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Gold Wedding Band Lost at Misquamicut Town Beach, Westerly RI… Found!

  • from Stonington (Connecticut, United States)
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A replacement wedding band can always be purchased, but the original decade’s old symbol of love that marked the beginning of it all cannot be replaced. Read the testimonial below to find out what happened!

Testimonial:

Ellen & I grew up in Westerly and Stonington.  I moved to San Diego in 1983 with General Dynamics.  I do software development for Qualcomm, Inc.  We travel back to Westerly multiple times a year.  This trip was unplanned, as it was to attend the funeral service for my brother Lou.  Lou passed away unexpectedly on Aug 2nd.  I had been doing a lot of swim training the past few months, in preparation for a charity swim event.  Here is a link about the charity a local News station did at the event this past weekend: http://www.cw6sandiego.com/hero-story-bridge-hope-swim-24/  I wanted to continue my swim training while in Westerly.  Since the weather was nice, I decided to try ocean swimming instead of the pool at the Westerly YMCA.  The plan was to meet my niece, Kaitlyn, down at the Westerly Town Beach that morning (Tuesday) for some training.

In order to get additional exercise, I decided to ride an old 10-speed bike from Westerly to the beach.  My wife had been insistent that she drive me down to the beach as opposed to me riding the bike.  She was concerned with my safety, but I insisted and rode the bike.  Once at the beach, I paced off the various distances from one end of the property to the other also noting the distances between lifeguard chairs.  I started at the east end of the Town Beach in waist-deep water.  When I go surfing, I always put tape around my finger to prevent the ring from sliding off.  When I did my swim training in the pools, my wedding ring would become loose, but I always managed to maneuver it back into place preventing it from sliding completely off my hand.  After swimming only about 50 yards, I had a sinking feeling (pun intended) in my gut as I realized my wedding ring was no longer on my finger!  I immediately stood up, turned to the shore to find a landmark to indicate where I had stopped.  It was a sunny morning and nobody else was in the water. My first thought was that “I can find this”!   I slowly and methodically made my way back to the starting point of my swim, then returned to my stopping point.  I repeated this process for about 45 minutes, hoping and praying I might spot the ring or a reflection off the ring from the sun.  I had no luck.  I returned to my stopping point, then paced off the distance to the landmark I used when I first realized the ring was gone.

I biked back into Westerly.  During the entire ride back to Westerly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the ring had now been in the family for a couple of generations and that I was the one to lose it, not to mention how my wife would react.  I returned to our house and broke the news to my wife.  She was naturally very upset by the news since the ring was not only the representation of our love for one another but also part of our family history.  She told me she had a bad feeling all along about the bike ride and swim.  Maybe worth noting as to why my wife may have had the “bad feeling”… we were married at St. Michael’s church in 1986 and on Monday we drove by the church to see the construction progress only to see it leveled!  We knew they were renovating the church but were shocked to see it totally gone!   

I next checked the tide schedule, hoping it wasn’t low tide.  As you might have guessed, it was dead low tide when I lost the ring, meaning it would be underwater for some time.  I started to search the internet for waterproof metal detector rentals when I came across https://theringfinders.com.  I had never heard of anybody doing this type of work.  I found that Keith Wille (www.theringfinders.com/keith.wille ) was fairly local.  I read his blog and suddenly got the feeling that there might be some hope.  I contacted Keith via email.  Keith responded very quickly and also conveyed his sympathy for our losses of my brother Lou and the wedding ring.  He assured me that he has had success retrieving rings in the water!  We tried to schedule a meeting and retrieval the following day (Wednesday), but Keith’s schedule was already full.  To complicate things a little, I had to return to San Diego on Thursday morning.  Ellen was returning to San Diego a few days after me.  Keith told me he would meet me Thursday anytime that was convenient and prior to me heading to the airport.   So, as to not be without a wedding ring for the trip, Ellen and I went to Nigrelli’s Jewelry on Wednesday to purchase a potential replacement ring.  I say potential because I had faith in Keith! J

