Curtis called asking if I could do a recovery in the lagoon behind his house. After going over some details, I told him I would be there soon. He was playing with the dog in the lagoon when his paw accidently broke the chain, and the cross dropped to the bottom before he could grab it. In almost neck deep water I got a faint signal, and sure enough, that was it.
Got a call from Ashley yesterday (Saturday) about her husbands lost ring. She explained how Jeff was throwing a football around the tide line when the ring flew off his hand and dropped into the wet sand. After talking a bit, we decided low tide was so late we would wait till the AM low tide to do the recovery, the surf was fairly calm, so it wouldn’t move to much. Jeff did an outstanding job marking the exact location of the ring, which is paramount when doing recoveries. A few swings later the ring was in the scoop.
I received a text this past Monday 11th from a wife. She said her husband had lost his wedding band in the backyard about a month ago while cleaning out a pool skimmer trap. She was searching the internet and came across www.theringfinders.com where she found my contact information. I made the trip to Calhoun that afternoon and met up with her. She said her husband was still at work, but should be there pretty soon. She said they had actually purchased a metal detector for themselves, but no luck in finding the ring. When Alfred got home he was showing me how he lost his ring cleaning the skimmer with his left hand and throwing the trash over the chain link fence with an underhand motion. He said he felt the ring leave his hand but didn’t see where it went. With that underhand throwing motion I immediately figured the ring had gone over and into the brushy area behind the fence. I eliminated the grass and the plant bed first of course, but no luck. With the chain link fence there I couldn’t get close to it at all without sending my detector into an overload condition. So that part would have to be searched by hand if I didn’t find the ring back in the brush. I started back behind the fence, (poison ivy there too), as well as a snake, but didn’t get a good look at it, it was leaving the area. I started from the right side and went left directly at the back of the fence. The second pass was from the left back to the right, on a steep slope. Of course I was finding bits of metal trash, we all do. On the third pass from right to left I got to right where I figured the ring could have gone with that underhanded throw. The first thing I found there was a rusted bottle cap, then about three feet away I got two signals on my CTX. A strong 12:40 showing four inches, but literally inches away from that signal was another one, a strong 12:28 showing one inch. I hadn’t seen it yet, but that 12:28 at one inch brought a grin to my face. I stooped over and under my coil I saw a faint hint of something shining back at me. I snapped a picture of it before I moved it, and you can barely catch a glimpse of something out of place under the layer of leaves. The 12:40 signal turned out to be a toy car. The search took about 1.5 hours.
I received a call from Mike on Tuesday 28th and he said he had lost his gold signet ring in his backyard several years ago. He said they were moving and the ring was a gift from his wife and he really wanted to find it before they moved. We made arrangements for Wednesday afternoon. Around four years ago he had been clearing brush in the backyard and towards the end of the day he noticed his ring was gone. They had been piling the brush next to the street on the side yard, so that’s where I started my search. I really didn’t think the ring would be there, but I had to eliminate that area of possibility. The huge problem I had to deal with was underground power lines next to the street, (around 14 KV), and it was really messing with my detector. I had to go very slow in that area until I got far enough away that my detector started to settle down a little. After a little over an hour I finally eliminated the side yard. The back of the house had a pretty steep slope that was covered in pine straw mulch. I know from experience that pine straw on a slope can be very slippery. He had mentioned that he had slipped a couple of times on that slope, but didn’t remember exactly where that happened. That’s where I focused my attention next, and after I looked at it more carefully, towards the corner of the house the slope wasn’t quite as steep, so I figured anybody coming through that area would would pick that spot. As I got halfway down the slope I got a consistent 12:20 on my CTX, and it was shallow, (showing one inch). If you’re looking for a gold ring that’s a very good signal. I brushed the straw away and didn’t see anything visible, but my pinpointer said there was something there just under the surface. I brushed the soil a little with my fingers and saw the corner of a gold rim showing through! I called Mike over, as he was just about to go back in the house. His wife came out and she was elated! She said she figured it was gone and never to be found again. I think I was as excited as they were, because that was a tough search having to deal with the underground power lines. Knowing your machine, and asking the right questions makes all the difference. The entire search took around two hours.
