Uncategorized Category | Page 497 of 587 | The Ring Finders

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”.

Matt and some of his friends were tailgating before the college game and throwing a football around for entertainment.  To keep from losing it while throwing, Matt took his ring off his throwing hand and put it on his other hand for safe-keeping.  About twenty minutes later he noticed the ring was missing.  His buddy, Derek, got on the internet and posted for help in finding Matt’s ring.

So fellow ringfinder Gregg Larabel and I visited the college campus site and got permission from the campus police to hunt for the ring.  But we found the area so littered in metal trash (lots of bottle caps and pull tabs) that it was really time consuming to hunt.  We spent about an hour, but because of other commitments we had to leave before finding the ring.  Three days later I went back to the site and set up a grid of strings across the area and started a thorough search.  A groundskeeper came by and told me that for about ten years people have been parking their cars on the grass and partying before the football games.   Ten years!  Now I understood all the trash.

With the metal detector beeping almost constantly on those bottle caps, I lucked out and spotted the ring lying in the grass.   Nobody had stepped on it and pushed it into the dirt.  I gave Derek a call and texted him pictures of the ring.  He gave me an address to drop the ring off to a friend that lives on campus and said he would send me a picture of Matt with his ring back on his finger.  Congrats to Matt. I hope he is out of the doghouse now!

Newly-married, Germantown resident, Gary Tanker, finished cutting his grass and was washing up at his kitchen sink when he realized his tantalum wedding band was missing! Wikipedia describes tantalum as “a rare, hard, blue-gray, lustrous transition metal that is highly corrosion-resistant.” Only very recently has this metal been used for making jewelry. Despite my nearly 40+ years experience, this was my first search for a ring made from this rare metal; I was unsure just where on the conductivity scale my XP Deus detector would register tantalum. In addition, Gary’s home sat on a half-acre lot—where would we begin?

Gary had spent every spare moment on his knees combing through the grass and leaves. He even used a simple metal detector acquired and used as a child—all without success; the ground, to his dismay, was full of metal! It was then he discovered The Ring Finders Internet directory of metal-detecting specialists and reached out to me. I was out of the country at the time but we arranged to meet soon after my arrival home.

When I finally pulled up at the Tanker residence, the sun had fully set. Temperatures were plummeting and strong winter-like winds bit through our clothes. With flashlights in hand we began a systematic search. Metal detecting, in its simplest form is a process of eliminating where the lost item is not. And in the case of a wedding ring, this involves eliminating one square inch at a time.

After nearly two hours we moved our search to the rear of the house where I remembered Gary explaining how he had brushed aside low branches of an apple tree while operating his lawn tractor. It made sense to first check out where those branches may have caught his ring. It was the right decision. Within moments a pronounced signal in the high sliver range registered on my detector. The clear outline of Gary’s ring became visible after sweeping away some grass and leaves. I gave Gary the thrill of extracting his ring from where it lay pressed deeply into the ground.

So glad for the opportunity to help recover your tantalum ring, Gary!