam, take care of each other.

Jim

   

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Man’s Gold Wedding Band Lost in the Ocean at North Myrtle Beach SC, Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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On May 13th, I received an email from Cliff stating he had lost his wedding band the week before, on May 7th, while swimming in the ocean in North Myrtle Beach. I thought the resort he said he had stayed at was in Myrtle Beach, so I passed the email on to Matt Fry, the ring finder for Myrtle Beach. After a few more emails with Cliff, I realized the ring was actually lost in North Myrtle Beach so I took the search and called Matt to let him know.

I got all the details from Cliff, including the fact that he lost his ring just a little over an hour after high tide, which was good, but he also said he was roughly waist deep when he lost it, which puts it out in the ocean a little further. Cliff was back home, in Ohio, so I sent him a google map of the area with my anticipated search area outlined, he replied that he thought the area should shift a little to the north. Looking at the tide table, low tide was at 9:55 pm, so I hit the beach close to 8 pm expecting to work the outgoing tide. Once I got to the beach, I expanded my search area out, probably 15 yards on both ends. Working parallel to the surf, I started my grid search at about the mid tide line. After almost an hour, and maybe 15 grid lines of 60-70 yards each, I got a strong 15/16 on my Equinox 800. I dug a shallow scoop of sand and saw the gold wedding band staring up at me from the bottom of the scoop. After almost a week, I was surprised the ring wasn’t deeper than where I found it, but so happy to have it in my hand. I took a couple of pictures and sent them to Cliff with a text of “BA-BOOM!!! Look familiar? Call me!” I got his address and got his ring in the mail the next morning.

I received an email on Thursday, May 16th that he had just received his ring. In his email he told me that he hadn’t told his wife yet that he lost it. He said that they were enjoying their vacation so much that he didn’t want to ruin her time, although, both his sisters and daughter knew it was lost. Shortly after they got home, she left town on a work trip, and that’s when he searched the web and found one of my posts about finding another couple’s ring and contacted me. So Cliff was extremely happy that his ring was found and returned before he had to break the bad news to his wife. Another very happy ending!

Cliff, thank you for trusting me to help find your lost treasure.

Jim

 

 

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White Gold Wedding Band Lost in the Sand, Found and Returned North Myrtle Beach SC

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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Linsey called me a little after 4 p.m. today saying she had lost her wedding band in the sand. We went back and forth with a few questions and answers, one of them being where she was at. I told her I’d be there in about 20 minutes, grabbed my gear, and was on my way.

I called her when I got to the beach, and met her husband, Mike, as I was walking to their spot. As we walked, I got Mike’s perspective of what happened. Luckily, this sounded like a very simple search. When we got to where Linsey was guarding the area, I saw where Mike had drawn a box in the sand around the area. I got Linsey’s account of what happened and knew this was going to be easy. I turned on my Equinox 800, asked Mike to move the beach chair that Linsey had been sitting it, and took 2 steps and had a good signal. Oddly, the signal was coming from an orange peeling that was laying in the sand. I moved the peeling, spread the sand out with my foot, and got a solid 3 on the Equinox. Took a small scoop of sand, gently shook out the sand, and saw Linsey’s small white gold wedding band at the bottom of the scoop. I held out my scoop to Linsey, she made a comment like “You found it?” as she looked in the scoop and pulled her ring out. Mike was just as excited, and I got hugs from both of them. Evidently, Linsey had been eating the orange and when she finished, she put the peeling in the sand, and her ring must have slipped off at that point. Nevertheless, the ring is back where it belongs, and everybody’s happy! Love these returns.

Linsey and Mike, thank you for trusting me to help find your lost treasure. Have a great rest of your vacation and a safe return home.