Keith met my wife and me at 8 am down at the town beach.  It was sunny and the water was calm.  My first impressions of Keith, when we exchanged text messages and phone calls, gave me a high level of hope that he was legitimate.  When meeting Keith in person, my confidence level went way up that he would find the ring!  Keith is clean-cut, professional, in good shape, and military looking.  He told me that he teaches survival training to folks in the military & to pilots.  Cool!  Keith is also a commercial diver.  Keith also maintained continuous communication since our initial contact.  One thing I noticed on Keith’s ring finger, was a royal blue colored rubber ring.  I asked him about it and he told me it was a silicone ring.   He wore it when diving so he wouldn’t lose his ring!  Interesting because Ellen and I had never seen nor heard of such an item.

Keith wanted to meet in person to have me physically show him my landmarks, repeat the description of my activities, and get a feel for the distance from the landmark to the water.  I showed him the area of the beach/water, landmarks, and distances.  At 8:30, we left the beach and headed to Green airport in Warwick.  At that time, Keith was returning to his car to retrieve his equipment.  Ellen and I had talked about Keith on the ride to Warwick and I told her I had faith in him.  There were some good traits about him that gave me confidence!  As soon as I checked my bags and got through TSA security, I received a text message from Keith.  The text was sent to both Ellen and I.  It was a picture of my ring!  The picture clearly showed our inscription, so it was easily recognized.  I called him immediately and when he answered, I said “I knew you’d find it!”  Ellen was driving back to Westerly by this time and called me a short while afterward.  She drove straight to meet Keith at the Town Beach to get the ring.  She said that the weather was so strange on the drive back from the airport into Westerly that morning.  It went from a nice sunny morning to heavy rain, thunder, and lightning!  I told her it was the power in that ring being unleashed because it wasn’t on the right finger!! J

Keith is GREAT!!!  Keith found the ring so quickly.  Keith took our loss to heart and went out of his way to meet with us on our schedule.  Keith was very humble and gracious when accepting our gratitude.   Please, please, please do not hesitate to contact Keith should you find yourself in a similar situation.   Keith has a “page of smiles” on his website that has photos of some of the people he has helped – very heartwarming.  Every time I tell someone this story and get to the part about Keith finding the ring, their facial expression is one of amazement.  And rightly so!  They are also intrigued by the work Keith does.  Being reunited with our special ring is a blessing.  Thank you Keith for making it possible!

My jewelry finding service covers Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and other surrounding states.

If you have a lost ring or something of value, contact Keith Wille now.
Call or text | 860-917-8947
Email | uncoverthings@yahoo.com
Website | www.metaldetectionkeithwille.com

Check out the awesome article from The Westerly Sun!

http://www.thewesterlysun.com/home/9309240-154/surf-gives-back-ring-with-a-little-help.html#gallery-1

 

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Ring lost in Carmel Valley, Found

  • from La Jolla (California, United States)
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Greg called me asking for help finding his wedding ring in the backyard pool area of a friend’s home. He had been playing pool volleyball, when he lost his ring sometime during the fun. When he got out of the water, he noticed his naked finger, and started a search. They dove back in the pool and scanned the bottom, checked the filter, and combed the surrounding area…..even that night with a powerful light, hoping to catch a glint of sparkle from one of the stones in the band. No luck, so, Greg found me online and arranged to meet me at the friend’s house. When I arrived, we discussed the events leading up to the present, and I started my search while they went and rechecked the pool filter one more time. I started my search at one end of the yard beyond the west end of the pool. Not 2 minutes later, I found the ring on the first signal. It was just 6 inches from the fence in some sand. Those are the ones we like! Quick and drama free! Good thing, as some of the yard would have been a challenge with rocks, bushes and other landscaping that would have been a lot harder to search. A pleasure to meet everyone and thank you Greg for the reward.100_1484 100_1485

