The Ring Finders Blog | Page 270 of 1068

It was a perfect afternoon for snowboarding at the popular Rock Snowpark in Franklin, Wisconsin. Ben Ratka and his wife took advantage of the well-groomed slopes, savoring the fresh air and exercise. Later, however, Ben realized to his horror that his heavy 14k white gold wedding band was missing! It left him feeling sickened in his stomach.

The ring had been fitting loosely of late. Indeed, Ben had been thinking that he really needed to get it resized. Now he was kicking himself for not doing it sooner.

Reflecting back on their time at the snowpark, Ben recalled two occasions when he had removed his gloves to make adjustments on his snowboard. Those locations, he thought, would be good places to begin looking. Fighting a sense of hopelessness Ben suppressed the thought that someone might have spotted the ring on the hardpacked snow surface. He comforted himself thinking, “Maybe the person turned it in to the park’s lost and found.”

After checking with the park’s manager, the ring remained at large. Ben reported it to the local police as well, this in case someone found it and turned it in to the authorities. Then his thoughts turned to renting or purchasing a metal detector. Checking online, that’s when Ben discovered The Ring Finders directory of metal-detecting specialists. Who knew? He found my listing and reached out to me by telephone the next day. After hearing Ben’s story, we agreed to meet on location in Franklin later that afternoon.

The sun was setting when I arrived, triggering the lights on the slopes. The light in turn reflected back up to the darkened sky overhead creating an eerie, enchanted twilight zone. Crowds of skiers, snowboarders and tubers, unaware of Ben’s crisis, created an ebb and flow of cheerful voices, pierced now and then with shrieks of excitement. “What a delightful place to play,” I mused.

The managers at The Rock Snowpark were cooperative and understanding. They gave permission to search as needed. I followed Ben to one of the locations where he had removed his gloves, a staging area not far from the main office and restaurant. Unlike other areas, the snow was churned up from all the foot traffic. I was glad to see this as it meant the ring could have fallen out of sight and or gotten pushed deeper into the snow after being stepped on. I switched on my XP Deus II metal detector and positioned my headphones.

The electromagnetic interference (EMI) at the location was some of the strongest I’ve encountered in my forty-plus years of metal detecting! EMI happens when the detector picks up erroneous signals from buried underground and or overhead electric cables, cell towers and other electronics in the vicinity. The unmelodious noise can only be described as screeches, squawks and squeals, each competing to be heard above the other. Deciphering a signal from a ring amidst such noise can present a significant challenge to metal detectorists. It was a challenge I now faced.

Thankfully, I was able to draw from past experience and adjust or ‘hush’ the EMI to a level I could tolerate without sacrificing the detector’s sensitivity. I used my own 14k white gold wedding ring in the calibration process.

Barely a few swings of the coil over the target area, I received an unmistakable signal of gold, and in the conductivity range I was looking for. Ben watched closely as I pulled out my pin pointer (a handheld wand that vibrates and sends an audio signal when it gets close to metal) and began to probe into the snow. Barely two minutes into the search, Ben’s ring came up to the light of day! And the smile and look of relief on his face tells the rest of the story.

If you or someone you know has lost a ring or other sentimental jewelry item, whether in snow, grass or underwater, chances are it is still there waiting to be found. Don’t let the story of your ring end. Give me a call today.

I was looking for an old home site to do some metal detecting this last summer. There was an old house being torn down near where I live. I talked to the property owner of the house and received permission to do some detecting. While detecting the now torn down house site, DeAnne the owner, came to see what I had found. In that conversation she mentioned she had lost her wedding ring 12 years ago in one of her flower gardens. We decided when winter came the flower gardens would be easier to detect in, and I would come over and see if I could locate the long lost wedding ring.
On a rainy Sunday in December, Arriving at DeAnne’s home, and seeing the extensive flower gardens spread out over an acre of lawn, I thought to myself, this is going to take days to find her ring, like finding a needle in a haystack.
Stepping on to the brick path, that ran down the middle of the 10 foot wide and 20 foot long front garden, the search began. In the first hole I found a piece of copper wire. I swung the coil on the other side of the brick path, nothing there. taking 2 steps further, my detector picked up another target, 6 to 8 inches down in the range the ring would sound on.
A 1000 times in the past, I have dug only crumbled foil on that target ID. But I was looking for a gold ring, so I cut a plug about 5 inches down and put my pin pointer in the hole. Whatever it was was still in the hole and a little deeper. I took one more shovel out, and in that shovel load was the diamond wedding ring!!!
I could not believe I found the ring at all, let alone in the second hole and less than 30 minutes of searching!
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while later, DeAnne came home and was reunited with her ring.
It certainly made for a happy ending.