Mike Baker, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 5 of 9

Engagement Ring Found Way Up North In Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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A woman emailed me a couple days ago asking if there was any hope for her rings. From that I knew she was very down about losing them. She had been doing things out in her snowy yard and somehow lost both her engagement ring and her wedding band. She and her husband tried using his mother’s metal detector, but had no luck with it. I told her I could come today to search and that I was glad she lost them on her own property.
We are expecting a huge snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, so I got up early and headed out for a nice ride almost to the Canadian border. They always have tons of snow there, I used to like to go snowmobiling there.
I got there a little after 8:00 and she showed me the areas to look. It was 0 degrees out, so I was hoping for a quick search! I found her beautiful engagement ring in about 2 minutes and knocked on the door. She was surprised and relieved to have it back. It went very quickly back onto her finger! I figured I’d find the wedding band almost as quickly. Unfortunately that was not going to happen, searching hard for 3 hours with no luck.
I methodically moved a lot of snow, scanning every shovelful. There were many large steel objects that were frozen into the ground making it impossible to move them. I’m assuming the signal of her ring may have been masked by these things. I was very puzzled and disappointed, and have a hard time with failure. She was even wondering if her Husky might have carried it off somewhere. We made plans to do another search as soon as the snow and ice is gone. I’ll be scanning some doggy landmines too!

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Mother’s Ring Found in Snow For a Central VT Lady

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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1/15/19
First search of 2019
I got an email yesterday from a lady who lost her ring in the snow. It wasn’t any ordinary ring, it was a ring that her mother had worn for years. So, naturally she was shook up.
She had been outside doing chores and just before going into her house, she stood on her porch brushing snow off herself and shaking snow off her hands. The extremely cold weather had shrunk her fingers and the ring flew right off. She looked, but it had disappeared into the snow.
She is a pet lover (the best people!) who has a cat, dog and a donkey. Her ferrier, a long time friend of mine, was trimming her donkey’s hooves and told her about me belonging to The Ring Finders.
Right after work today, I went to her house. She explained how she lost it and showed me the area. I got a good signal on the second swing, reached into the snow with my hand, accidentally pushed it under the porch, then picked it up and passed it to her. She was so happy to have it back!
I then got to meet her dog and cat, and see the inside of the beautiful house her carpenter husband had built. Now I want to build one just like it!

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The Ring Finders, Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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2018 search results.

I was looking over all the records from this year’s searches. I did 22 searches for jewelry this year, a little bit quieter than usual. The good thing was that only 3 were unsuccessful. There were also a few searches where the client found their own jewelry in a different place than was searched, one found in a glove, another found in a clothes dryer and one found in the couch. The 3 unsuccessful searches, I will be going back in the Spring when the grass and weeds are low and the snow and ice is gone.

Thank you to all who used The Ring Finders, it was nice meeting you and the pets at Central Vt Humane Society and I thank you for the rewards.

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Wedding Ring Found near Montpelier Vt

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Got a phone call recently from a very distressed woman. She had been out for a nice long walk with her dog on a road near her house, and somehow had lost her wedding ring. It was a very cold day, our Winter hit early this year. She and her wife went back out and searched for several hours with no luck. Earlier that day it had snowed a little, just enough to hide a ring.

She knew a metal detector was needed and found information about The Ring Finders on someone’s blog. Around 7:00 she called when I was cooking supper for my wife. I knew it was important to get on this search quick, because a town snowplow could come push her ring deep into a snow bank and possibly badly damage it. I brought 3 of my detectors so we could all search. I was there by 8:00 and we got started. It seemed so cold out, probably because our bodies weren’t conditioned for Winter yet!

In less that an hour a young friend of theirs, who was swinging one of the detectors, gave us a happy yell! He found it. The ring was now where it belonged, back on her finger. She will be getting it re-sized soon! We were all so happy and relieved.

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Engagement Ring and Wedding Band Found in Northern NY

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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About a month ago I got an email from a lady who lost her engagement ring and wedding band. She and her husband had been enjoying some Summer recreation time in the cool waters of a northern New York river. At one point she was swimming in a stretch of fast water for some real fun! But the fun quickly ended when she realized her rings had fallen off. She and her husband tried for quite some time with no luck. The water was too fast and deep and the bottom was rough and rocky. They knew they needed someone with special euipment and experience in water searches.

