I got got a call from a woman who lost a ring in a condominium on the beach. It was a very complicated search involved multiple levels of grass, parking lots, bushes and flower beds. But I succeeded on the second day.
Received a call from (Judge) Joe H. today, the beach patrol gave him my name and cell number. He was out in waste deep water throwing a football when his gold wedding band fell off. I was on my way to pick up my Ring Finder partner Dave Boyer for a search of an inland lake when I got the call so I told Joe “I will be there in 45 minutes”. We arrived at 2:10 pm, made our introductions and got to work. As you can see in the picture the waves were 2 to 3 feet high and very difficult to search an area doing a grid search. Joe stood out in the water where he said he was playing and Dave and I started a search in the area. In less than 10 minutes I got a very good signal with my Fisher CZ21, the harder part was trying to steady myself to scoop the prize. One scoop and after the sand sifted out I had Joe reach in and pull out a gold wedding band. It was his, as there was a wedding date (8/12/94). His anniversary to Leah H. is tomorrow and I’m sure there will be a nice celebration now. Joe is a farmer, football coach and a judge visiting from Illinois. Welcome to Pure Michigan.
Kate never gave up faith that either Luke or I would find her engagement ring. After four low water tries no sparkle of her ring was to be seen. Lost on the 31st of July it was not until the morning of the 2nd of August that everyone came to an agreement on just where the ring should be and we should be searching. It is unbelievably true that both Luke and I had detected over that area more than once. At early morning light I started to the east and Luke to the west of the point. The depth of water were the ring slipped from Kate’s finger was still up for discussion. Needless to say Luke and I would cover the area very carefully again. Within a minute Luke had a signal, dug and re-dug, nothing more was to be heard or seen of the target. Two steps later he heard another signal, dug and re-dug at the target, again the signal was gone, a good sign that the target was in his scoop. Looking into his scoop he saw nothing, no ring, no piece of junk, just a few shells. Then, with laughter and a smile on his face, he called me over to look into his scoop, I saw nothing. “Look harder” Luke said, I did but still saw nothing. “Look on the scoop’s brace plate” I did and there was Kate’s ring, resting on the plate.
Talk about a ring that wanted to hide, Kate’s ring was that ring. It had taken a total of 12 hours detecting before her ring was to be found. During the searches another 5 rings, two religious medals, several fishing weights and lures, coins, pull-tabs, a champagne seal, and many other smaller pieces of metal were retrieved from the sea bed. Upon pulling one ring from the depths I thought I had found the ring. I was unsure of the exact ring style I was searching for, after all how many white gold diamond rings could be lost in such a small area? I took the ring to Kate and she told me it was not hers. It looked like white gold with a diamond on top…turned out to be a silver ring with a clear topaz. As I walked back to the water, even more determined to find Kate’s ring, I was feeling less than wonderful, to say the least. Kate’s ring really took a team effort to find. To Luke and myself it really does not matter, except for bragging rights, who finds a “misplaced” item; it only matters that the owner gets their item returned to them. And that is what we do and did. Best of all was the sincere emotions, appreciation and gratitude shown by Kate and her fiance.
At Luke’s request I am made this post as he has been very busy scuba diving for other lost rings, working and taking care of personal concerns. Please be sure to visit Luke Berube’s blog page here at: TheRingFinders.com/Luke.Berube/ for more of his return blogs.
8/10/19
Got a call last weekend from a guy who lost his wedding band while vacationing and swimming in Lake Eden. It was a custom made ring, inscribed with “Best Friends” and the date of their wedding 25 years ago. He was feeling sick about losing it, and frustrated that he had it resized larger not long ago. He lost it about 75’ off shore and about 12 feet down to the silty bottom. He tried unsuccessfully to find it swimming down with a mask.
Luckily for him, I had recently made the acquaintance of a scuba diver, Chris Farr, who is very enthusiastic about doing recoveries of all types. He has many thousands of dollars and hundreds of training hours invested. You may recognize him from being in the news recently doing searches for the Vermont State Police, other agencies and private people. He said he is glad to help in water searches that are too deep for me. He’s comfortable doing solo searches down to 20 feet as long as he has someone there for surface support. (He also dives well below 100 feet deep, but only when partnered with a competent, certified diver)
We all met today at the camp and discussed the search strategy. The family had done a good job memorizing the area where the ring had been lost. I was to be the support crew, sitting on a paddle board just above Chris, while he carefully scoured the bottom with my metal detecting equipment. At first we got a little discouraged when we discovered how thick the layer of soft silt was, afraid that the ring may have already sunk deep into it.
It was fun to watch Chris search, he has some very impressive searching techniques for sure. After finding an old soda can and a fishing weight, a little over an hour into the search, he got a good signal and carefully extracted the beautiful ring out of the silt. It had already settled about 2-3 inches in. We all celebrated!!!
Please click on my name above to read more success stories or to get my contact information.
I got a text message from Joe Denton, Minelab and Garrett metal detector distributor in North Myrtle Beach, saying “Call this lady. Names Teresa and she lost her necklace.” Joe gets the occasional frantic calls from people looking to buy or rent a metal detector because they’ve lost a ring or other piece of Jewelry. When he does, he usually steers ‘em my way.
