In-vehicle ring search Tag | The Ring Finders

Brian Rudolph, Lost Item Recovery Specialist (Land, Water, Sand, Snow, Leaves, Houses & Vehicles) Will Find Your Lost Keepsake! Call ASAP (301) 466-8644!

I was delighted to receive a call from a young lady named Christine who lived in Taneytown, Maryland. She went on to share how she lost her beautiful Tiffany and Company 18 karat yellow gold True Love Ring which was a gift from her boyfriend Cal. This ring meant everything to her and she was desperate to get it back. Christine shared with me that after she finished shopping with her mother, she returned to her vehicle which she was borrowing from her brother at the time. While sitting in the driver’s seat of the 2010 Toyota RAV4 Sport, she took off the ring and placed it somewhere near or on the center console located between the driver seat and her mom’s passenger seat. She didn’t remember exactly where she placed it, but after she applied lotion to her hands, she went looking for the ring so that she could put it back on her finger. Yet mysteriously it was nowhere to be found. She and her mom looked everywhere in the vehicle and no matter how diligent the two of them searched, the ring didn’t turn up anywhere. It made absolutely no sense to Christine for this extremely sentimental keepsake to just simply disappear into thin air. Both she and her mother got out of the RAV4 and looked all over the parking lot asphalt just to make sure that the ring didn’t fall out of the vehicle. They were thinking that perhaps the jewel made its way out of the RAV4 when the two of them initially opened their doors to lean into the vehicle to search under the seats. Even after a long time of searching, all of their efforts led to no avail.

The two drove the Toyota back to their house and waited for Christine’s dad to give it a shot at trying to recover the love gift that was presented to Christine by her boyfriend who was currently serving in the military at the time. Even after all of the time and energy that Christine’s father invested in trying to find the ring, he too had to call it quits when nothing turned up. I believe my client’s brother also gave a swing at it and he as well struck out at locating the Tiffany band.

It was at this time that the young lady went online to search for an answer to her most frustrating problem. Christine wondered if there were specialists who are experienced at extracting jewelry from automobiles. Surprisingly, as she was doing her search on the internet, the elite international directory of metal detecting specialists popped up on the her screen and my contact information was provided by the directory for Christine to connect with me.

Immediately, the desperate one contacted me and I interviewed her to find out everything I needed to know about this particular mystery of the disappearing ring. Once we covered all of the details regarding this search, we set up a time for for me to travel up to Christine’s hometown later that evening. She was extremely grateful that I was able to squeeze her search in knowing that I would be arriving quite late that evening.

I looked forward to traveling to the small town of Taneytown, Maryland which is located very close to the Pennsylvania border. Even George Washington traveled through this quaint old historical city and this is what he happened to write about the city, “Tan-nee town is but a small place with only the Street through wch.(sic) the road passes, built on. The buildings are principally of wood.”

I had traveled up this way a year and a half earlier for another ring search that I did for a young man who lost his wedding band in a pond. Now, I had yet another opportunity to help this young lady preserve this extremely important keepsake in her life. I arrived at Christine’s house sometime around 8pm. And even though it was on the late side, I couldn’t wait to get started with this in-vehicle investigation! After meeting my client and her father, they took me out to the garage where the 2004 Toyota RAV4 Sport awaited my presence along with a heater that they set up to keep the garage as warm as possible while I conducted the search. I asked Christine if she would sit in the driver’s seat and reenact what took place several days earlier when she lost her beloved ring. Then, her father Dave shared with me all of the places that he checked and all of the complications that he experienced in regards to not being able to see into many of the crevices and corners that were under and on the sides of each of the front seats. Once I gathered all of the information necessary to start the in-vehicle search, father and daughter returned inside the house while I prepared my equipment to begin unraveling this brand-new ring mystery.

With my high lumens headlamp on and setting up my endoscope (which is a long cable with a video camera at the end of it) I began probing every crevice, corner and crack around the two front seats hoping that perhaps the ring was hiding in a more accessible location than anticipated. I looked everywhere with my equipment and that exclusive and elegant Tiffany and Company ring was nowhere in sight. I made sure that I went slowly and methodically so as to not miss a single square inch of the areas where I was investigating. When nothing turned up under and around the sides of the two front bucket seats, it was time to take my search to the next location inside the Toyota RAV4.

