Uncategorized Category | Page 536 of 585 | The Ring Finders

“The day was cold and dark and dreary”, I’ve always wanted to say these words from Longfellow’s poem, “Rainy Days” and today was fitting. Ray S. called me yesterday an said he lost his wedding band while taking out his garbage container. He had snow on his hands and when he shook them off his ring went flying off into the grass. Ray searched through the Oak leaf covered grass but could not find it. A friend had told him about THERINFINDERS so he looked us up and found one of my associates not home and then called me. I have made several trips to the East side of our state over the past 4 years. Ray told me the story and I told him I would be out the next morning, weather permitting. I started the 140 mile trip with wet streets and blowing snow but by the time I got to Ray’s house it was just dark and dreary. Getting my Fisher F75 out, I started a grid search using the area that Ray thought his ring should be. I started down the edge of the drive about 30 feet then back up and over 3 feet. After about 10 feet into my second leg I got a 56 on my detector scale and there it was, pushed down into the wet dirt, I pulled up his ring. Ray must have stepped on the ring while looking for it and the only way it would have been found is with a metal detector. Ray went into the house to show his wife, Alex, that he got his ring back. Alex ran out of the house and gave me a big hug and said thank you. It was a pleasure helping out Ray and Alex and brighten up that Dark and Dreary day.

The 29th of December 2013 was not a pleasant day for Marina. Temperatures were well below zero as she braved the elements to get in her daily run. Conscious her hands and fingers had shrunk from the cold, she stopped, removed her wedding band, and placed it safely in her zippered jogging pouch. Later, as reached into the pouch to retrieve another item, to her horror she realized it had come unzipped and her precious ring was gone. Frantically she retraced her jogging route but the ring was nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse, a snowplow passed over the area pushing mountains of snow into the roadside ditch.

I received an email from Marina the next day and arranged to meet her at the scene. Despite our best efforts in the minus-30 degree Fahrenheit cold and brutal winds, the ring was nowhere to be found. It seemed to have vanished. In all likelihood it was resting deep, deep under the snow and beyond the detection capabilities of my Minelab Excalibur. We agreed to search again in the springtime after the snow had melted.

The record-breaking winter finally gave way to springtime. As it relinquished its hold, I kept watching the receding snow in the roadside ditches in anticipation of returning to Mequon to resume the search for Marina’s ring. Finally, the time came to return. And sure enough, some 80 yards up the road from where Marina first discovered her loss, the wedding band and my detector greeted each other as if they were long-long friends; the snowplow had obviously pushed it down the road a lot further than any of us thought was possible.

A quick phone call with the good news made Marina’s day! And the subsequent smile on her face made mine!

If you, or someone you know lost a ring. It may well still be there, even many years later. Contact a Ring Finder’s representative near you today! Who knows, he or she might just put a smile on your face!

Jeff called me last week to tell me his son Aaron, lost his 2015 Hopkins H.S. class ring while feeding the ducks at Heritage Park pond. When he was preparing to throw some bread his ring fell off into the water. The water is about 5 feet deep with about 2 feet of muck. I told Jeff that because of the depth and muck it would be impossible for me to wade into the water and use my detector, so I told him I would consider another method and get back to him. Several years ago I made a scoop from an old flat snow shovel and some 1/4 in fencing. It was designed to drag along the bottom of a lake and sift the sand for rings and things. My detecting partner came up with a 12 foot handle made out of PVC pipe to put on it.

Saturday we went out to Heritage Park and tried our scoop out. Going on information from Jeff, he said his son threw out some bread underhand about 5 feet and into the water. After scooping several feet in about a 12 x 10 foot area the scoop worked very well but we came up with nothing but weeds. The scoop worked as well as we thought it would. I called Jeff and told him we didn’t have any luck. A few minutes later I got a call from Jeff’s son telling me the ring bounced on the deck and then went in the water. That changed things and we went back today to search along the base of the deck and after about 5 scoops we came up with the ring. It is so important to get a good set of events leading up to the item being lost.

Aaron’s dad is going to surprise him on A’s birthday on Nov 10. Today happens to be my 70th birthday and I consider this to be a birthday gift, I love finding rings for people.