The Ring Finders Blog | Page 353 of 1074

An evening swim in Lake 12, near Fredonia, Wisconsin resulted in the loss of Coty Becker’s white-gold wedding ring. It was later in the evening Coty realized, to his horror, that his ring was missing.

His wife, Kayla, discovered my forensic metal-detecting services when she stumbled upon The Ring Finders directory of metal-detecting specialists online. I was visiting family in Michigan when I received a text message from Kayla asking if I might help solve Coty’s lost-ring mystery. I arranged a drive up to Fredonia on June 28th, a week after the ring’s disappearance. My wife, Kathleen, accompanied me and provided emotional support to Kayla while I searched. Coty was working at the time.

Underwater searches can be challenging. As so often is the case around boat docks, the lake bottom was heavily populated with metallic debris, leftovers from decades of human occupation. The area where Coty had been swimming was no exception.

Using a similar ring, I was able to calibrate my XP Deus ll multi-frequency detector, tuning it for the presence of 14 Karat gold. About 15 minutes later, a promising signal in my headset invited further investigation. As the mud and silt washed out of my scoop, Coty’s ring suddenly appeared amongst the remaining pebbles. Case solved!

I finished searching the area and retrieved an old penny, just what I hoped to find. I handed the coin to Kayla under pretense of it being a ‘good luck’ penny. Then I proceeded with a verdict. I said, “I am confident the ring is not in the water.” The disappointment in Kayla’s face was immediately evident. But I quickly followed by explaining, “I say this because your husband’s ring, is in fact, in my scoop!” I then invited Kayla to retrieve it from my scoop. A myriad of emotions followed, mostly in the form of Kayla’s huge smile.

As for Coty, Kayla texted me the next day saying, “He was very happy and relieved and loved hearing about you finding it! He’s so thankful!”

Coty’s underwater ring search was not a particularly technical experience. The usual challenges were easily overcome and in a relatively short amount of time. However, this ring search goes down in my books as very memorable. It marks my 100th documented recovery as a member of The Ring Finders directory of metal-detecting specialists! What a privilege it has been to have brought such joy and relief to the hearts and lives of so many people. The smiles say it best, “It’s more than a ring!”

June 13th, found Lake Mills, WI resident, Robert Rehm spreading mulch on his one-acre property when his tantalum wedding ring went missing. He and his wife, Miriam, searched everywhere but could not locate the love token.

I received a phone call from Miriam asking if I might help. I was travelling in California at the time but arranged to conduct a search shortly after my return to Wisconsin.

Tantalum is a rare metal used “in high-temperature applications, such as aircraft engines, electrical devices such as capacitors, surgical implants and when handling corrosive chemicals.” Its use in jewelry is only recent. In fact, Robert’s is only the 2nd tantalum ring I’ve searched for.

Upon arrival at the Rehm’s residence on June 20th, Robert gave me a tour of the property as we reviewed his timeline of activities on the day of the loss. I noted the newly installed mulch in several garden areas and decided to begin searching at one end.

Knowing just where to begin searching is sometimes a random choice that can have significant time consequences. Had I started at another location, the search at Robert’s large property could have taken a few hours. But as it turned out, only a few minutes later, Robert’s tantalum ring registered its presence in my headset. It lay buried under a couple inches of mulch.

The smile on Robert’s face tells the rest of the story.

I received a call from someone that lives in town wanting to fence in their back yard.  They wanted to be sure it was placed on their property. Approximately 5 years ago it was surveyed and pins placed, but since then the pins had been covered up completely by the yard. Iron property pins are hard to find because every yard has a lot of iron in it!

I started at the back by the garage where the person was fairly certain a pin was. After a few minutes of finding some junk iron, I found the pin. That gave me the numbers on my detector that I needed. They knew the approximate footage on the width so I stepped it off and found the second and eventually all 4 corners.

I have found several property pins for folks throughout the years along with other metal items like guns and knives. If you have anything metal in the shallow water or in a yard or field, feel free to reach out and contact me

I have another lost, very sentimental, jewelry item that I was able to find and return. I was contacted by a friend who told me that her daughter had lost a really special pendant! The awesome thing about this one was the mother that contacted me kept it a secret from her daughter that I found the pendant and told her that I couldn’t find it. She surprised her with it at Christmas!!

This one was a tough recovery. The item lost was a gold heart shaped pendant. I used one of my wife’s gold pendant that was similar in size to see what kind of tone and numbers it would ring up on my metal detectors. It rang up just like “can slaw”!! Which is little pieces of aluminum cans and from past experiences, I knew there would be a BUNCH of it at the play ground!! I had to dig every one of those signals if I wanted to find it!

Here is the story from the mother that contacted me!

My daughter, Maria lost a very sentimental and unreplaceable necklace pendant in February 2021. This necklace was designed and made for each granddaughter and great-granddaughter from the diamonds in her paternal grandmother’s wedding bands. Fast forward to December of 2021. Maria finally told me that she had lost the pendant. It appears she and some of her friends were playing late at night on the slides at the old Lawrence School in Washington County and after she had slid down the slide she pulled on the neck of her sweatshirt and inadvertently grabbed the chain to her necklace too and broke it. She said she shook out her sweatshirt, searched her jeans but could not find it. Then she and her friends went back in the daylight and looked around, plus she searched the vehicle, but she was unable to find it.

In August 2022, I stopped at the school on the way home from a gender reveal party and looked around but did not find it. As much as it upset her, it kept eating at me to try to locate it.

On December 14th, 2022, I contacted Steve Wagner to see if he would be interested in looking for it. I sent him a picture of the pendant that was missing. He sent me an aerial drawing of the area and I had Maria’s friend Katana circle the location of where they thought she lost It. Steve said he went out that evening and searched but it got too dark. On December 15th, Steve went out to the location and performed a circle search around the slide. He said 100 pieces of aluminum and foil and 3 hours of searching later he got another strong signal about 20 feet from the slide. He removed the grass from the area and saw something that could be it. He stepped back and took a picture. He then gently removed the dirt around the area and down embedded in the soil was the pendant that had been missing for 1 year and 10 months.

From February 2021 to December 2022 that area had been flooded several times, tons of rain and snow as well as other late-night adventures tracked around on the soil. According to Steve, this school playground had also been searched by other metal detecting individuals in the past as well. I cannot express our gratitude enough to Steve for finding this irreplaceable piece of jewelry and I am sure that Maria will cherish it and the memories tied to it forever.

Thank you so much Steve, there are no words that can show the appreciation we have for you and the craft you have mastered.