Mike Baker, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 8 of 11

Lost Keys Found in South Royalton, VT

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Got a call yesterday from a guy in South Royalton, VT. He had lost his car and apartment keys. He searched everywhere inside his apartment, car and all his clothes. He figured they must have fallen out of his pocket when he was shoveling snow, because his cell phone had fallen out of the same pocket another time. The plow truck had pushed snow into a pile at the end of the parking lot, so he assumed they would be there.

I went down this morning, after waiting for the snow to soften a little. South Royalton is a cool old Vermont town and Vermont Law School is there. He was attending that school, which was about a mile from his apartment. Luckily, his parents had a spare set of keys, which they mailed, but for one day, he had to walk.

We started the search and within 2 minutes found the keys. He was very excited and relieved. I drove around awhile, snapping pictures of the old historical buildings.

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Wedding Ring Found Near Milton / Colchester VT

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Last night at about 8:30 I got a call from a guy who lost his wedding ring. His wife found The Ring Finders information online and said to give it a try. He explained that he had stopped on his way home from work to fill his company truck with diesel fuel. While pumping, he took the rubber floor mat out and banged it on the pump guardrail to knock the ice off. In the process, he broke his fingernail off and reflexes from the pain made him shake his hand in the air. He felt the ring come off and heard it it something in the distance. He really couldn’t tell where the sound came from. The wind was blowing hard and it was snowing. He looked around for a mark in the snow where it might have gone in, but no luck. He then shoveled all the snow from around the truck, sifted through it and piled it behind the pumps where it would be safe from snow plows and hopefully it would be there in the Spring.

He told me that his wife was beside herself with sadness and he was very frustrated with a string of bad luck and working long cold days in the extreme cold. I was sitting on the couch, with my fiancee, keeping warm with my pj’s on! I thought about the bad weather and the 50 mile drive to get there, but decided the best chance of him getting it back would be to go right up. If we didn’t search then, the chances were very high that when they snowplowed the lot that night, the ring could be pushed anywhere, and possibly could get destroyed. There was also the very real possibility that someone else might see it after the snow melted and take it home.

I got there around 10, right when the store was closing. The ground was full of huge signals from underground tanks, piping, and rebar in the concrete. It was going to be a tough search. So, he scooped up the snow, that he had shoveled earlier, with a plastic shovel and I scanned each scoop. Found some foil and coins, but no ring. I started scanning the nearby snowbanks, the snow beyond them and then started scanning the parking lot. About 20 feet in front of the opposite side of where the truck had been parked, I got the awesome ring tone!! When I handed it to him he was so relieved and happy. He said “my wife will be so happy”!
I love this hobby!

On my way home, I stopped to help a woman who had gone off the road, and got home well after midnight. Most of us Vermonters will be glad when Summer returns!

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2017 Year End News

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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2017 was a very busy year. Some of my missions involved 2 or 3 weekends and lots of hours. I had a couple of heart-wrenching failures. One was a parking lot search for a woman who’s husband was fighting cancer. I never found it, and he lost his fight. I went back 5 or 6 times and am afraid someone pocketed her ring, but still hoping for a miracle to happen.

I also had several hunts for very young couples just starting out in marriage. I wish them long and healthy lives together.

There were some very generous clients who gave rewards this year. I was able to donate $450 in cash and food to our local Humane Society and one of my clients donated $2,000 directly to them. Wow!!!! Thank you to all.

Spoiled pets are happy pets!
Happy New Year!

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Ring Found In Burlington VT

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got a call last night from a guy who had lost his wedding band the day before Christmas. He was so shook up, he said it felt like his arm was missing. Luckily, he was on break from college and I had today off, so I went early to help him find it.

He had been shoveling snow at his house and at his mother-in-law’s house, and had also been taking out the trash and doing dishes (good husband!). He really wasn’t sure which house he had lost it at. He searched so hard for it, even rented a metal detector, looked through all the trash and took the sink drain apart. No luck. They got married about a year and a half ago, and have been sweethearts since middle school. They had gotten the ring from a goldsmith in Maine who had custom made it for them. I told him we should have a good chance of finding it even if we have to do a lot of shoveling.

We started at his mother-in-law’s house. It was about zero, but not windy yet. There was no ring presenting itself here. I figured we should go search at his house first, before starting to shovel through the snowbanks here. There were lots of signals at his house, some were in 2 inches of solid ice. He boiled some water and we poured it onto a couple spots that sounded possible. No luck. He went inside to boil some more water, and I moved out behind the house to try there. I thought that there might be a chance the ring went flying when he shook snow off his gloves. My machine gave out that awesome ring signal, I reached in with the pinpointer and about 6 inches down in the snow, there it was, in perfect condition!

