When the snow is on the ground is the time people lose items. Dawn called me to say she had lost her cell phone in her yard and could not find it with a rented metal detector. I told her I would rent her a detector that I guaranteed would do the job, the cell phone was found quickly with my easy to operate detector. The second call came from Wayne who lost his cell phone while walking the dogs in his Orchard. I arrived and surveyed the area, I asked him where he suspected his loss occurred. he showed me where he walked the dogs and suspected it was along the fenceline. After half an hour of searching with many junk targets and irrigation pipes interfering, I scraped the snow and there was his cell phone. The cell phone was his business phone and he had 14 clients emails waiting for him so he was very happy to have it found quickly.
This hunt began when I arrived home from work on Friday. I got a call from Carrie visiting from Birmingham, Alabama. While loading their beach gear the Rental Car FOB became lost. Not knowing exactly where in the sand it was lost her husband Dave used a scuba flipper to dig and fling the sand in hopes of finding the FOB. After digging a trench and totally exhausted they found The Ring Finders thinking I should be able to find the metal key ring. Unfortunately it was peek rush hour traffic and its dark by 6:30 here so I asked if I could come out the next morning as its along the way to Ko Olina where I was going for another hunt. She agreed. A short time later there was a missed call so I called back. It was Carrie and she was in a pinch as the rental car company wanted to charge an exorbitant price to come get the car. I agreed to bring my lights and see what I could do that night. Upon my arrival a Luau was in full swing on the beach and hundreds of people were standing and walking in the sand where the FOB had been lost. Dave assured me the Luau would be departing the beach in 10 minutes to feast on the Kalua Pig. Sure enough 10 minutes later I was able to start my grid. I was impressed in the amount of sand Dave had moved. The trench was nearly a foot deep and three times that wide. First a clad dime, then a gold plated piece of bling. Then the ground went sterile for a few laps. Finally as I was detecting the side of the trench Dave dug I got screaming target and there was the FOB. Dave shrugged his shoulders…not where he thought it would be. That “key” ring was very expensive and we all were happy it was found. Aloha to Dave & Carrie.
The text message from Mequon, Wisconsin, resident Adam Korte, read in part, “Lost my ring in my yard. Looked myself with a cheap metal detector with no luck. Wondering if you would be interested in taking a crack at it?”
Within a few hours I arrived on location and received a first-hand chronology of the events leading up to Adam’s loss. Winterizing his family’s swimming pool Adam flipped the water off his hands in the chill weather. As he did so, he felt his wedding band leave his finger, glancing off his fingernail as it left. Then it just disappeared.
Adam and his 9-year-old son spent the better part of a week searching the area without success. They even tried using a metal detector but the machine set up such a howl it proved frustrating; the ground acted like it was full of metal.
A systematic grid search with my XP Deus metal detector did not reveal the ring’s whereabouts. But there was clearly a large metallic object buried in the frozen ground in the vicinity where the ring disappeared, what we metal-detecting specialists fondly call, “a big and ugly.” It could have been a metal culvert or an old car engine. Whatever it was, my detector coil was picking it up even at waist high. It is situations like this that new metal-detecting technology really shines. I was able to reduce the sensitivity and make adjustments that allowed me to isolate signals in the very narrow range of Adam’s 14K white gold ring. Soon a distinct signal could be heard amidst all the noise. Brushing away the top bits of soil and leaves a razor thin, shiny, circle appeared—it was the ring!
So glad for the opportunity to help recover your wedding band, Adam! Now Santa won’t have to bring a new one for Christmas!
Yesterday I received an email from a young lady that said her husband had lost his carbon tungsten wedding band the night before while throwing snow at his daughter. She said she found me because of a Facebook post she did in regards to her husband losing his ring. A group of mom’s told her to check out TheRingFinders.com
This email came just before I was to do a podcast for fascinatingnouns.com in regards to my service and TheRingFinders.com
I called the lady back and set up a time for the afternoon to come out and find the ring.
We just had some snow fall in the Vancouver area and the night before I found a set of keys for a person who was shovelling snow in his driveway.
I can be just as busy in the winter as I am in the summer as snow is wet and cold and peoples fingers shrink and rings come off.
After the podcast was done I jumped into my car and set out to Richmond to do the search. I met with Kirsten and she showed me the area where the ring was lost, then I started the search.
After 20 minutes and no ring Kirsten came back out and told me that her daughter said that they were much closer to the car.
I stared scraping the snow away from the vehicle so I was able to use my metal detector as anything close to the car would set the detector off. I got a great signal and moments later I had the ring!