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Platinum wedding band lost at Coronado, Found

  • from La Jolla (California, United States)
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John and his family were visiting from Las Vegas and enjoying the beach at Coronado when John lost his ring out in the surf. No way to visually find it once it hits the bottom and gets covered by sand. They saw a a couple metal detecting nearby and ask for their help, but, the ring still couldn’t be found. When I got the call for help from John’s wife Angela, I was planning another ring search at a nearby beach, so, I added John’s to my to-do list. They had already returned home, so, I  asked Angela to send me a map of the search area and a pin poked into the most likely spot. The next decent low tide was about 4am. I started with my first ring search (actually my third attempt for this ring) and after that turned out to be unsuccessful, I headed to Coronado to give that one a try. Armed with my map and a verbal description of the search area, I hunted for about and hour when I got a good signal at dead low in ankle deep water. Sure enough, after verifying the description, it was John’s ring. I sent a text to Angela who arranged for the ring to be shipped home to them. She didn’t tell John that it was found, but, instead, surprised him the following Friday night by handing him a present. When he opened it, he couldn’t believe what he saw! It was all caught on camera, so, I’ll try to figure out how to attach the video. For now, here’s a photo of the ring and of a very happy family. Thank you for the reward and nice card.100_1475 JohnSring

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Lost your ring in San Antonio

  • from Auburn (Alabama, United States)
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Hi. My name is Michael Nichols. I am a metal detectorist in San Antonio. I am also a member of The Ring Finders. You can find my profile and contact information at their web site. If you need help finding a lost ring or other piece of jewelry please contact me and I will do my best to find it for you. I can also find any lost item that is metal or contains some type of metal such as keys.

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Lost ring found at The Silver Strand State Beach

  • from La Jolla (California, United States)
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Emily left a message on my answer machine, my voice mail, e-mail, and texted my phone about her engagement ring lost in the sand at the Silver Strand. I figured she must want it back! 🙂 We made arrangements to meet at the scene in a couple of hours so they could show me the search area. When I arrived, I got the story on how it was lost. She had caught a football and the ring popped off her finger. She immediately dropped to her knees and started sifting through the sand, but, couldn’t find it. She was joined by the rest of her group, but, the same result….no ring. Now, several days later, my concern was that someone else might have found it. There is a campground at the other end of the beach and many campers like to detect too. The good part was that they were in a less used area in front of the parking lot normally closed off during the week. She remembered where she was when she caught the ball, so, I started there and spiraled out from that point. I was finding a few good coin targets, so, I figured that nobody had beat me to the spot and gridded the area. After almost and hour and many promising foil targets, I got another weak foil signal and a couple of scoops later, saw a beautiful white gold engagement ring in my scoop. Needless to say, Emily was overjoyed to get it back and amazed that I found it, and that it was so far from where she had caught the ball.  That’s the way the ring bounces sometimes! A pleasure to meet you and thank you for the reward.100_1482 100_1483

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Blessed by the Pope, Lost, Found and Returned Ring goes on, Harwichport, MA

  • from Cape Cod (Massachusetts, United States)
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One ring that could never be replaced slipped from Christopher’s finger just less a few days of of 3 months of being placed there. The ring had quite a history. It had traveled to Ireland and Italy on a honeymoon, had a personal blessing by Pope Franciscus, and lost just yards away from where it origin had started. Chris had the presence of mind to take note of the location the ring slipped from his finger and then his wife contacted me via TheRingFinders.

I arrived and was told the ring was gold with a silver band of Celtic knots and it would be found 15-20 feet into the water when I aligned myself so I could see into the drain pipe protruding from the break-wall. Two pull tabs, three bottle caps and then a crazy signal…the detector had a difficult time distinguishing between the two metals. I thought I had trash and was very surprised to see the ring in my scoop. Smiles, hugs, and thank yous ended the emotional trauma of a very special ring’s short history and the beginning of a very long one.