When he came back out I said “you can use that water for some tea, I found it!” He was so relieved and happy. He called his wife, and she and her mother came over to celebrate. We had a nice visit trading stories.

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Engagement Ring Found in Vermont’s North East Kingdom

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Got a message from a woman who lost her engagement ring in the snow a couple days ago. She was very shook up and had searched for hours, sometimes on hands and knees, in the cold snow. She and her fiancee had also tried a metal detector. They recently got engaged and are planning the marriage for next Summer. This was such an important mission for me as I’m sure it meant a lot and was going to be hard to replace it.
So, after work yesterday I headed up to a town in the North East Kingdom (a name local Vermonters use for the northeastern part of our state). It was totally dark out and the thermometer in my car read 9 degrees when I got there, brrrrrrr! I hoped for a quick search. They showed me where they had been doing things in their back yard, and I got started. Turns out it wasn’t going to be easy, there were lots of signals from many years of doing projects from the people who had lived there before them. After about 20 signals, I got a loud, snapping signal that sounded like a ring on the surface. I pushed some of the snow aside, put the pinpointer in and found a nice shiny ring! They were so happy to have it back, and we were all happy it was a pretty quick search.
I wish them a lifetime of happiness, they seem so much in love.

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The Ring Finders – Vermont – Client Gave Huge Donation To Local Charity

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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I got a call from our local humane society, Central Vermont Humane Society, they said they just received a huge donation from one of the people that I had helped find a ring for. This is the charity that I give to from any rewards I get. The people I have met on these searches have been such good people and most are pet lovers! Thank you again to all who have helped by donating directly to CVHS or through me.
Happy Halloween, drive carefully!

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Ring Found and Returned Near Middlebury Vermont

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Long Lost Husband’s Wedding Band Found and Returned to Widow

I had a great day yesterday and I know a lady who’s as happy as can be!

I got a phone call a few weeks ago from the sweetest sounding lady who was broken hearted by losing her husband about 5 years ago and then losing his wedding band about a year later. She was wearing it on a chain around her neck and had switched to wearing it on her thumb. They had a fantastic marriage for over 50 years and seeing the ring on her thumb every day was comforting for her.

She was embarrassed to tell me that she was quite certain that she had accidentally lost it down the toilet. About 3 or 4 years ago her daughter and son decided to give her a Mother’s Day gift by pumping out the septic tank and searching for the ring. They picked a distant corner of her land and pumped it out there on the field. They searched through the sewage with a metal detector. After having no luck searching there, her daughter, being incredibly brave and giving, climbed down into the septic tank and cleaned it completely out while looking for the ring. It wasn’t there. I was so impressed to hear that and really understood how much that ring meant to her mother. They were all very sad and the mother figured she’d never see it again.

A few years after that, her son saw my ad on Craigslist for The Ring Finders service and suggested she give me a try. I went right down the following weekend and comforted her that we would find it. I searched for many hours that day and didn’t find it. I wondered if there was a sewer trap beneath the concrete basement floor where it could be hiding. Her son didn’t think so. I told her I would come back and try searching all her lawns just in case it could be outside somewhere.
So, yesterday I went back again. It was a beautiful day and her home being so far away in the mountains, was just a great place to visit. She has a very close family and some good friends, including a lifelong pen pal who was visiting all the way from Texas. All made it a very fun and relaxing place to do a ring search.

After a couple hours of searching near her driveway, walkways and lawn, I looked up and saw her clothesline in the distance. I searched the ground where she would’ve walked to it, and then under it. Just then her son returned from a doctors appointment and came walking over to watch and visit. He hadn’t stood there for more than a minute when I got a nice tone on the detector. About an inch down in the dirt under the grass I found a paper thin gold colored ring. I held it up saying “is this it? it’s so thin, but it IS gold!”. Her son took it and said “it’s his ring, you found it!”. I got the rush of good feelings as we headed inside to show it to her. She looked at it with disbelief, very stunned, and then the emotions took over. She nearly fainted, then broke down in tears and gave her son and me some great hugs.

When they got married they had given each other matching wedding bands. He wore his every day for 50 years, while logging, woodworking and restoring old houses and antiques. It was worn so thin it was at the point of breaking any minute. When she put the 2 rings together it was quite a sight. I suggested that a jeweler could put them together and mount them to a nice pendant she could wear on her neck. They’re going to look into that.