Jim

 

 

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White Gold Diamond Ring Lost in the Sand in Litchfield, SC. Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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Rhonda called me about 8:30 pm saying I had been referred to her by the Minelab Distributor in the area, and was hopeful I could help find one of her lost rings. She said that she had lost 5 rings in the sand after she had taken them off to apply sun tan lotion. She went on to say, that her and her boyfriend had found 4 of the 5 but couldn’t find her diamond ring. She was wondering when I might be available to help look for it. I don’t like waiting to do a ring search because too many things could happen between the time of loss and me getting there to search. So, I told her I’d be there in about 30 minutes, got the address, grabbed my detector and was on the road.

I called her when I got there and she met me in the parking lot. We walked out to the beach and luckily she knew exactly where the area was that the ring was lost. I think it took longer for the detector to turn on and me to get ready then it did to find her ring. She put me dead on the spot, 3 swings and I got the tone, looked at the numbers on the detector and saw the 9/10 and knew I had white gold. I took a small scoop of sand, checked the hole to make sure I had her ring and searched the scoop. I very gently pulled her beautiful diamond ring out of my scoop. She was a little shocked that it turned up so quickly. A great happy ending to their vacation.

Rhonda, thank you so much for trusting me to find your lost treasure. Have a safe trip home.
Jim

 

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Newlywed’s Honeymoon Happily Continues at Sunset Beach, NC

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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Howard called me around 11 a.m. saying he had lost his wedding band, and asked if I could help find it. He continued by saying he had lost it in a big clump of grass and hadn’t been able to locate it. He further told me he was at the Sandpiper Bay Golf and Country Club at Sunset Beach, NC. I told him I’d be there in about 30 minutes.

On my drive up there, I’m thinking he may have lost it on the golf course and was hoping he had a good idea of exactly where it came off his finger. I ended up at the community club house instead of the golf course club house and asked a lady where the course club house was. She asked if I was the ring guy, after replying in the affirmative, she said that her husband was the one that lost his ring. Luckily, he had lost his ring in the landscaping Saw grass around the pool area in about a 5 ft square area. Rachelle and I introduced ourselves, and as we’re walking to the area she said that they had gotten married 2 weeks ago and that he’s had his ring for 2 days. We met up with Howard and he said that the ring was a little tight. He also said that he’s not use to wearing jewelry, so he had the ring about half way on his finger when it fell off. He heard the ring hit the cement, saw it bounce, and then disappear in the grass. I grabbed my AT PRO and started running it over the top of the grass where he thought it was. He told me it was a 14K gold wedding band, so I knew I’d be looking for a VDI (visual display indicator) number in the high 50s. After going over his suspected area a couple of times, I moved down the sidewalk, and about a yard or so I got a solid 57 on the detector. Visually, I couldn’t see anything so I used my pin pointer and BANG, found it buried deep in the grass. I pulled it out, wiped it off, and stuck it up for him to grab. He was flabbergasted that he had it back, he told me he had just about given up on finding it. Rachelle gave out a woo hoo shout. Honeymoon was saved.

Howard and Rachelle, thank you for trusting in me to help find your lost treasure. Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon and have a safe trip back home to Denver, CO.
Jim

  

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Cell Phone Lost in North Myrtle Beach SC, Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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On Wednesday, Sept 26th, I was out doing a little metal detecting on my own and not finding a whole lot. I suddenly got a solid signal with a VDI of 32 on my Equinox 800. Pretty sure I had found a cell phone, I carefully dug a big hole so I wouldn’t damage the phone. Sure enough, I found a Samsung Galaxy S8 about 4 to 5 inches deep in the wet sand. It wasn’t damaged, but it wasn’t powering up either. So, the phone either had a dead battery or was shot from being submerged.

When I got home I pulled the case off and cleaned it up. Not knowing how long it’d been in the sand, I didn’t want to plug it in and set it aside to dry out. In the meantime, I contacted an acquaintance at Verizon and gave him the IMEI number off the back of the phone. With that number, he can look it up and be able to see if the phone belongs to a Verizon customer. If he has a match, he’ll contact the owner and have them call me. I got lucky with this one. I hate not being able to find the phone’s owner, 1-I have no use for somebody else’s phone, and 2-I’m sure the owner has pictures or other information they don’t want to lose.