My next destination in probing the vehicle was to take my search to the center console area (the section between the two front seats). I looked in a variety of places in this particular region of the SUV. First, I searched all of the obvious places that were on the surface of the plastic decor. This included: any organizer trays, under and around the emergency brake lever, inside the armrest storage compartment, and any other miscellaneous spots where a piece of jewelry could have burrowed its way down into a slot or tiny compartment. All of those areas that I examined turned out to be completely clear of Christine’s “symbol of love”. Once again, I was so hoping that I might find the keepsake hidden in one of those places, but unfortunately that was not to be the case.

After searching the sections of the vehicle where the ring most likely had ended up and yet still came up with nothing, I had to reasonably deduct the current facts that were on the table. I had to conclude that the ring must have slipped into a space or crevice where the odds of it landing in such a place was highly unlikely. I concluded this because there were no other obvious spots for me to analyze and probe.

At that point in the search, I knew that this was not going to be as easy as one would hope for. I began looking around at every possible place where the Tiffany & Co. band might have slipped into. There was only one place left that could have swallowed up the precious piece of metal. That location happened to be below the emergency brake which was situated towards the middle of the center console. There was a very thin gap that the ring could have slipped down into even though the chances of it perfectly making its way into that slot was quite slim. It was my only possible hunch where the piece of jewelry had ended up. Furthermore, Christine had remembered that she placed the ring off to the side in the center console, so somehow the ring would have had to jump up a bit and then make its way down into that very narrow slot below the parking brake. Though it seemed quite unlikely that the ring slipped into that very tight space, it was the only place left that I could still check out and so that was my next targeted area for the evening.

I wasted no time to take my endoscope and begin probing below the center console’s emergency brake lever. Once I pulled back on it to give me some room to place my cable down inside the vehicle’s internal workings, I had much more room to manipulate the probe with my fingers. I have to admit that this was a very tedious process. As I have found it to be in many in vehicle searches that I have done before, one must not expect that they are going to instantly see the object that they are hunting for. Rather, one must keep moving the endoscope around to observe every nook and cranny to see if the item ended up in that particular spot. Most of the time there are multiple hiding places within the larger spaces to tuck away into. In this particular case, I found that same experience to be true.

As I placed the endoscope down into the console’s abyss, I observed all kinds of hardware bolted to the internal pieces of the vehicle. Slowly and methodically I searched for anything that looked like it didn’t belong – something small and that also resembled yellow gold in color. I probably probed inside that space for nearly 45 minutes and still I could find nothing of interest.

During the time that I searched inside the Toyota’s emergency brake location, I did come across a couple of parts that looked like a ring, but they were silver in color – not yellow gold. Sometimes the light of the scope can make something appear to be silver when it is a piece of brass. Yet, in this case I kept coming up empty handed.

At some point, I decided to guide the probe cable (which was still positioned inside the slot of the parking brake and pushed down into the console) farther back towards the rear of the vehicle. I wondered if maybe the Tiffany ring moved its way back towards the arm rest compartment. Well, after another 15 minutes or so went by, I caught something of interest on my monitor screen! I couldn’t really make out what it was specifically, but whatever it happened to be it was gold in appearance and it had unusual design to it. I genuinely thought the object was some kind of safety washer that was wide and had gaps between its metal make-up. I was not about to leave this particular target and so I began to take video and photos with my endoscope just so that I could analyze the object more carefully if I needed to come back to that exact location the next day to resume the search. No matter what angle I tried to adjust the camera, I could not clearly identify the target as truly being the very special keepsake that Christine yearned so much to recover.

Finally, the family requested that I wrap things up for the night. I was so hoping that I could solve the mystery once and for all that evening but I would have to wait until morning before I would have another shot at it. In the meantime, I grabbed a bite to eat from a local Wawa road stop and studied the images that I took with my endoscope. As I compared the photos and video taken of the unidentified object with commercial images of the actual ring that my client provided to me from the Tiffany & Company website, I got extremely excited! There in my car, I studied all of the characteristics that appeared to be identical between the pictures that I was looking at. I began to see more clearly the distinct features of Christine’s ring  which I could also match up with the curious target that I locked in on with my probe! The most apparent characteristic happened to be the gold ring’s “T” letters (for Tiffany and True (as in “True Love”) that were pronounced all the way around the band. It was like something magical was happening the way my eyes started to see the ring’s unique pattern recorded on the endoscope media files! I even believed I saw part of the Tiffany and Co. stamp along the rim of the circular object! It was at that moment of revelation that I was confident that I indeed discovered Christine’s lost treasure! I sent the images to two great ring finders: legendary ring finder and CEO of THE RING FINDERS, Chris Turner, and an incredible ring finder and member of the same directory, Jeff Morgan. Both of them unanimously agreed that I had truly found my client’s ring by looking at the pictures themselves! Jeff and I even stayed up late that night talking on the phone and hunting online for the blueprints for Christine’s brother’s exact vehicle model. We figured it would be helpful to analyze just in case I would have to unbolt the center console if I was not able to retrieve the ring with my other tools! I was then well prepared to handle any obstacle thrown my way! I couldn’t wait to share the news with my client the next day!