After that, her son and I went metal detecting at several old sibling’s cellar holes up on the mountain. We also searched the foundation of an old one room schoolhouse on her land. We found where the teacher had “parked” her horse, there were 3 horseshoes there. I also found a partial antique ring at her great great grandparent’s cellar hole. It was in rough shape, missing the stone, but very ornate and she was glad to get that, too.

What an awesome day!!

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Wedding Band Found in the Grass

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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Got an email a few days ago from a guy who lost his platinum wedding band. Last Winter he was showing his young son how to make and throw snowballs. When they were done, he took his gloves off and shook the snow from them. He saw the ring go flying. He tried to find it then, but couldn’t. So he decided to photograph the area and try searching in the Spring after all the snow was gone. No luck then either. A friend of his loaned him a metal detector, he dug a bunch of trash signals, and still had no luck finding it. He saw my listing on the web and decided to get me to try the search.

Today was an awesome Fall day, perfect for a ride and a search. The foliage was still very nice where he lived. I got there, he showed me the area and I got to work. After checking many signals and digging a few, I got the nice loud “pop” on my detector that sure sounded like a man’s heavy ring. I moved the grass and saw the rim of a ring! It had been stepped on and pushed into the dirt, but it was still in perfect condition. He was very happy, and me too!

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Engagement Ring Found In Lamoille River

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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This story has such a happy ending, I had to post it, even though I didn’t find her ring.

About 3-1/2 weeks ago I got a call from a guy who’s wife had lost her engagement ring while rafting on a Northern Vermont river with friends. They hit a rough spot of water and she fell in. She knew immediately that she lost it, but the water was too fast and deep to look for it. The next day there was even more rain which made conditions worsen.

So, the following weekend was going to be our first attempt. I gathered together all my diving equipment, underwater lights, masks, snorkels, wetsuit, flippers, etc. I brought extras so anyone that wanted to, could join me. I also brought my shallow water detector and my deep water detector. Each attempt somebody accompanied me because I’ve always believed in swimming using the “buddy system” for safety. That day the water was still very deep, fast and cold. I could only search a small portion of the area and had to quit. When we left, I noticed she was crying. I felt terrible, but knew we had to wait and try again when the conditions were better.

The next week was sunny and dry all week, so we tried it again that weekend. I was able to stay in the water for a couple hours, but again had no luck. There were lots of rocks to look under and between. There also was one really deep stretch, that I thought the ring might have settled into, but I wasn’t able search that very thoroughly, as I could only stay down for about 30 seconds at a time. He said he had a friend who had scuba air tanks and could search with us on the next weekend.

Last week was another hot and dry week, so the river stayed nice and low and warmed up a lot. So, today her husband, the friend with the deep diving equipment and I met there at noon when the sun was high! We all searched for about 1-1/2 hours, when her husband shouted out “I found it”! He had been searching so hard, and without even using a wetsuit. Very tough and determined! I was so glad the ring was found, and it was cool that he found it, adding to the sentimental meaning of the ring.

After he called her with the good news, he asked if he could give me something for my travels. I told him that it would be nice if he just gave a donation to our local humane society. Central Vermont Humane Society is my favorite charity. He told me that his family has a foundation from which each year they donate several thousand dollars to various charities. He said he would pick our humane society to donate to this year. Wow!!! A double happy ending!

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Lost Ring Recovered from Brush Pile

  • from Barre (Vermont, United States)
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A couple days ago I got an email from a woman who’s husband had lost his ring while tree pruning in their yard. it was a very long drive, but I had the whole day and the weather was great. When I got there they showed me where he had been trimming a tree and throwing the branches over the back bank, into the woods. I learned that he and a friend had searched the year before, moving a lot of debris and using a basic metal detector, with no luck. He had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing it again. But she hadn’t! She saw my ad and decided to give The Ring Finders a try.

Unfortunately there were many challenges involved with this hunt. At first I was discouraged, but decided to do an all day hunt if necessary. The people who had lived there before them had dumped all kinds of scrap metal, cable, wires and metal fencing right in the same area. Also, there was some poison ivy to watch out for. There was so much metal, my first detector I tried was having a tough time, lots of signals going off with no repeatable patterns. So, I got out one of my other machines, fine tuned it, and got to work. I found as much scrap metal as I could and put it off to the side and searched for about an hour and a half. I went back to the tree and detected there and down the path to the dumping site. No luck. They were very confident that it had to be over the bank and in the woods, so I went back there and started moving piles of branches and detecting under them. I got a nice signal, got out my pinpointer and pushed the leaves to the side. There it was! I was so happy for them!

Afterwards we visited for awhile, they showed me their dirt bikes, snowmobiles and a really cool old muscle car! I love motorheads! I used to be one, getting old now 🙂

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