Mark Rubey, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 22 of 23

This is a combined effort of mine and Stan Ross’s. Stan got the initial call from Matthew about a ring he lost at Coronado beach in San Diego. It was supposedly lost within 5 ft of a certain fire ring within a group of 8 fire rings in a big square pattern. Due to a miscommunication of some sort, Stan search 4 of the rings without success only to find later that it was lost at a different ring. Since Stan lives almost 100 miles from that beach, he called me and asked if I would be interested in heading over and giving it a shot since I was fairly close by. I said sure, but in the back of my mind I’m thinking “oh boy, a fire ring!” (not). Sure enough, when I get there and start hunting (the proper ring this time), it is just carpet bombed with nails and other debris all around the pit and out several yards. To make it worse, the fire ring itself has steel reinforcement in the concrete so hunting up next to it would need to be relegated to the pin pointer and scoop. After several hours, coil and setting changes, and hand scooping around the fire ring, I almost gave up but I continued a grid pattern out farther and farther from the ring. At about a radius of 20-25 feet away I get another multitarget tone with readings all over the place. Every now and then a good “gold ring” reading would poke through so I figured, what the heck, scoop and see what it is. My detector said it was only 2″ down so I just took a shallow scoop of sand but didn’t find anything. I next took a full scoop and started to shake out the sand. First thing visible was a screw top, then a melted piece of aluminum can, then a new condom still in the foil wrapper, and then at the bottom was a gold ring! That baby was hiding real well but the E-trac managed to sniff it out even with all that extra junk trying to mask it. The inscription matched so I knew I had Matthew’s ring. I contacted Stan and Matthew and since Matthew lived out of town, I got his shipping info so I could mail the ring to him. That is always a great phone call to make! I was only able to photograph the ring so you’ll just have to use your imagination to see Matthew’s smile! Thank you Matthew for the nice reward and thank you Stan for the referal. I owe you at least a good meal so think of a place! Here’s Matthew’s ring…

 

Katie called me right from the beach where she had lost both of her rings after taking them off to apply skin lotion (if I only had a dollar everytime this happens, I could buy my own island!). After a frantic search by her and her husband, they found one of the rings but the small platinum band eluded them. I met them a short time later to do what I thought would be a very quick recovery. I should never think that as it just seems to jinx me. They never left the area which was only 8′ squared but that little ring wasn’t ready to show itself that easily. A quick scan told me that there was quite a bit of  junk in the sand too. Unfortunately, small platinum reads the same as foil and other tiny junk sounds so this was going to be a bigger challenge than I originally thought. After moving all their beach gear to the side, I got to work listening to the faintest sounds and removing anything that set the detector off. After about 15 minutes, I got a real faint, scratchy sound and figured it was just a piece of foil and scooped it to get it out of the way. Lo and behold, it was the ring! About 7-8″ down in a pile of sand they they had sifted earlier in their search. It all turned out well as the smile indicates. Glad to meet you and thank you for the reward.

 

J0sh called me saying that he lost his wedding ring in the dry sand at Mission Beach He, his wife, and child were still there at the beach so that is always a good sign when it comes to a successful search. That beach is hunted daily by many others with detectors so time is always important. I hot footed it down there and within 5 minutes we had the ring back on his finger. It was good to meet you and thank you for the reward!

After finding a ring in the morning, I received a call from Grant who said his sister thought she had lost a ring in the sand at Pacific Beach when she decided to apply some sun lotion. It was custome made and matched a set of ear rings so she was rather distraught over losing it.  She didn’t notice until later that her ring was missing so this was only one of the several possible locations where it could have been lost. It had been lost the day before and since she was just visiting, she had already returned home to San Francisco. Grant knew where they had been sitting in the sand so he was able to put a boundary on the search area.

     This day, there were others camped out in that same area so I had to avoid detecting up on someone’s blanket! After no more than about 5 minutes of gridding and no sounds of any kind (good or bad) I was thinking maybe someone else had already hit the area and scooped up all the good stuff but right when I thought that, I got a nice gold reading on my E-trac and looked down to see part of the ring sticking up out of the sand not 3 feet from where a couple of women were sitting on their blanket watching me! Good thing they and everyone else that may have happened by had bad eyesight! Grant now gets to make the fun phone call and a guaranteed bed whenever he wants to visit San Francisco. Add another smile to the list and one for me as this was a fun day at the beach.

 

Sorry about the poor photo. I didn’t realize is was blurry until I downloaded it from my camera. It’s a very nice gold ring with a topaz.

 At 7:00am Monday morning, I met Tim at Ocean Beach where he had lost his ring the previous day. He and his friends had been throwing a football around when his cold wet hand let loose of his ring. Tim showed me the approximate area where he thought he had been and I proceded to mark off one of the corner boundaries by making an “L” in the sand with my foot. I turned on the E-trac and made just one sweep when I got the familiar gold ring sound about 7″ down. Sure enough, on the first scoop, I found his ring! He had that “no way” look on his face as I pulled his ring out of the sand. I wish all recoveries were this easy. He must have thought I was some sort of magician and that I had the ring all the time and was just fooling with him! Chalk up another smile and happy owner.