It was a week before Eric, from Maryland, contacted me about his phone, I had actually forgotten about it. I told him that I had taken his phone to Verizon and we weren’t able to power it up or charge it. However, we were able to get his SIM card out of the phone and we taped it to the front of the phone. He said he had a large number of contacts on the phone that he hadn’t backed up to the Cloud so he was very grateful his phone was found. I got his address and sent his phone home.

Jim

    

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Unique 2 Generations of Rings Lost in the Ocean, Found and Returned in North Myrtle Beach SC

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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Kevin called me at 10 a.m. this morning saying he had lost his gold wedding band the day before and wanted to know if I could help find it. He went on to say that this ring was extremely sentimental to him as he had taken his grandfather’s wedding band and his father’s wedding band and melded them together to make one ring, his. This ring’s story had a long history attached to it and needed to be found. I asked him what time he lost it and how deep he was in the ocean. He replied, “3 p.m. and about belly deep.” Knowing the tide tables, this was right at mid-tide. So, depending on how much sand was on the beach, I’m thinking his ring should be buried very close to the low-tide line. I had a few things to do, and low tide wasn’t for a couple of hours so I told Kevin I’d be there around 11:30ish.

When I got to the beach, I texted Kevin saying, I’m here and stood around scoping out the conditions. It wasn’t long before Kevin and his wife, Suzanne, showed up, and Kevin started pointing out the suspected area. I thought my best hope was an east/west grid search, going from the wet sand to roughly waist deep water. Kevin didn’t know exactly where the ring had come off and mentioned that he had drifted both north and south. So I wanted to extend the search area taking advantage of the low tide. I had my White’s PI, which meant I was digging every piece of wire, bottle cap, and pull tab; and wasting a lot of time digging junk. I was on my 6th or 7th line and hit a great signal, dug it, and unfortunately, it was another bottle cap, a quick cuss word and I moved on. Within about 6 inches, I had another strong signal, thinking I had yet one more bottle cap to add to my collection, I dug the target. As I spread out the sand with my foot, I see this round thing peeking up through the sand and shells. Didn’t look like a bottle cap, reached down to pick it up and my finger went through the middle of it – BAM!!! I was holding this beautiful ring. I instantly knew it was Kevin’s from his description. I nonchalantly washed the sand off his ring in ankle deep water, grabbed my scoop and started walking back up the beach. I slipped his ring on my index finger to hide it from view until the right moment. At the same time, Kevin was walking down the beach towards me and asked, “Tell me.” I said, ‘Tell you what.” He replied, “Tell me you found my ring.” I held my hand up with the ring on my finger and said, “I don’t know, you tell me.” He yelled out, “Oh My GOD,” put both hands over his face, and was totally overwhelmed. Suzanne came running up the beach from the surf, with tears in her eyes. Many, many hugs and thank yous. This is the reason I do this. Total search time was just over an hour. 

Kevin and Suzanne, thank you so much for trusting me to help find your lost treasure! Have a safe trip back home.

Jim

    

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Their Ring Story Continues on Sunset Beach NC

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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This lost ring story started about 3 p.m. when Patrick, who was on vacation from Raleigh, NC with his family, was in the surf throwing one of those balls that skip across the water. Just after 6 p.m. he called me asking if I could help find his wedding ring. He said he had googled lost ring in the ocean and my blogs popped up. I asked him a couple of questions, what time he lost it, and how deep he was when it happened. He told me he lost it about 3 and he was about hip deep. Knowing what the tides were for the day, 3 p.m. was right at mid-tide and hip deep meant he was probably out a little further than the low tide line. Time was of the essence because by the time I’d get there, the tide will have turned around and was now coming back in. I got a few more details, including the address, and told him I’d be there in 30-45 minutes. At the time, my wife and I were leaving our neighborhood on our way over to see our granddaughters. My wife has heard these type of conversations before and instantly knew what was going on, she made a U-turn to get me back home. I grabbed my gear and headed to Sunset Beach.