I had a call the other day from a young man who lost his grandfather’s ring while throwing a ball about in his garden. It was definitely around as he heard it bounce as it landed. The question was which garden had it landed in? It was either their garden or nextdoor. After a thorough search in their garden including a pile of grass clippings that had unfortunately been contaminated with a few dog “lumps”….(the owner very kindly removed them), I decided to search nextdoor, with the permission of the owner of course. This garden was a complete contrast to the very tidy garden I had just searched. It was very overgrown, there was old furniture, broken jars and pots all over the place, and generally a disaster of a garden. This made it quite difficult to search, even with a 5 inch coil. It was time to use my pinpointer. After about half an hour or so I hit my target, a slightly deformed and worn signet ring. Another great recovery for a family to be reunited with grandfather’s ring.
After a major snow storm in London, a Gold Ring with Diamonds was lost shovelling a driveway. Searching for a Ring Finder, she contacted me immediately. It just made sense that it was in the snowbanks along side the house…in 10 minutes of detecting, a shiny ring was found 2 feet burried in the snow. A very very happy girl!
It is not that huge a feat to find a lost ring. I becomes much easier if the person who lost the ring can point to an approximate spot they think they lost it. Finding a ring with just dumb luck is easy too. I have handfuls of rings I have recovered in my travels from schools, ball diamonds, parks, and beaches. Finding a ring and then locating the owner is almost an impossibility. I have only done it one other time.
George lost his ring playing baseball. He and his friends looked up and down and could not locate the ring. Fifty one years later on a different ring call, I found George’s long lost ring.
Lost class ring from 1971
To find George I joined face book. Our graduating class is working on a reunion and I was sure someone would know the owner. Our yearbook does not show middle initials; but George quickly surfaced as a candidate and soon after that we were talking on the phone.
Ring returned to owner after 51 years!!
George and I are actually classmates, we both graduated from Farmington High School (Farmington Michigan) in 1971. I knew George’s name and that he had a cool car; but we never socialized. I wish we had talked years earlier.
If you have lost something dear and think you know where it might be, I would love to help you recover it. Even long lost, as George found out, is only a temporary condition if you know where to start looking.
I almost had a coronary because I graduated from Farmington High more than 50 years ago. I lost my 1971 class ring in the student parking lot a few months before graduation. I could almost see that parking lot from the spot I found this ring. Wrong initials, sadly, it is not my ring.
I have a few guesses as to who lost it from my 1971 yearbook; but I cant be sure because there are no middle initials in the yearbook. Both my brother and I graduated from Farmington High in 1971 and neither one of us received any mention anywhere in the yearbook, so there may be a few more candidates than the three I have so far isolated.
There is a class reunion this September, stay tuned while I attempt to find the ring owner.
Lost class ring from 1971
Almost perfect after decades? in the dirt.
When I realised the ring I had been wearing non-stop for the last 10 years wasn’t on my finger one morning, I immediately panicked. This ring was a 21st birthday gift from my parents, engraved with my initials on the top and a message from them on the underside, so it was incredibly sentimental to me. I wracked my brains as to where it could be and my heart sunk when I realised there was a chance I could have lost it on a run the day before.
I posted about losing my ring on an online neighbourhood community group which is where someone recommended ringfinders.com, which led me to finding Constantine. 10 days passed between losing my ring and Constantine coming to the rescue. These 10 days were spent tearing my hair out and turning my flat upside down, searching through hoover bags and food waste bins – glamorous!
I had a gut feeling that my ring would most likely be somewhere outside, as I had been cleaning out my guinea pig’s hutch the morning I noticed it missing, and it was a particularly cold morning so my fingers had probably shrunk and were verging on numb so I wouldn’t have felt the ring come off.
Constantine scanned the garden and piles of leaves thoroughly, but no joy. Then we decided to empty the garden waste bin (the contents of which covered the lawn!). I saw Constantine bend down to pick something up, and there it was! He’d found it! I couldn’t believe it.