       When I turned my phone on this morning, there was a voice mail message from Ken about some lost keys. I called him back but was told that he already found someone else to search for them. I told Ken that if they weren’t found to give me a call back. Sure enough, a couple of hours later, he called back and told me that the other guy with a metal detector (not a ring finder) couldn’t find the keys and had left. Ken wasn’t quite ready to give up yet and wanted to be sure the keys were truly gone before buying new ones hence the call back. I told him I’d be happy to search for them but in my mind, I was a little skeptical that they could be found as the search area described wasn’t very big, Halloween trick or treaters had been all over the search area, and someone else had already given it a shot.

       When I arrived, I was warmly greated by Ken and got the story on how they were lost. Seems he arrived home late afternoon on Halloween after getting some groceries and had them in one hand and his keys in the other as he went to his front door from the driveway. When he saw a palm tree seed husk laying across the path, he reached down with his “key” hand and tossed the husk over to the side. Well, the keys went with it and even though he searched until dark and the next morning, they were nowhere to be found….at least by the naked eye. After I had him reenact the husk throwing, I started with the most likely area they should be. There was some landscape wiring, sprinklers, and rebar inside the concrete so it wasn’t the easiest place to hunt but after about 15-20 minutes, I found them under the short palm on the left in the photo and down inside the long leafed plant shown in the other photo. Ken was now a happy man as he was able to lock up the house and run (drive) away from home! I’m glad I was able to help you Ken and thank you for the reward. It helps keep the ring finder and keyring finder service going. Now repeat after me…..do not call brand X when you can get a genuine ring finder!

     Julia was play volleyball in a tournament and lost her gold toe ring in the sand of one of the courts. When I arrived a couple of hours later, that particular court had already been removed but I could kinda make out the outline of where it had been. Her team was still playing but on a different court so I started my grid at the net line and a couple of minutes later, the lost was found. Even though this wasn’t a wedding ring, it had quite of bit of sentimental value to Julia as she had owned it for 25 years and it was the only surviving  piece of jewelry she owned after a fire burned her place down a few years ago. After hugs and photos and the inevitable  delay of game caused by me, everything was back to normal. Play Ball!

    Randy called me on a Sunday morning and said his son had lost his wedding ring in the sand on Fiesta Island. It seems the son removed the ring to apply tape to his hands in preparation for playing ball and …..well you know the rest. They searched and searched, Randy even used a sifter and methodically gridded the most likely area to no avail. I started my search pattern at one end of the area and about a half hour (and 20 pull tabs! ) later, I had his ring in my hand. It was just outside the area Randy had sifted. Since his son was still playing ball in a tournament, I wasn’t able to get a photo of him holding the ring but gave it to Randy for a reunion later. Here’s the ring anyway….

 

 

 

 

 

Just as I was arriving home on Saturday evening, I received a call from Amanda who said she  had lost her wedding ring in a small grassy area next to public pool. She had removed the ring to apply lotion on her daughter and had placed the ring in her jeans pocket. Some time later, she noticed the ring missing and searched with many friends on their hands and knees but no success. I had plans that night with the wife and some friends but agreed to stop by the pool to see if it was going to be an easy recover. The area was small so I had high hopes. The good news was that she hadn’t left that grassy area with the jeans, the bad news was the ground there was literally carpet bombed with coins and other metallic junk! You could not swing the coil without getting at least 3 signals.

I did a complete grid but couldn’t get a surface signal in the gold range other than some pull tab ends and foil so we figured it must have been picked up by someone earlier. She thanked me for my efforts and I left to keep my evenings’ appointment. I was 98% sure that the ring was not in that area but that last 2% was bugging me. With that many targets and their signals overlapping, I figured there was still a chance that the ring was masked by them so I returned the next morning before the pool opened and the nice people running the place let me in to complete my search.

I figured I would remove everything that made a noise and if the ring was there, it would be found. After completing a 10X10 foot area and sweating buckets in the hot sun, I had found someone else’s ring, 31 quarters, 14 dimes, 6 nickels, and 28 pennies along with a dozen pull tabs and other assorted stuff but not the ring I was looking for. I had just started on the next 10X10 area and got another nice low tone that had already produced the nickels and pull tabs but this time I could see just a tiny glint of sparkle through the grass which I knew was going to be good. Yup, her ring had been stepped on and pushed most of the way into the sod but just a sliver was still exposed. I made my favorite type of phone call and met Amanda near by to return her ring. After having resigned herself to the thought that the ring was gone forever, my phone call made her the happiest woman in Poway. Here’s the ring (sorry about the blurry photo! Believe me, it’s beautiful) and Amanda and her daughter.

 

       Stephan calls me for help finding his wedding ring that slipped the leash while he was washing his truck. When I arrive, it’s probably the worst weather we’ve had here in San Diego the whole winter…..rain, wind, hail, cold (at least by our standards!) We both brave the elements and discuss the area that needs searching and the circumstances of the rings’ disappearance. The truck wash area in question had been recently covered in mulch and bark to a depth of 4 inches or so making it difficult for him to just eyeball the puppy. Not to worry, metal detectors don’t care about no stinking bark! A few minutes later, ring found and another happy camper.