When I got to the rental house, I met Patrick and his wife Colleen, their son, and other family members. On the way out to the beach, I asked Patrick if he was throwing the ball when it came off, and thank goodness, he said the ball hit his finger when it came off. He and his brother-in-law gave me a general location and I started an east/west (sand to ocean) grid line. I think I was on my ninth line, and maybe ankle deep in the surf, when I got a strong hit. I dug a scoop of wet compounded sand, checked the hole, and was pretty positive I had Patrick’s Platinum Wedding Band in my scoop. I shook the scoop out in the surf and heard the loud clanging of the ring. I walked back up to where Patrick was standing, shaking the scoop as I walked so he could hear the clanging. I don’t think he was believing what he was hearing until I held the scoop out for him to retrieve his ring. He was beyond excited and I got some great bear hugs. On our way back up to the house, I asked him if he thought his ring was gone for good. His response was something like, “I didn’t think I’d ever get it back.” We also worked out a plan to surprise Colleen by saying the surf was getting to rough and that Patrick really appreciated me coming out and trying. Colleen was on the back deck as we walked up the steps. We played the surprise though and as I’m telling her that I tried, but the surf was getting big, I kept glancing at Patrick’s finger trying to get her to look. At one point she looked behind her to see what I was looking at, then BAM!!, she saw the ring on his finger and her eyes started watering up, which made mine water up. I got a big hug from her and she was so excited. Great ending to an otherwise trying time.

Patrick and Colleen, thank you so much for calling me and I’m so happy we were able to get Patrick’s ring back on his finger where it belongs! Have a great rest of your vacation and a safe return home.

Jim

  

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Man’s 10K White Gold Wedding Band lost in Myrtle Beach SC, Found and Returned

  • from North Myrtle Beach (South Carolina, United States)
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This ring recovery started after a morning recovery, and a leisurely afternoon of walking the beach swinging my metal detector. Shortly after I got home and changed clothes, I received a call from a number that showed Toronto, Ontario Canada so I was sure it was a lost ring call. When I answered, Andrew asked if it was possible to find a ring that was lost the day before in the dry sand. I assured him we had a great chance of finding it, got the details and address of the resort, and was on my way. The Myrtle Beach area is Matt Fry’s area, but I knew he wasn’t available so I took the call. I know he’s going to be upset, not that I took the call, but because it was an easy recovery, which most of his calls lately have been in waist or deeper water at low tide. Thanks Matt!

I called Andrew when I pulled into the parking lot telling him I was there, he said he’d be right down. He and his wife Kristin were on the beach in minutes and showed me an area that was maybe, 10 ft X 15 ft. I had asked him what type of metal the ring was made of and he wasn’t sure whether it was Silver or White Gold. This really wasn’t a problem because I had the Equinox 800 and I knew if the ring was Silver, the machine would give me mid 20 numbers. If the ring was White Gold, I’d get low to mid teen numbers. The mid teen numbers are also nickels, pull tabs, and bottle caps so I had to dig everything close to the 11-13 number I was looking for. The story was that Andrew had taken his ring off and put it on a boogey board that was sitting next to them in the dry sand. Shortly afterwards, someone picked up the board and the ring took flight. I started my east/west grid working my way south and finding plenty of bottle caps but no ring. I did about 6 or 7 grid lines and was running out of real estate so I turned around and went back to my first line and took a step to the north of that line. Boom! Three steps on that grid line and I got a solid 12 on the detector. I was positive I had his “White Gold” ring. Dug a scoop, shook the sand, and Bingo! As I let him get his ring out of the scoop, I said, “You’re ring’s not Silver.” He identified his ring, looked at the stamp inside the ring and said, “It does say 10K.” Irrelevant of what it is or isn’t, it’s definitely his ring and back on his finger where it belongs. Another happy ending with big thank yous from both Andrew and Kristin.

Andrew and Kristin – thank you for allowing me to help find your lost ring. Enjoy the rest of your vacation and have a safe trip home.

Jim

 

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