Just wanted to let everyone out there know that the Ring Finders are fully functional during the winter. I know a lot of people lose there valuables shoveling snow, having snow ball fights, cleaning the snow off your car etc. We are always happy to help. We have a great success rate and truely enjoy helping people. Take care and Good Luck!!!! Darrin E-Mail – dwgray@mchsi.com
Another great smile
When you are a Ring Finder, you never know when your next search will be. I had a feeling that I might get a search this week because here in Yakima we had a very cold and snowy spell.This can often mean valuables such as keys and rings can get lost.
When the call came asking if I was willing to help find a lost gold wedding band I was not surprised. After speaking with the wife of the man who lost his ring I was ready to start the hunt.
The ring had fallen off while the husband was cleaning the snow off the car, and then brushed his arms and hands off. He told me that he heard a metal “clank” but did not put it together that it was his ring that made the noise. When he arrived at home, he realized that his ring was gone and was sure that it was his ring that must have come off back in the parking lot. Well he returned to the site, but there was two inches of fresh snow in the lot and he could not find the ring. I was called the next day after they found my listing on The Ring Finders Metal Detecting Service on the internet.
I agreed to meet them after work to look for the ring. Now I said earlier that it was cold and snowy, and it was. Although the snow had mostly stopped it was still only around 18 F outside and by the time the search was called off for the night it was well on the way to -5 F.
Unfortunately when we arrived at the search location the parking lot had already been plowed. There was only a 1/4 of packed snow on the parking lot, with two large piles of snow off in the corners. The man was able to put me exactly where the ring came off so I searched that area first. I then expanded the search grid to include the most likely route the scraper would have taken to move the snow into the piles. Still no ring. So after looking at the two piles of snow we decided to search the most likely one, which of course was the larger of the two.
I began to shovel layers of snow off the pile and search the remaining snow. After about two hours I had searched about half of the pile, and called it quits for the night.
The next day was even colder, but the sun was out and I was again eager to continue the hunt. My oldest son was home from school, so I asked if he would like to help me search for the ring, and fortunately he did. So off we went. It took about another hour of digging each layer of snow, and then searching it to come up with the ring. It was sitting just hidden in a clump of snow. About the time I swung the metal detector over the ring, I heard the beep and there was the ring. I could not believe we found it. I thought for sure that I would have to just wait for the pile to melt before the ring would be found.
Now I wanted to surprise the husband with the ring and capture that on video, so I called his wife and told her that I had found the ring but wanted to surprise him. So I asked her if she could get him down to the search area to give me some more details about losing the ring, and she agreed.
When they arrived I asked him if he could tell me about what significance the ring was to him and to go over how he lost it again. Then I asked him to describe the ring and after he was done I pulled out the ring and asked if it looked like this one! He was very surprised and happy to get the ring back.
I was pretty happy to have found it for him with the help of my son. It was a great moment I will not soon forget.
They were very kind in giving me a nice reward, which was much appreciated. I do accept rewards as it helps me cover costs and keep my equipment up to date, but for me the true reward is the great smile and joy that I get to witness and be a part of.
Thanks guys for giving me a call and letting me be a part of your wedding ring story.
Coenraad Zielstra graduated from Vakschool for Goud en Zilversmeden with his gold and silversmithing diplomas in 1963. But Coenraad was much more than a metalsmith, he was an exceptional artist with his own gallery of rings pendants and jewelry items. His creativity and originality were exemplified by his use of antique metalsmithing tools he brought with him when he immigrated from Holland.
Entering his studio in Fairhaven Washington, one stepped into another time with his collection of 18th and 19th century mahogany tables, display cases and cabinets.
A row of rolling mills marked the beginning of his studio workspace.
Anvils, crucibles, molds, hammers, files, a large rolling mill are all antiques that function as well today as they did centuries ago.
His historic collection of metalsmithing tools would be remarkable for a museum, but they weren’t for show, they were used to create beautiful, wearable sculptures for the 45 years Coenraad has worked with them.
Dutch Master Goldsmith Coenraad Zielstra (1943 – 2010)
My First gig as a member of The Ring Finders started with a call from a man named Gama, who lost his wedding ring in some straw.
He was setting up a stage inside a large tent where a school play was to take place when his ring came off while spreading the straw around. Though he and his co-workers looked for it, it was the proverbial needle (ring) in a haystack.
I arrived at the school before Gama but was able to talk to one of his co-workers who knew the general area in which the ring was lost. After a few minutes and only one junk target I received a solid “gold ring” sound and found it just under the surface.
I headed back to my truck and waited for Gama to arrive, after a few minutes the co-worker saw me sitting in my truck and came over to see why. I showed him that I found the ring and he couldn’t believe I found it so quickly.
Phone calls were made which kinda ruined the surprised but a happy Gama was the result none the less.
Here’s the wayward circle…
No worse for wear
Hello, my name is Mark Rubey and I’m an enthusiastic new member of The Ring Finders. I think recovering people’s lost treasures is a great way to make use of my 40 years of metal detecting experience.