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Football leads to ring loss, In-laws to ring find. Orleans, MA

  • from Cape Cod (Massachusetts, United States)
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What an experience; the search for this ring will never be forgotten. The usual questions, answers and a Google map photo of the area. The next low tide was 2am and my detecting partner, Jim, and I were up for a hunt in the dark. A beautiful night, bright moon, stars, shooting stars, and heat lightening in the distance. 3 hours later, no ring but a mind full of fantastic sights. I returned a 1pm with Mike’s in-laws. They agreed that Mike’s “area” was off. They told me were to go, stop and start detecting to the right, not left as Mike’s map had shown. Two passes parallel to the beach took about 4 minutes with no targets, I turned for the 3rd pass, took 3 steps and there it was, Mike’s ring in my scoop. Back on the sand, cheers from the crowd on the beach and disbelief that the ring had been found and so fast and returned to Mike’s father-in-law (shown in photo).
UPDATE Mike, his ring and wife.

Mike d

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Lost Diamond Wedding Band Recovered in Baltimore, Maryland!

  • from Baltimore (Maryland, United States)
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My detecting partner had a really nice “lunch” this past Wednesday. I’m not talking about what he had to eat that day, but what he was able to accomplish for Andrea. Just goes to show what talent, high end equipment and a lot of dedication and experience can accomplish. Here’s the story in Andrea’s own words…

On Saturday, July 30, 2016, my family and I were looking forward to a wonderful day at the MD Zoo in Baltimore.  My sister-in-law was visiting from upstate NY and my husband and I, along with our two kids, Natalie (age 6) and Jack (age 3) were excited to spend the day with her exploring the zoo.  Natalie hadn’t been to the zoo since she was 2 years old and this was Jack’s first time to the MD zoo.  Like many families with young kids, we had a bit of a rough time getting our family moving in the right direction to get to the zoo for its opening hour and felt a little behind the 8 ball by the time we arrived and parked around 11:30 am.  In an effort to move us along, as soon as we parked I got out of the car and immediately started making efforts to apply sunscreen to the kids who weren’t too happy about the process, but complied just the same!  I set my daughter’s hat down on the ground next to our vehicle in the grass and grabbed the sunscreen out of our backpack.  Before spraying it on my hands, I made the unfortunate mistake of taking off my diamond engagement ring and my diamond wedding band and placing it in my daughter’s hat on the ground so I wouldn’t get sunscreen all over my rings.  I went on to apply sunscreen to my daughter and then moved on to my son.  While I was putting sunscreen on my son, I heard my husband say to my daughter, “do you want to wear your hat today?”  Again, distracted with putting sunscreen on my squirmy 3 year old, I didn’t even think to say anything about my rings.  I heard my daughter say “no” and what happened after that changed the course of the day for us.  Once my daughter said no about wearing the hat, my husband who had already scooped the hat off of the ground, turned the hat over, folded it in on itself to make it smaller and shoved it into our drawstring backpack to take it into the zoo with us.  I realized not too long after that what had happened and made a beeline for the backpack.  Miraculously, my diamond engagement ring was still in the hat, but my diamond wedding band was no where to be found.  

 

The next 7 hours were agonizing.  That’s how long we stayed at the parking site looking for the ring.  Thank goodness my sister-in-law was with us and agreed to take our very excited children into the zoo so their day wouldn’t be spoiled.  My husband was in and out of the zoo that day trying to assist with the kids, but also trying to assist me with the ring search.  He even drove to the local Home Depot to see about purchasing a metal detector, but found out they didn’t have any in stock.  We ended up finding 2 individuals online who agreed to come out that evening and look with their metal detectors, but, unfortunately couldn’t locate the ring.  We stuck around for a couple of hours after the zoo closed for the day, and the kids were hungry and tired, plus there was an impending thunderstorm about to hit, so we decided to pack it up and return to our home in Harford County saddened, shocked, dumbfounded…..you name it!