I also went on another search for a young lady at UBC, but no luck on that one as she didn’t know where the ring had come off her finger.
It’s what I call a closure search as I just searched an area of grass where my metal detector could be used, now she can move forward and start looking at other places where it could be like the coffee shop or her dorm room.
I love this job and I hope one day soon TheRingFinders will be a household name for helping people find what they thought was lost forever.
Josh contacted me on 8 December after losing his wedding ring while enjoying a day with the kids at Cables Wake Park in Sydney, Australia.
I met Josh after a three hour drive early yesterday and after almost two hours of searching in zero visibility water crisscrossed by anchor cables and ropes, two watches, surprisingly only one pair of sunglasses and about $10 in change, I felt Josh’s wedding ring in a handful of fine mud.
Thank you to Kylie and Garry from Cable Wake Park for allowing us access before the school kids arrived to do the search and to Josh for providing the search target and for surface support and technical advice.
On Wednesday December 7, 2016 Kayla e-mailed me requesting my service to locate her husband’s Tungsten wedding band lost in his mother-in-law’s backyard while he was moving stuff and playing with the dog, he heard the ring go ping on the sidewalk then ended up in the snow somewhere in the yard, he tried to find his ring with no success Kayla said he’s very upset.
I meet-up with Kayla this morning with another bitter cold day -22 Celsius in Edmonton Alberta Canada, Kayla showed me where the ring flew off his finger, within ten minute the ring was back in her safe hand!
Another happy client! Thank you Kayla for entrusting me to find your husband’s ring.
Got a message from a student at Vermont Technical College last night…..Go Green Knights! He had been snowboarding at the college’s ski area. I went down this evening, knowing that it was probably his only set of keys, and knowing how much they cost these days to replace. He needed his car so he could go to work this Sunday. He turned on the trail’s lights and I thought oh no, this could be a very long hunt! Also, the weather was getting cold and windy fast. I planned on going back Saturday to hunt more if needed. After about an hour of searching and many false signals, luck panned out! He was so relieved and I was very happy.
Got an email from a young man who was out at the local park that had a pond and was giving his fiance an engagement ring. They had brought the dog with them and well the dog went one way and the ring went the other. They had spent several hours looking and even got a detector to try it on their own but no luck. I met them out there and looked and looked. Couldn’t find it in the area around the pond but kept getting a really good signal in the water’s edge that they had searched by hand the day before. Now this part of the pond is a sudden drop off to about 1 foot down so he sunk his hand back in there as i told him to just grab handfuls of the dirt and muck and bring it up and i will scan it. After about 4 or 5 handfuls I picked up that same signal but he just didn’t believe it was there until he started really mushing around – there it was!
I got a call from a husband saying his ring slipped off while raking leaves in the yard during warmer than usual s/e Michigan weather this week.
So I got on site and him and I talked about where he thought it may be so I set up the MXT and started to detect the area. He left me to search as he went back into the house to do a few chores and hadn’t been in there too long when I called him and said I found something interesting! I at first picked up iron signals from the rubber trim metal spikes around the area in question but then a 1 cent +60 reading came up solid from all directions and I was surprised to find the pictured 14k yellow band hiding just under 4 inches of leaves!
So he came running out and raised his hands in the air in amazement when I was holding the ring!
We got to talking a bit more and I learned that the ring, like all rings, have a special meaning and a story to them.
He mentioned that his wife on their 30th anniversary in August had his original ring and her original ring melted together and this one pictured with hubby was the one that represented both and this was her original design incorporated in his new wedding band! How cool was that I thought!
I wished them a happy holiday season and was happy to see them reunited with their ring that held such a special meaning!
I got an email from Erik G. yesterday about him loosing his Tungsten wedding band while “picking up sticks” in his yard. After getting a handful of sticks he threw them in the field of high grass next too his drive. Shortly after throwing the sticks away he noticed his ring was missing. Timing, as it may, he found out about the Ring Finders from a friend and looked me up on the Ring Finders directory. Because of my schedule I emailed Erik and asked if I could come out Thursday afternoon or wait until next week, Erik called me and we made arrangements for today.
Dave Boyer, my Ring Finder partner, and I met Erik at his home. Erik pointed out where he might have lost the ring and we began our search. Erik was walking back to the house to stay warm while we searched and before he got to the house the ring was recovered. It was in the tall grass where the sticks ended up after being tossed. This was a quick search although ending just like any other ring recovery, it ended with a Ring and a Smile.
It was nice meeting Erik and seeing the relief in his eyes as his wife Chris will be happy upon hearing the news.
I got a laugh about a post from Shane G. on Facebook to Erik, “Dodged a bullet right there”.