I’ve already recovered untold numbers of items before joining this forum but The Ring Finders makes it more likely to reunite owners with what they’ve lost. If you have lost something in a public place, such as the beach, park, school ground, etc, call me as soon as you can to help assure we find the item before someone else does.
If you lost something on private property, there is usually much less urgency in it’s recovery (other than helping you sleep at night!) One important thing to remember is that the less that is done to change the terrain, the better.
If your item was just dropped, it will be within a couple of inches of the top of the ground. If you start digging or moving soil or sand around, you might accidentally bury the item deeper than most metal detectors can reach.
Also, if you lost something in grass or similar, DON’T MOW! Lawn mower blades can destroy your jewelry. The only exception to this is deep weeds or brush where a detector can’t be easily used. In this case, a string type “weed whacker” might be needed to make detecting easier. Call first to be sure however.Most items are not permanently lost but merely haven’t been found yet. To illustrate this is my first blog entry.
While visiting friends and new relatives in Minnesota (with my detector of course!) my wife’s uncle Bob related a story about a lost ring he had given his daughter Diane. He had personally made the ring out of a dime so it had special meaning to Diane. When Diane lost the ring in the front yard, she was heart broken but even though she searched and searched, she couldn’t find it.
After hearing my detector stories and successes, Bob asked if I thought I could find it and Oh, and by the way, it was lost 35 years ago! I told him I’d sure give it a good try and that as long as the ground hadn’t been rototilled or replaced, that it should still be there….just a little further down than if it had just been dropped.
He assured me that it hadn’t so I was off on the hunt and hoped to live up to my billing. Well, I searched that yard for hours and was just about to admit defeat (and have to eat all my words about how great a treasure finder I was) when I got a weak signal only 3 feet from the front door.
Sure enough after removing a plug of grass and some dirt, at about 4-5 inches down, out popped the ring! Smiles and hugs all around and my wife’s choice for a husband started looking better all the time! Here’s Diane and her ring…..
Ring lost for 35 years found with metal detector!Another happy reunion!
Another happy reunion!
While searching for another persons lost Wedding Ring in 10 feet of water under a diving platform, I found an Eden Prairie High School Class Ring. I called the school and gave the all the information on the ring and a couple weeks later I received a call from the young ladies Mother…….just a lucky find, she never heard of the Ring Finders…Let’s get the word out and get those lost rings back on the rightful owners fingers! Pictured is the young ladies Dad!
Peter was playing a game of Pick up Football with his buddies at a Minneapolis park. After the game and some dinner, he noticed his Platinum wedding band was missing. He called me and said he wasn’t sure if it was lost at the game or after? We agreed that it most likely was lost during the game, so we began the search. No luck the first day as this was huge area, no luck the second day either. We thought we would give it one more try and 15 minutes into the 3rd day we found it!!
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have the opportunity to search for hidden treasure? To know that gold and silver were stashed somewhere and you were the one to be asked to look for and recover it? How do you begin a search like that? Where do you start? What tools and detectors will you use? How much do you charge for your service? And who will help you put it all together?
Since joining Chris Turner’s directory of TheRingFinders I have received a variety of calls asking me to help locate things like rings, keys, knives, pulleys, coins, necklaces, pendants, and most recently–Gold Bars!! I expect calls to look for the usual lost items but this call caught me by surprise. Right away I knew that I needed to call Chris Turner and ask him a ton of questions and figure out what my next steps should be. After talking to Chris and getting his advice I felt allot more confident that if the gold was there then I would have a much better chance of locating it.
56 pounds of silver dimes!
And so began my first Estate Search. The deceased had died suddenly and left evidence that he was prepared for whatever crisis that the government or economy would send his way. There were dozens of guns and ammunition and also documentation that he had purchased gold and silver. He lived a very secluded life and had his own water source and a large garden. And even though someone broke into the house three days after the man had passed away and rummaged through all his belongings we still felt there was a good chance we could find the gold if it was still there.
The first day we began our search in the house. We checked all the usual places people hide things and even places that would have made great hiding places but we found nothing. On day two we decided to look the outside of the house over including the yard and some of the sheds. That is when we stumbled onto an old rusty bucket of silver dimes! The bucket was so heavy that when we tried to pick up the bucket it came apart and literally thousands of dimes went spilling over the ground. You can just imagine our excitement and the rush we felt as we stood there and stared at that pile of silver dimes! I grabbed a five gallon paint bucket to put the coins in and at the end of the day, when we weighed the bucket, we had 56 pounds of silver dimes!