I emailed back and told her that I would love to help, but there were other members of The Ring Finders that were closer to that area. She replied that she had contacted them, but they were unable to help her. One had recently opened a new business and the other wasn’t euipped for that kind of search. Unfortunately I couldn’t help her then either, because I had just lost my mother 2 nights earlier and I wouldn’t be able to come for awhile. She was very sweet and understanding and was willing to wait.

We stayed in contact and decided to meet at 8:00 Sunday morning. It was a very chilly 40 degrees, but we were willing to tough it out! I got my water equipment ready, put on the wet suit and got started. They put on hip boots and searched where they could. I searched for 5 hours without finding her rings. It was slow going because the current was strong and hard to use a metal detector in. She was feeling discouraged and had to leave to take care of their elderly mother back home.

I figured I had enough energy to search for a few more hours. Her husband, being a really decent guy, said he would stay with me because he didn’t want me to be searching alone in the rapids. He also helped me in many ways, whenever he could, to help make my job go easier. I searched for 2 more hours, pulling up lots of metal debris and “hot” rocks(rocks containg metal of some sort). Finally, I got a weak signal from between some rocks, and after a few tries, there in my scoop was her wedding band!! We were both very happy to say the least! Now we were both encouraged that the engagement ring might be closeby. About a foot from the wedding band’s location, I got another weak signal coming from deep between some larger rocks. It seemed like an eternity, but I finally got whatever was making the signal into my scoop. As I sorted through the stones in the scoop, I saw shiny metal, there it was, her engagement ring. I grabbed it, let out a shout and nearly fell down in the rapids I was so happy! He couldn’t believe it. For the next hour we kept repeating “I can’t believe we found them”!

So, we had a nice drive back to their house. When we handed the rings back to her, she was in shock and disbelief. Then the happiness kicked in and and the hugs got handed out!! I got to meet their kids and their dog and we all had a nice visit.

The BEST hobby in the world!

Note….Water searches can be extremely dangerous, especially in deep or fast water, never attempt it alone or without the proper gear and experience.

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Watch Found Near Waterbury Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got an email this morning from a gentleman who needed help finding his watch. It was a nice Citizen watch that he gotten for Christmas last year and really enjoyed wearing it because it was tough and waterproof. He said he lost it 2 weeks ago and he had searched everywhere around the house. He finally concluded it must be hiding in mulch that he had put down then. He and his wife have beautiful flower gardens and blueberry bushes all through boulders around their house. He had put fresh mulch all around the plants and boulders. The area was much too big to search by hand, so he was going to rent a metal detector, but then saw my ad.
I told him I could come right away, even though it was raining, because one of my detectors is amphibious. When I got there his dog came running to greet me. He was a sweet lab mix that he had also gotten from Central Vermont Humane Society. All 3 of my dogs are from there. He showed me the area to search and his dog and I got started. After over an hour searching, I was almost to the end of the mulch area when I got a good strong tone. There was his watch, about 5″ down. I was about to switch to a different detector with a small search coil on it and do the search all over again.
He was very happy and said he would be looking for a different band to put on it.

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Earring Found In Woodstock Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got a voicemail from a couple visiting Woodstock, Vt. The lady had lost one of her diamond and gold stud earrings in the grass. She was giving her child a ride on her shoulders and somehow the earring got dislodged from her ear. They bought a metal detector, but had no luck with it. Most metal detectors are not designed to pick up such tiny targets. She asked me if my detectors would pick it up, and I told her we could try my detectors on the earring’s mate. So, I went there this morning to search. I love going to Woodstock because I am a carpenter and enjoy looking at all the classic old buildings there.
She gave me the earring to test my detectors on, and 3 of them picked it up, but one did real well. So, she showed me the area to search and I got started. There were lots of “junk” signals in the soil, but luckily this was a recent loss and the target would be on the surface, so I could ignore all the other signals. In about 15 minutes, I got a good surface signal giving the correct numbers for gold. There it was under the grass, pushed lightly into the soil with the stud sticking straight up. She was real happy to have it back!
I also helped her husband learn how to use his detector so they could have a little fun with it.

