Engagement Found in Lake Geneva Home: No Metal Detector Needed
March 12, 2026
Lake Geneva, WI
Engagement Ring Found: No Metal Detector Needed
Wednesday, 3:45 pm: Drew’s voicemail asks for help finding a lost engagement ring in his basement. It’s been missing for a month. Could I come and bring my equipment?
To my knowledge, there is no detector on the market that can only sense gold while avoiding all other metals, so metal detecting inside a house is almost a lost cause. Copper wiring and pipes, nails galore, and household appliances have enough metal to immediately overload a metal detector. I was planning on politely explaining this to Drew, and heading home after work.
Thursday, 4:00 pm: But when I called him and realized he was only eight minutes away, I thought, “Why not have a look?”
Thursday, 4:10 pm: I arrived about 10 minutes later and started talking with him in the basement. I began ask
ing him questions about why his wife took off her ring, where she put them, etc., I said, “I should really be asking her these questions. Drew replied, “We can try to Facetime her?”
Moments later, I was asking her any questions that would help me to see what she was doing in her basement a month ago when she lost her ring.
“Actually it was probably two months ago,” she added. The more I heard, the less confident I felt about finding her ring. Drew was attending to his 1 year old upstairs.
I continued to ask questions, and I was able to reconstruct what happened that night.
- She was doing schoolwork at a small round wooden table in the basement.
- She took off her rings (engagement and wedding band) as she was pregnant and they were getting tight.
- Both were set on the table.
- At the end of the work session, she could only find her wedding band… no engagement ring.
- She looked under the table, all around, nothing.
I asked one more question. “Did you have a laptop bag or anything that it could have fallen into?”
Her reply was what I might have expected. She had checked the bag she had with her at the time, but she could look again.
Before I could think of another series of questions to ask, she interjected, “I found it!”
I must have heard her wrong. “You found it?” I replied.
Drew heard my question from upstairs, and came pounding down the stairs, asking me the same question, “You found it?”
Not me! I said, and handed him his phone with his wife’s smiling face, a diamond ring in the corner of the screen.
Thursday 4:20 pm: I glanced at my watch. It was about 4:20 pm. “That’s the fastest recovery I’ve ever made!” I said.
Sometimes the difference between a lost item and a found item hinges on the questions asked rather than the equipment. I own thousands of dollars of metal detecting equipment, have hundreds of hours of experience on land, in water, and underwater, but the right question can often yield the greatest results.
couldnt find it. 2 days went by till her friend told her of our service, thats when she called. I met her at the beach and detected the area where she thought she was sitting but didn’t find her bracelet. We figured it might of been found already and called off the search. I could see her tearing up thinking she lost it forever and felt really bad for her. I thought about it the next day at work and knew how much it ment to her and felt the need to go back after work and try again, this time expanding the area thinking she wasn’t sure where she was. Starting 20 out from where I ended the day before I started working toward where I ended the last search. 4 passes in I was looking down while detecting and happened to see part of the bracelet sticking out of the sand and couldnt believe I found it. I called her and gave her the good news and she was so grateful I didn’t give up and went back to look again. This one was really a happy ending for the both of us.
I was on my way to doing a recovery when I received a phone call from Carly. She explained her father John had lost a very sentimental Beach Badge that belong to his mother over 40 years ago. She said he wore this Beach Badge every day for the last 40 years and somehow it came on clipped from his bathing suit. I told her I could head out there for the next low tide, but she wanted to confirm it wasn’t found yet. I said no worries., call me back and keep me posted. She called back quickly and I told her I’d be on the beach early the next morning and sure enough within moments. I had the Beach Badge back in the John’s hands where it could be enjoyed for another 40 years. 
I responded to a Facebook post about a young lady losing a necklace at Crystal Lake in Michigan. Her mother said that her daughter was heartbroken over losing it. I went to the location she gave me and found it in about ten minutes. 
