Mark Rubey, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 20 of 23

Another long distance return. Matt had lost his platinum wedding ring in the shallow surf. Not being able to find it, he flew home to Seattle. I found it a few days later and was able to get in touch with him. He was going to be back in San Diego soon so I just held onto it until he flew down again. A pleasure to meet you Matt and thank you for the reward.

       This return is a reverse find, so, I don’t know if it counts in our total or not. Wednesday evening was very warm and humid and I couldn’t get comfortable, so, I decided to go down to the beach for a while to cool off and do some detecting. I got there around sunset and started searching over the blanket line area as people were leaving for the day.

     I was finding some coins and other misc. when I came across a good sized ring. It was dark and I didn’t have my glasses so I had to wait until I got home to see exactly what I had found. I left at 11:00pm, went home, and cleaned up my equipment and finds.

     Inspecting the ring, I found a name enscribed inside the stainless band. Not a common name (first name Guillermo) so I figured it was worth a try to find the person who lost it. I didn’t see any “Lost” ads on Craig’s list matching this ring but after a bit of internet surfing, I came up with a couple of possible leads. A call to one number got me a woman related to the Guillermo I was seeking and offered to have him give me a call. A bit later, I got the call from an excited Guillermo and we made arrangements to meet at a local shopping mall for the exchange. In talking with him, I discovered the ring was given to him from his girlfriend and he was uncertain as to where he had lost the ring. He just noticed it was missing at one point (three days before I found it) but didn’t remember actually losing it. He was happy to hear that there is a group called The Ring Finders and praised our efforts. It was a pleasure meeting you and thank you for the thirst quenching reward!

 

     Deanna called me at 7:30pm and asked me if I can find her husband’s tungsten carbide wedding ring. After getting some preliminary info, I told her I would meet them in about an hour. I arrived at the beach and found them still on the sand where they had pitched an umbrella earlier in the day. Always a good sign when people stay where they lose something. Seems her husband was vigorously brushing sand off his hands and the ring went flying. I started my grid right where he was standing while doing the brushing and branched out from there.

     After a few junk sounds and expanding the search area a bit, I found it about another 15 feet closer to the water, 2 inches down, and dead center in the tire track made by the lifeguard truck! They were both overjoyed to get it back. When the dust had settled a bit and I was getting ready to do some photos, they asked me if I’d like to find another ring. After my rhetorical question “you lost another ring?” I found out that it belonged to Deanna this time and it was lost in the sand too, about 20 away from where they were sitting. After a minute or two, I found it and handed it to her. She then said that it was just one of a two ring set she lost at the same time! About 5 feet away, the other ring turned up too.

      After verifying that there weren’t any more items to be found, we gathered up our stuff and went over toward the boardwalk to take the photos. I’ve found a few double ring losses before, but that was my first triple, and my first for both husband and wife! It was a pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward.

     This ring find is out of this world….some of it anyway.  Kyle called me with the tale of woe of losing his wedding ring at the main beach in Coronado. Seems he took his ring off to keep from losing it when he went out in the surf, and placed it in his hat for safekeeping. After he came back out of the water, the hat went back on the head and ring went into the sand. After realizing what had happened, he searched and sifted for quite a while without success. An internet search brought him to The Ring Finders and my number. He lost the ring about 3pm on Thursday and called me Friday morning at 10:30. Knowing that beach gets searched frequently, I grabbed my gear and headed down there for hopefully a quick recovery before the crowds hit the beach or another detector found the ring, not knowing it’s significance or who may have lost it. Upon arrival, I met Kyle and he showed me the search area. There were already people camped out in some of the area but most was still open. Kyle described the ring as a tungsten carbide band with a meterite inlay. (my first)  I ran a grid in all the open areas and then sniped around some of the blankets and tents but the ring wouldn’t show itself. I did find a few coins and good sounding junk, so, I figured another detector probably didn’t find it but was puzzled as to why I hadn’t. It was starting to get pretty crowded, so, we called it a day. I told Kyle that I would contact some people I know who work that beach to see if they might have come across it somehow. I met a fellow club member there and asked him, but he hadn’t found a ring like that. Kyle left, and I hung around for a while longer, expanded the search area a bit,  hoping to hit an area still uncovered by blanket. After another hour or so, I gave up and went home, but decided to return later when the crowds left for the day.

       At about 8:30 that night, I headed back down to give it another try. I arrived at 9 and began another grid over the main blanket line area that was covered earlier. I found a few coins, a key, and then a “big” hit, literally. It was can sized or bigger but the numbers were wrong and all over the board. I scooped a bunch of sand out and the first target I found was a bit of foil. After cursing under my breath, I swung the loop over pile again and got a nice 12-13  reading on my E-trac. I then sifted out a nickel. Rats! I was about to kick the sand back into the hole when I passed the coil over the pile again, I hear a loud signal but, again, the numbers were jumping from 25-35 on the ferrous side and 35-50 on the conductive side. Those are usually iron junk sounds, and for a moment, I though of just ignoring it but, since it was already out of the ground, I went ahead and scooped it anyway just to get it out of the sand and into the trash where it belonged. Lo and behold, it was Kyle’s ring! That had to be the worst ring sound I ever heard. After inspecting the ring and determining that it matched Kyle’s description, I discovered that it was marked Zirconium/Meteorite inside the band….not tungsten carbide. With today’s assortment of jewelry metals, it’s more important than ever to know what you’re searching for. If you have a call to search for a ring with a meteorite inset, you need to dig iron sounds! That is not going to make some areas fun to search.

         I called Kyle with the good news. He was very happy I found the key to getting  him out of the dog house with his wife. It was almost 10pm at this point so we decided to meet up the next day for the return. As you can see, he’s a happy guy now. It was a pleasure to meet you Kyle, thank you for the reward, and more importantly, your service to our country.

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!