Wedding Ring lost on the Beach, Lavallette NJ, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
Wolfie contacted me about locating his brand new wedding ring. He explained that after spending the day at the beach, he notice his ring went missing after they returned home for the day. Unfortunately, this happens quite often with newlyweds, as they are not used to having the ring on their hand, so it hasn’t become habit to notice it missing. I wasn’t able to head right out as I usually do, but assured him I would be out later closer to low tide. I had him do all the essentials in the mean time, pin location in google maps, take pictures of the location, secure the area if possible, and make some kind of identifying mark of the spot just encase all other measures failed. It was very dark that night which limited my visibility, even with the bright headlamp. As I was still maneuvering to the pinned location, Wolfie showed up and put me right on the spot they were set up that day. Within about 5 minutes my metal detector sounded off a sweet low tone, which was consistent with the ring he had described. Sure enough, Wolfe’s ring was now safely in my sand scoop, soon to be back on his finger, just after a few quick pics for my recovery story.
The night prior to Carries phone call, her son and some friends were over in Seaside Height NJ, on a small but well-known beach they call Sunset Beach. The were messing around like all teenage kids do, when his chain broke and his cherished cross went missing. It was pretty dark that night, but that did not deter their search efforts. Unfortunately they came up empty handed. They returned the following morning and again had no luck. The cross and location were posted on one of the local Facebook pages, where Carrie grabbed my number and called to set up the recovery. She gave me exact details of where the chain had broken, and within minutes, the cross was in my scoop. I immediately called Carrie, and we agreed to meet down the road in about 15 minutes. Another fantastic recovery of a cherished keepsake in the books.
I was at a family picnic when I received a call from Anthony, stating that he had just lost his beautiful cross on the beach, somewhere in the area they were sitting. It was early afternoon and I told him I would be able to swing by soon, and to secure the area so nobody else came and setup their beach things in the exact same spot. Anthony assured me that was not a problem because they were there for the entire day, plus the fact he was very anxious to get his cross back where it belonged around his neck. We spoke about the events leading up to the mishap, that’s when he told me about the big creator he and his friends had dug that day in the sand where they were sitting. He said they had all been digging around looking for the cross for quite a while, but were positive it must be there somewhere, because he had spent the best part of the morning there, digging. It was then I asked them to please stop digging otherwise the cross may get buried to deep for my machine to pick it up. When I arrived I could see the creator from the dune walkover, and it was pretty big. Sure enough, it was close to 4′ deep, and roughly 6′ in circumference. I hopped in, scanned the entire bottom and the walls, without even a squeak of a sound from my metal detector. Next, I scanned the piles of sand they had pulled out of the hole with no luck either. I asked them to pull the piles down lower, to an average of no more than 10″ higher than the regular beach level. Once again, no luck anywhere, so only one more place to look was the bottom, after they pulled about 10″ of sand out. Now, with all the sand moving, I assured that the cross was positively NOT in, or anywhere around the crater. So, back to the drawing board, where he mentioned they were tossing a football on the tide line earlier, and that his friend did tackle him there. I told him I really wish he mentioned that earlier, as the tide had been rising very quickly. Once he showed me the area, the cross was in my scoop within 2 minutes. If Anthony told me that one detail of the day, my search would have started there, and all the sand moving could have been eliminated. Lost of detective work is needed to rescue items from their hiding places.
I received a call from a gentleman who was inquiring about my ring finding service. He was basically gathering information for his son, Nick. He explained that Nick was off loading some hay bales, when one of the strings grabbed his wedding ring and flung it out into the cow pasture. We discussed how my services work, which he felt was extremely reasonable. His one main concern was that they had been looking for the ring about 1 week already, with a pretty decent metal detector, and had absolutely no luck finding it. He was wondering if the same thing would happen when I came in to try and locate the ring. I had explained that unless you are extremely experienced in recovering lost items, it could be very challenging, especially in a cow pasture with about a week of rain. Talk about smelly and muddy to say the least. He was going to talk it over with his son, and assured me I would most likely get a phone call in the next day or so. This was a private location so there was no rush. As figured, Nick sent me a text asking if I wanted to give it a shot, to which I replied, absolutely! Nick’s one concern was being he had no luck, what do I think the odds of me finding the ring were. I assured Nick that if he was 100% positive his ring came off in the manner that was explained the night before, I was just about that positive I would be able to recover his ring. We made arrangements to meet after work that day. Once I arrived I put on my boots and out to the location we went. Again, as I do with every, I went over and over again exactly what, where, and how the ring flew off. After about 25 minutes covering every inch in multiple directions, all I had was a pouch full of trash. Actually, I was starting to think his ring may have not came off where he said. We took a few steps back to survey the location, and the only thing possible was the hay trailer was about 10’ or so closer to the road side of the field. I worked one or two paths from the already covered spot, and my machine let out the sweet sound of success!!!! I bent over and pushed the slop around until my pin pointer held a steady sound, and just as I figured, there was Nicks ring. I so so love when my clients are positive they know when their items fly off. Thank you agin Nick, it was a pleasure.
I got a text one evening from my old boss, he was asking it if still do recoveries. He explained that he was on the beach and a guy was digging around in the sand looking for something. He couldn’t help but ask what he was doing, and he said looking for my wedding ring. With that he told them about my and exchanged my information. Alex called a few minutes later and we went over what happened. He had decided to jump into the ocean for a swim, but prior to doing so, placed his ring and other stuff he was holding into his pants pocket. I had to head right there due to the fact that beach is heavy detected, and the ring might not last overnight. We walked right out to the surf as the tide was coming on rather quickly. Alex had some things marking the area, and i quickly started searching down low on the hill. He was pretty sure his stuff was up higher but I just wanted to make sure before the water got too far up. I completely covered the area we thought the ring would be, without any sign of the ring. Alex and his wife Carlie were on vacation and has to leave, as some friends were up at the restaurant waiting for them. I wasn’t given up just yet, and continued to search the path they had taken back to the dune walkway. With the very deep/soft white powdery sand the Jersey beaches have, it was no to easy seeing right where they had walked. After walking half way back, I turned around and did another sweep back to the water with no luck again. Spreading out even further to the north I located his ring about 150’ from the high tide line. I quickly called him, hoping to catch them before they left the area, which I did. We met on the boardwalk where I handed his ring back, which made the end of his vacation fantastic.