 

The weekend passed and I had heard back from one of the metal detectorists who had been helping us the day this happened.  He graciously went to the zoo on Monday, 8/1/16 with 2 buddies, searched for over 2 hours even expanding their search area in the parking lot.  They didn’t find the ring.  Before I had heard this news from him, I had searched the internet for other metal detector experts in the area.  I had found The Ring Finders website and found the contact information for the Baltimore area rep.  I reached out to him and he got back to me immediately, but, unfortunately, told me that he wasn’t in the local area at the time.  He told me he was in Ocean City conducting several ring searches.  He agreed, however, to provide me with a referral.  He gave me Lance Griffin’s phone number.  I called Lance and arranged to meet him at the zoo on Wednesday, 8/3/16 @ 11:30 am during his lunch break from work.  When I arrived at the zoo, it was packed!  In fact, it was more crowded than it had been the previous Saturday when the ring went missing.  At that moment, I didn’t have much hope to find the ring especially knowing that we had searched for so long on Saturday and that a search was done on Monday as well.  To make matters worse, when I arrived at the zoo, I immediately noticed that there was a car parked in the parking space that we had been in when the ring went missing.  When I met Lance, he was so professional and calm.  We walked to the parking space, he asked me to describe what happened, and the approximate location of everything.  He said he would give it a try even though there was a car taking up the majority of the parking space.  I’m so elated to report that Lance found my ring within the first 10 minutes of meeting him in the small strip of grass next to where that car was parked!!

 

The last several days have been an array of emotions.  The emotion that I struggled with the most was guilt.  Guilt for praying for a material object to return to my life knowing very well that there are so many people in the world facing problems much bigger than the loss of a ring.  Still, I sent up prayers that my ring, which means so much to me, would be returned safely to my finger; the same finger my husband placed it on during our wedding day close to 12 years ago.  As I sit here now, I have so many other emotions running through me.  I am absolutely amazed that a man, Lance Griffin, who is essentially a total stranger to me, out of the goodness of his heart, listened to my story, responded to my plea for help, delivered on his promise to meet me, and came through with what resulted in an unbelievably beautiful outcome.  I have so much gratitude for him and all of the individuals that make miracles like this happen.  Lance, for me, exemplifies the goodness and the positivity that exists in humanity!

Andrea and her husband relieved and appreciative!

Andrea and her husband relieved and appreciative!

Back where it belongs!

Back where it belongs!

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Ring found and returned at Marine St. in La Jolla

  • from La Jolla (California, United States)
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Kim was visiting San Diego from Hawaii with her husband, and was spending a day at the beach. She had removed her rings to clean the sand from their settings. Forgetting that she had removed them, she shook the sand out of her blanket and the rings along with it. She managed to find the wedding band, but, the engagement ring was eluding capture with only sifting fingers as a tool. She got on her phone and Googled for help. My profile came up for San Diego and she gave me a call. She hadn’t left the area, so, I figured this should be a fairly quick search. The hard part was battling the traffic and parking! I lucked into a spot fairly close to her location and gave her a text on the way to the sand. Since Kim and her husband were leaving for home the next day, this had to be found now! She met me on the beach and guided me to the search area. 30 seconds later, I got a beautiful 12-03 on my E-trac and pulled her gorgeous engagement ring from over 5 inches down. A pleasure to meet you Kim, thank you for the reward, and thank your husband for his service.

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Ring lost at Mission Bay found!

  • from La Jolla (California, United States)
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Amy and family were visiting San Diego from Missouri and enjoying a day at the beach, when, her ring was accidentally flung into the sand from their blanket. they combed through the dry sand with their fingers for quite some time before they realized they needed some help. After a search on the internet, I got the call and headed out. I met them at the location and began a grid. Luckily, they kept watch on the area, so, there was no chance someone else could have found it. Well, it wasn’t found in record time, but, it was close…..took maybe 15 seconds and was at the edge of the designated search area! A pleasure to meet you and thank you for the reward.

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