Mark Rubey, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 17 of 20

Raoul called me and said he had dropped two rings in some tall grass in front of where he worked and could only find one of them. He had remembered seeing my Craig’s list ad and hoped I could help him. He also has and interest in the hobby and wanted some advice in choosing a detector. When I arrived, he showed me the small area in which the ring was located and I began to search. It was a relatively new industrial park and it was amazing how many signals there were in that small area. Most were junk signals but several were in the small gold ring range so there were a few to check out. After a pull tab and some scrap, I got a nice low tone on my E-trac and my pin pointer sniffed it out. You can see by the photo how well it blended into the grass. I’m surprised he eye-balled the matching band! It was a pleasure meeting you both and thank you for the reward.

A few days ago I received a call from Lisa saying that she lost a ring at the beach in the dry sand. She removed the ring to apply lotion (should there be a warning label on those bottles?) and placed it on the cooler. Later, her husband grabbed the cooler and the ring went into the sand. We were able to mesh our schedules today and met across the street from the beach. It was on a nearby military base section so we rode together as the husband had the pass. The first signal was some iron junk that I didn’t bother to dig but the second one was the ring. I like those quick ones, especially since I’d been under the weather for a few days and wasn’t looking forward to a marathon today! It was a pleasure to meet both of you and your boy and thank you for the reward. Let the ring story continue along with the smiles!

      I was just about to sit down to dinner when I got a call from Taylor who said that her husband had lost his gold band wedding ring in the dry sand at Mission Beach. He had removed his ring to apply lotion to his child (where have I heard this before?) and had put the ring in his pocket. After some physical activities, including cartwheels, he discovered his ring was no longer in his pocket. They hadn’t left the area so it should have been an easy search….and it was. I started a grid and made 3 passes when I got the typical strong 12-13 on my E-trac which is what I expect to see on your typical gold band. It was almost underneath the baby carriage!

        It was a pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward. I was happy to find it before someone else did on this busy beach and before the sand grooming machine ate it. Here’s the ring and the happy faces at the sunset of another day in paradise.

        I received a call from Angela about two gold rings that were lost at the beach in Coronado. The usual story, the rings were removed for skin lotion and stowed for safekeeping but ended up in the sand when the couple packed up to leave. They were just visiting here and had to leave the next mornning, so time was of the essence. When I received the call, they were not available until later to show me in person the exact area but they were able to describe it fairly well.

       Knowing that this beach gets searched often, my wife and I hot footed it down there and I began a grid. I usually do a quick, one-direction, no overlap scan first to hopefully save a lot of time. On a fresh drop in the dry sand like this one, that’s usually all it takes. No such luck this time. The area was reasonable large, even with their detailed description so I was resigned to the fact that I would be there a while. I then started another grid the other direction and worked slow and with a 50% overlap. Still no rings but I was finding coins and good sounding junk, so I knew nobody else had beat me to them. I had already expanded the search area quite a bit so I figured I had covered the “drop area” at least once. Ok, I guess I could have missed one of them but both? Time to start over so I began gridding the area in the same direction as my first quick scan but this time, slow with overlap and dig every sound.  After another half hour or so, I get a scratchy foil/junk signal and out pops the engagement ring! After seeing the tiny size of it, I finally understood why I wasn’t getting a strong signal! It was maybe a size 1 1/2 and wire thin. I then ran a spiral pattern, with the first ring as the starting point. On my second time around, I found the wedding band, same scratchy 12-03 on my E-trac and same tiny wire sized band.  I guess I’ll have to start digging more junk targets when I hunt for fun!

       I made the fun phone call to her husband Mike and offered to drop by their hotel and drop them off. We met a happy Mike out front where he told us that he hadn’t informed his wife yet that they had been found. He was planning a surprise for later. Thank you, Mike, for the reward, and I hope the surprise turned out well and you had a safe flight home!

        This was another group find! Laura and her husband were enjoying Del Mar beach when her husband lost his tungsten carbide wedding band in about 4′ of water. She did an online search and came up with Stan Ross’s name and sent him an e-mail asking for help. Stan was unable to do it right then and forwarded the e-mail on to me to see if I could take the call. I recieved this e-mail after midnight so I was unable to contact anyone for more details. Not wanting to miss the great low tide at 5:15 am, I figured I might as well give it chance based on the directions I received. Upon arriving at the beach at 3:45 am, I located what I thought was the spot… down a ramp, just south of the sewer pipe and out on the first sand bar. I made two passes and hit a ring! I couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be that simple! I was right, it wasn’t their ring. I continued gridding that whole area and no luck. As the dawn made visibility a lot better, I looked farther south and noticed another ramp and a storm drain outlet just south of the ramp. Ok, grid this area just like the last. Still no ring. While searching that area, I met another detectorist named Tony. We talked for a while and I asked him if he might have found this ring but he hadn’t. He volunteered to help and we went over the area again. Still no good. That afternoon I contacted Laura and got more specific directions as to the “spot”. Sure enough, it was the second search area.

        The next morning, I figured I’d give it another try. The beach and sand had changed a bit from the previous morning so I was hopeful. I started the grid again and noticed that Tony had also showed up again. We both went over that same area but still came up dry. I called Laura to give her the bad news and told her that I would keep it on my “not found yet” list and would let her know if I found it in the future or if I heard of anyone finding it.