We started day three with renewed energy and hope of finding more caches and valuables as there was a lot more of the property to look over yet. We spent most of the day searching the sheds and garden areas thinking that there had to be more buried somewhere. After hours of searching outdoors it was getting really hot and we needed to stop for lunch and a much needed break. As we sat eating our lunch I got to thinking that the downstairs needed to be gone over one more time. (The upstairs apartment had been cleaned out by a cleaning service the estate had hired and all that was left downstairs was a lot of old paint cans, tools, lumber and the kind of junk that people normally have in their garages or basements.) After lunch we headed downstairs to give it the “fine tooth comb” going over! Not 10 minutes into our search we came across an old paint can that looked every bit the part of just an “old can of paint.” We pried the lid off and opened it up to find–there staring up at us were the tops of three money bags tied off and four rolls of what looked like silver dollar coins. Once again you can just imagine the feelings and emotions as we carefully pulled out the contents and laid it all out to count and take pictures! That “old can of paint” held over 600 silver half dollars–Walking Libertys, Benjamin Franklins and Kennedys, plus 85–1 Troy oz. silver rounds!!
All of a sudden those old paint cans had our full attention! Stash number three was located not 10 minutes later only this time there was a large bar of some kind in the bottom of another can and it was wrapped in paper. We thought, “Could these be the gold bars we were originally looking for?”
As we slowly pulled out the contents and laid them gently on the floor we were stunned to see 60 more 1–Troy oz. coins and a 100 oz. bar of .999 pure silver!! And even though it was not the gold bars we were hired to find, our hearts were still pounding like we found the mother load! And all this was found in the “junk” that was left behind by the cleaning crew!
That evening I called Chris Turner and as we discussed the exciting events of the day we realized that there was definitely more places that needed looking into. Chris said he would love to fly out and help us finish up the search and that was all I needed to hear. We invited Chris to “Come on down to sunny Florida” and the next day I picked him up at the airport!
We spent three more day trying to figure out just where the old gentleman hid his treasures. In our search we even found a book that was titled “How to Hide Anything”! We found old letters and photos that helped us put together a bit of his life and gave us some clues. It was neat to uncover key facts and details that helped us confirm the old gentleman had indeed bought gold and silver! In the end we were exhausted but very content in what all we were able to find. Like 90 pounds of silver and an experience that will last a lifetime!
Thanks again to Chris Turner and TheRingFinders for giving us the amazing opportunity to search for that which was hidden and stashed away. We may never know just where the gold really went. Did the person who broke into the house before the cleaners take it? Did the cleaners throw it out with the rest of the trash? Questions we may never have the answers to.
Mike McInroe, Proud member of TheRingFinders.com
Labor Day I received a phone call from David in Jacksonville, Florida saying his fiance dropped her engagement ring in the ocean in ankle deep water as the tide was coming in! Their day was ruined and all they could think about was that the ring was gone and there was nothing they could do! David began thinking about renting or buying a metal detector and looking for the ring himself and while searching on line up popped The Ring Finders web site. As we talked about the details of how we could meet and when, it seemed that the sooner I could get there and begin looking the better the chances were of finding their lost ring.
So the next day my wonderful wife and I drove the 2 and a half hours to Atlantic Beach to meet David and his beautiful fiance Andrea. As the tide was coming in very quickly I searched a large area of wet sand with no luck. I knew that I needed to wait until the tide was out again to be able to look over the exact area where they figured they dropped the ring. So from 7 to 10:30 I waited for the tide to turn. We said our goodbyes to David and Andrea around 11 and I went back to the beach to chase the water out to low tide. For the next 3 hours I swung the Tiger Shark hoping and praying I would find the ring–but nothing. Around 2:00am I decided to take a short break and switch to the Whites DFX. I stepped off 50 paces and stuck a shovel in the sand to mark the area where David said he thought the ring had dropped. I began searching around the shovel and within 5 minutes I got a good signal and there 3 inches down was her engagement ring!
Even though it was very early morning and I knew David and Andrea were sound asleep, I had to call and wake them to give them the great news! This time Andrea was crying tears of joy! The next morning I presented Andrea with her ring and more tears of joy, huge smiles and hugs for all!
This is what it is all about! Reconnecting a precious item with it’s rightful owner so the story can continue. Thank you Andrea for your kind words and congratulations to you and David on your upcoming wedding and may your story of the “Lost and Found Ring” be remembered and told for years to come.
*To read Andrea’s personal story see Testimonials, News and Blogs!
Like Chris Turner says, I too really love my job!!
Thanks for reading my blog.
Mike McInroe–Proud Member of www.theringfinders.com
After church last week I received a call from a good friend who lost his ring while at Gun Lake in Yankee springs, Michigan. This was a combination of his deceased wife’s wedding ring and his wedding band. There was more sentimental value than actual value to him but I think it had to be valued at more than $5000.00.
After getting a layout of where he was that day, I searched the picnic area and beach to no avail. I asked him where he parked his car and what he did upon leaving the area. I retraced his steps and after about two hours of searching with my detector, there it was in the grass on the way to his car. It must have been pulled out of his pocket when he pulled out his car keys.
After some tears of joy were shed and a reward given, my friend went home a very happy man.