I called Teresa and left a message, she quickly returned my call. She said her necklace had broken and her pendant fell in the dry sand. She gave me the resort name and I told her I’d be there in about 15 minutes. When I met up with Teresa and her husband, Ronnie, they showed me the suspected spot in the dry sand. I got the details and found out the pendant was a white gold pendant with diamonds. I started up my Equinox 800 and did an east/west grid and didn’t get a signal, other than a soda can buried deep in the sand. I started a cross grid going north/south and still wasn’t picking anything up. Ronnie had told me that they were sitting in one area, went to lunch, and when they came back they moved up and over to a new spot on the beach. Teresa also said she walked down to the water to rinse her hands off after apply suntan lotion. I widened the search area, including getting wet in the incoming tide, and still wasn’t finding anything. At that point, I switched to my Gold Bug II thinking maybe the Equinox just couldn’t detect the pendant. I’ve also learned to always take a second detector; nothing is more embarrassing than to start a search and your machine’s not working. I was starting to worry that I might be searching the path they took when they went and came back from lunch, too. I started another grid line with the Gold Bug, and on my second line I got a scratchy signal. I took a small scoop of sand and laid it out, ran the detector over it and got a better signal. I spread the sand out with my foot and picked up a small patch of sand. I gently shook the sand out of the scoop and saw a shell and the back part of the pendant. I turned around to find Teresa standing on the beach, held the pendant up for her to see I found something. She got the “did he really find it” look on her face. She literally ran over, and when I handed her her pendant, she was overwhelmed! Her happiness, tears, big hug, and the Thank you is exactly why I enjoy doing this so much.
Teresa and Ronnie, so glad I could help find your special 2 year old Valentine’s Day present. Enjoy the rest of your vacation and have a safe trip back home.
Jim
This ring find began when I got a call from Jarred from Virginia who was on vacation in Hawaii with his lovely wife Destiny. While enjoying the day at Makaha Beach Park a gust of wind picked up their beach tent and other items and scattered them on the beach. Destiny’s beautiful engagement ring which was in a pair of shorts pocket was thrown somewhere into the dry sand and disappeared. They searched for several minutes but it was out of sight. It was already late when I got the call so we decided to meet first light the next morning. Jarred drew a box in the sand where they had their tent. I started the grid search on the south side and in 45 seconds on the second line I got a really nice tone on the Nox and in one scoop there was Destiny’s ring. I walked over to her saying I don’t think this is yours but check it anyway. “That’s my ring!” she said as I dropped it into her hand. Smiles all around and what an easy hunt. Aloha to Destiny & Jarred!
Hello my name is Steve Thorne. I have been metal detecting since 1968. I joined this group of metal detector professionals to help find your lost jewelry (or any metal item) that you thought was gone forever. Whether it was lost yesterday or 20 years ago, if you have an idea where it may have been lost, there is a good chance of finding it.
Why rent a metal detector when you can have a professional search for you. Give me a call and lets find your lost treasure.
I had flown across country to attend the Chattanooga, American Digger magazine’s Civil War relic show and sale and end up doing a ring recovery.
The family of a young lady were staying at a cabin in the mountains of Tennessee having a family reunion over the 4th of July weekend when a ring given to her by her boyfriend, Sean, went missing. This ring, a gold band, is not just a simple gold ring this ring belonged to one of his great grandparents so it is a cherished family heirloom. The events of the day had the family playing volleyball in the lower flat area (a couple of acres of grass) about a hundred yards from the cabin. And then they spent some time around the firepit that night. The ring could be in either location or some place in between these areas. Potentially a VERY large search area.
The ring search was set up by my friend Craig after he had seen a posting online. We contacted the owner of the property who granted us permission to search for the ring. Craig and I met the owner at the gate for the property and she let us in and showed us around a bit. I grabbed one of my detectors and headed out while Craig readied his equipment. It was getting warm so I wanted to get going sooner rather than later. I looked over the site quickly and determined to start my search at the walkout basement door area and search to the firepit. Within a few swings I heard a promising signal, I parted the grass and there laid a lovely gold ring. I returned to the car just as Craig had finished his prep and was heading out to conduct the search. It was a quick search.
Ring recovered July 29th, 2019
The lower field
The mountain cabin
The Ring
Sean gets his ring back
I’m finally back to work after extended time off for a broken elbow, I finished a long day in downtown Vancouver and headed home, an hour drive away. I just parked the car at home, it’s 10:20 pm and the phone rings… A young lady on the other end said are you the ring finder guy ? I said yes I am, she went on to tell me that her very good friend lost a very sentimental gold ring at third beach in Stanley Park…Only 10 minutes away from where I was just working. I jumped back in my car and headed back to Vancouver.
I arrived just before 11:30 and met both ladies in the dark and they showed me the area the ring was lost. It only took about 6 minutes to find her ring, it was a very cool and different style of ring that was custom made. It gave me an unusual target signal and I was expecting that after she described the ring to me before I started the search.
She was one very happy young lady when she got her ring back! I love my job!
Lost your ring…Contact a member from TheRingFinders.com
Chris Turner 778-838-3463
Watch video of search…
Dark Metal Lovers!
The pictured couple were out walking the dog and listening to some music this evening when the dog spotted a squirrel and decided to bolt off and as the leash quickly slipped thru the man’s hand his ring slipped off. Not being sure of the area in question as there was a small pond and some of the area was covered in 4 to 5 inch deep pickers, easy for the dog to go thru but the couple was not able to search. When I arrived the evening was upon us as most of the orangey sunset sky was gone. Setting up my MXT and activating the backlight feature made it nice for a night search.
I decided to start with the picker area first as there seemed to be a bumper crop of the Michigan State Bird the Mosquito upon us making Dracula seem harmless!
I got a few below surface junk signals then a small signal came thru that read 3″ deep when I pressed the coil down and scanned it across the pickers.
I put the pin-pointer into the area and got a vibe, reached down thru with my gloves on and the light on the pin-pointer revealed this beautiful Dark Metal Titanium Ring! I signaled for them to come over and as we all looked down at the ring I said… dark metal, dudes!
We all laughed and went back into the house to get some more pics.
Not sure what they were listening to during their walk, but will finding their dark metal ring turn them into dark metal music lovers?
Hmmm…Only time will tell.
Jon