       Well, Tony calls me a couple of days later and says he thinks he found the ring! He went back and hunted that same area again and came across a tungsten carbide ring about 8″ down that looked like a match to the ring photo I showed him. A much more pleasant e-mail and phone call resulted and we arranged a time and place for us all to get together and get that ring heading home. A big thanks to Tony for his determination in finding the ring and thank you Laura for the reward. It just goes to show you how sand movement can cover and then expose targets. Keep the faith everyone!

       This was quite a day to usher in Spring. First, I find that one of my best friends passed away. RIP Jeff! I find a precious custom made ring for a nice lady, and then my San Diego Aztecs win their NCAA playoff game in overtime. Each emotional and important in their own special way.

      When I contacted Emily, she said that she thought that she had dropped her engagement ring in a patio area of her apartment building and needed help locating it. I loaded up the car with my gear, grabbed my wife, and headed to Sunset Cliffs, an area on the south side of Ocean Beach. When I get to the address, I find it’s an apartment building right on the cliff overlooking the ocean. Nice view! I meet Emily and get the full story on the ring. Her fiance’ had it custom made in Bahrain so it had extra special meaning for their up coming marriage. In fact, they were to have a photo shoot in a few days! Without the ring….well, it just woundn’t be the same. She explained that one of the stones had come loose from the ring so she took the ring off and put it into a zippered pocket in her purse along with her keys. Well, before she could get to the jeweler, an event happened that drew her attention. It seems a person decided to commit suicide by driving their car off the cliff to the rocks below right behind their apartment! Really, I’m not making this up! Naturally, this drew a crowd, Emily included. She had a perfect bird’s eye view from the patio area right above the scene when she decided to grab her keys out of her purse. You guessed it, the ring, unbeknowst to her, came out with the keys and fell somewhere in the landscaping or over the edge of a metal railing that ran around the edge of the steel reinforced concrete patio.

       There were two main areas where she was standing with one being the most likely. I started there and immediately discovered that this wasn’t going to be easy with the rebar in the concrete, the heavy steel railing, and the high bushes in between them. I detected there the best I could with my small coil on my E-trac and then started to work my way over to the other area, thinking that I’d probably be back with my pin pointer to complete the search. There also was a posibility that the ring had fallen over the edge of the railing  and into some iceplant as she had been leaning over it to view the rescue of the driver below. I cringed at that thought as it was almost straight down for 30-40 ft. and without a ladder from below, there was virtually no access. I wound my way to the other viewing area and ran into the same problems….did I mention that this had steel reinforced concrete and huge, rusty, Titaniclike ship railing in the search area? As luck would have it, I got a solid gold ring hit right off the bat but it was mixed with other sounds that were interfering. I swung around 90 degrees and got a better hit free of interference. From that angle, I could just see the edge of a beautiful ring poking out from under a dead leaf. I picked it up and handed it to Emily who understandably was overjoyed. I’m glad I could help in making your upcoming photo shoot and marriage come off as you had planned. Thank you for the reward! Now go get that stone installed! Here’s the lovely ring and Emily’s beautiful smile. Check out that view too!

I talked with Dave on the phone about finding his car key. Seems it fell out of his back pack while he was at Coronado dog beach with his dog. He googled “detector rental”  and contacted DeMarco detector sales in NJ. After Dave found out that they were a continent away, Joe DeMarco  suggested that he call me, since I’m here in the same  area. Thanks Joe. Dave laid out a big square area in the sand where he thought he was camped and I proceded to run a grid pattern with my Minelab E-trac/15″WOT combo. After about 15 minutes and 3/4 of the box having been searched, I hit the right spot! Good job Dave to get me in the proper area!  Good to meet you and thank you for the reward!

After seeing me on the news, Bob called me and asked if I could find a cache of jewelry at his home. After discussing the details and the problems of trying to use a detector in a house, I agreed to meet there and give it my best. Bob e-mailed me after my visit and wrote out the whole story so I’ll let him tell it in his own words……

I was checking the lost and found ads on my local Craig’s List, when I come across an ad that says a ring was lost at the Del Mar Dog Beach and that they were hoping to hear that someone had found it. Thom had been playing with his dogs along a river that emptys into the ocean and while throwing something in the river for them to fetch, his ring went with it. He, his wife, and relatives searched but couldn’t find it. I contacted Thom and told him that I would be happy to search for it if he’d like me to. He gave me the details and I planned to get there right away before someone else might happen upon it that might not know that Thom had lost it. It had already been a few days since the loss so The tides had changed a bit in the mean time. When I arrived, I was dismayed to find the tide was way too high for me to search. I tried around the area but I couldn’t get close enough to ground zero to do a thorough search. Low tides were expected in a little over a week so I told Thom I’d be back to do it right. Fast forward 10 days and I made it back at a nice low tide. After an hour and a half or so and progressively deeper water, I finally hit that good sound in about 18″ of water and 8′ out into the rushing river. No sand or muck in that section! All river rock! I figured it would be on the surface but nothing was visible. I dug down several inches and pulled out his ring. As happy as I was to find it and get out of that current, Thom was much happier with the news. Until he came to the house today to pick it up, he was still incredulous that it was found. It was my pleasure to find it and also to meet you. Thank you very much for the reward.