That evening I slept overnight in town close by to where the search vehicle was located. Then, the next morning, bright and early, I returned back to my client’s place to recover the ring. I was so excited! Unfortunately, because of some changes to Christine’s plans she canceled my second search attempt. I had already arrived at her residence, so while she was on the phone with me, I walked up to my client’s door and unveiled the awesome news! I explained on the phone that upon studying my probe images I could confidently conclude that I had in fact found the young lady’s special keepsake! She was ecstatic! The door immediately opened and I showed my client some of my media files that convinced me that I had successfully located the jewel! She too was swayed to believe that I had indeed identified her cherished ring! Christine called her dad at work to make sure that all was good for me to resume the search and within minutes I was back in the Toyota RAV4 with all of my equipment attempting to pull the ring from within the vehicle’s hidden chamber!

It took me a bit of time to maneuver the endoscope back to the location where I had first encountered that marvelous view of the unidentified golden object. But eventually I reached the narrow hiding place deep down below and approximately 12 inches back towards the rear of the center console! I spotted the object of interest once again! There on my monitor I was able to convincingly show my client that I truly found her Tiffany True Love Ring! More detail on the piece of 18 karat gold revealed itself as I viewed it from additional angles! Christine was beyond excited! She couldn’t believe it!

Now that I had clearly identified the object as being my client’s missing ring that disappeared days earlier without a trace, the mission was now all about trying to retrieve the little one from within the inner workings of the RAV4. I placed a hook on the end of my probe and sent it far back into the console once again to see if I could grab the ring with the connector. I am proud to share that within about 30 minutes or so, I was able to successfully recover Christine’s beautiful 18 karat yellow gold Tiffany and Company True Love Ring from the vehicle! The elated young lady was right there beside me to capture the amazing moment on video when the brilliant yellow gold prize showed its marvelous perfections to the world once again! I was beyond excited for Christine and Cal!

It really was an amazing experience to be a part of this incredible recovery story: Driving far up north in the evening, searching the vehicle all that time in the garage, identifying a possible positive target in the center console, studying my media files saved on the endoscope, reviewing my data with other professional ring finders, identifying the target as the actual ring that was sought after, staying in the local area overnight, returning the next day to attempt a recovery and then finally capturing and returning the precious piece of classic metal from the vehicle to its rightful owner! Wow! All of it was an absolute thrill for me!

Christine and I gave thanks to the Lord for all of God’s help in guiding me to her sentimental keepsake! She immediately called her father up on her smartphone and shared the exciting news! Dave was beyond happy with the final results of my search!

In the days that followed this successful recovery of the Tiffany and Company True Love Ring, my client continued to express her gratitude and thanks for what I was able to do for her in preserving such a special part of her life! I told Christine that I was more than honored to be the one to help keep this precious “symbol of love” a part of her ongoing love story between she and the love of her life…Cal!

SUBSCRIBE TO BRIAN’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO VIEW THIS SEARCH VIDEO!

To receive a NOTIFICATION letting you know when the video is uploaded to YOUTUBE: go to YOUTUBE by CLICKING THE LINK BELOW or OPEN your YOUTUBE APP on your device, go to the SEARCH BAR, type: THE RING HERO, click SUBSCRIBE and lastly, CLICK ON THE “BELL” to receive NOTIFICATIONS when this latest search video is available to view! 

BRIAN’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL LINK: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmcn09QqWhHrj-7SGqlUBJQ

CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644!

VISIT THE RING FINDER’S WEBSITE TO READ MORE OF BRIAN’S SUCCESSFUL SEARCH STORIES at:

TheRingFinders.com/Brian.Rudolph/

HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!

VISIT BRIAN’S PERSONAL WEBSITE FOR ADDITIONAL STORIES AND INFORMATION AT: www.TheRingHero.net