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Rings Found Near Champlain Islands, Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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7/4/18
Got a call 2 days ago after I got home from work. It was a gentleman who said his wife had lost her engagement ring and her wedding band while swimming and relaxing with their 2 young kids at a State park about an hour from my house. He was born and grew up in Vermont, then joined the military. They got married, started a family and found work down on the East coast. They were in VT for the week visiting family and they all had gone to the park, being a great place to be with the air temperatures in the scorching 90’s.
The rings were beautiful platinum and diamond rings that he had custom made for her. He was so glad to reach me and said he needed help urgently. Being lost in a public area, I knew we needed to search immediately. I offered to come right away and he said they would all stay to show me the areas she had been.
I got there at 7:00, met everyone and found out where the search was to be. At some point she had taken her rings off and put them in her hat for safekeeping. Later, she put her hat on, not thinking about the rings, and took the kids for a swim in the lake. Sometime after that she realized her rings were missing. They did have insurance, but these were too sentimental to have replaced. She was feeling terrible for losing them.
I got started with my detector and he searched visually. His mom, very kindly went to get me some supper. The 2 of us searched until midnight that night with no luck, and I got home around 1:30. It had been a beautiful evening, but the bugs had been brutal. About two-thirds of the search was in the water, which is much slower due to the water’s resistance. I said I would try to come the next evening, July 3rd, as well. There was even more urgency because we knew there would be a huge crowd there on the 4th.
The next evening I got there about 7:00. I asked him if he would like to use one of my other detectors and sand scoops to improve our chances of finding them that night. Around an hour later he got a good signal which turned out to be a man’s wedding band, which he gave to the Park Ranger. Around 9:30 he found his wife’s wedding band. Two happy guys, because we then knew that she had lost them in the water and that no one else had already pocketed them! We searched another hour and then reluctantly headed for shore, needing sleep. I told him I would leave that detector with him so he could search the next day(I couldn’t be there on the 4th). As we were leaving, something told me to try one more pass before leaving. I decided to try going into deeper water, got a signal, which was junk, then got another loud signal. There it was in my scoop, a beautiful engagement ring! I shouted out and brought him the ring. He confirmed it was hers and phoned her. She screamed and thanked us.
A great team effort and he is now my official ring finding partner!
I love endings like this, definitely worth the hard work and loss of sleep!

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Rings Found In South Burlington Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got a call at 8:30 last night from a guy who had lost his 2 rings while working in a garden around his pond earlier in the day. I could clearly hear the sadness in his voice, so I asked if I could come right over and search. He said he would appreciate it, so I threw my gear in the car and took off.
When I got there he explained the stories behind the rings. He had recently lost his wife after caring for her in their home for many years. They had been a team since shortly after he got back from Vietnam, and hated to go even a day without his wedding band on. His other onyx ring had a long, interesting story behind it, going back to when he got it from his grandfather before he went in the service, and had even been lost in Vietnam. Both rings were fitting loosely on his finger so a jeweler had bonded them together in an attempt to make them fit tighter, but that hadn’t helped much.
I began the search and unfortunately there were lots of random signals in the soil. Finally I got a good signal from next to the roots of a flower, pushed the pinpointer deep into the mulch under it and found his rings. He was so relieved to have them back! Afterwards, we shared many “battle stories” of taking care of our family members at home (I had also taken care of both my parents at their home for about 10 years). Lots of funny and sad things we both remembered. It was nice to hand the rings back to such a good man and husband.
Got to bed real late, but this hobby is sure worth losing sleep for!

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Earring Found In Middlebury Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got an email a few days ago from a young man going to Middlebury College. His girlfriend, also a student there, was out running on a path and lost one of her pearl stud earrings. These earrings had been given to her many years ago by her mother, so they meant a lot to her. She didn’t need any more stress at this time, because she is graduating in a few days and had lots of papers to write and finals to take. They both looked hard for the earring, but because of all the crushed white stones on the running path, it was nearly impossible to find.
I went down early this morning, met him there, and he showed me where the path was. He was so thoughtful, willing to stay and help and even got me some coffee. She was working hard on homework and couldn’t be there for the search. I knew he had some papers to write, so I went to work and told him I’d call when I found it.
The odds were against me. Finding a stud/post style earring is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, partly because of their shape and partly because there’s so little metal in them. They give off very faint signals. We were lucky she lost them in an area that wasn’t deep grass or brush. It started raining pretty hard, and after about an hour and many junk signals, I got a signal that was from an earring backer. The problem was it was the wrong backer. But shortly after I got another signal that gave the right numbers on the ID display. I bent down close and there was the pearl! I was so glad to find it. I emailed him a picture and told him I’d continue to look for the correct backer. Soon they both showed up, she was so excited. She also told me that the backer I found was the one that she had been using, probably why the earring fell out.
We had a nice visit after.

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