metal detector for hire Tag | Page 11 of 11 | The Ring Finders

Another Quick Ring Recovery – Garmin Campus

  • from Olathe (Kansas, United States)

IMG_3505IMG_3504 Our latest ring recovery was another quick success story.  One afternoon we received a call from a gentleman who worked at the Garmin world headquarters, which is just down the road from our shop.  You see, Garmin fosters a very active lifestyle for their employees.  They have a jogging trail, strength training, group bike rides, kickball, and they even have a community fresh vegie garden on the campus.  This gentleman had been playing football over their lunch break.  As he stretched out to receive a pass, his ring flew off his hand.  Fortunately for us, he knew approximately where he was when it happened.   He and a group of friends had looked for the ring with no avail.  He called us and within 10 minutes we were there, on site, looking for the ring.

I had been having a fairly good run of ring recoveries lately so Scrap Iron handed me the AT Pro and said, “Go for it.”  He hit the outskirts of where the guy said he lost the ring.  I dove right in the middle and began to mentally grid the site then I began meticulously detecting back and forth in the area which was roughly 20 yards square.  Fortunately for us, the folks at Garmin are very clean people and there was very little trash to contend with.  After only about 2 laps back and forth, I got a good signal.  It is funny how finding a ring for someone works.  There is a reason gold get’s the nickname “bling”.  I mean, the stuff really does bling…especially in the sunlight. Typically you get a signal and simply look down and see the ring. Rarely do I ever have to dig the ground and the ring almost always shows up visually before I even bend down to pick it up.  I always wonder how they missed it with their naked eyes.  But, they don’t.  Although you can certainly find your ring using just your eyes, a metal detector helps because it can tell you where you need to focus those visual efforts.  This vastly speeds up recovery time.

Once I got the signal for the ring I looked down and lo and behold there was the ring.   I chuckled, looked up at the man, smiled and said, “Here ya go sir.  We found it.”  He was ecstatic.  He took a picture of me with my detector and I asked that he pose for a shot with me.  He obliged.  We shook hands and parted ways.  The agreed rate was $40…not a bad rate for a total of about 20 minutes of work, drive time included.  We loaded up the truck and headed to our favorite lunch spot for a bite to eat courtesy of our most recent ring recovery effort.

A Needle in a Haystack – Diamond and Platinum Stud Earring Recovery in Overgrown Backyard

  • from Olathe (Kansas, United States)

Our most recent recovery job

One early summer afternoon the phone rang.  Scrap Iron answered and I listened to the conversation.  A lady was calling about a lost piece of jewelry.  Cool, I thought, another recovery job.  I really like those.  They give us a reason to get out of the office and into the field.  Plus, my recovery rate had been really good as of late…even in sticky situations.  Most recently with an underwater recovery of a wedding ring under a bridge, in a large un-metal detectable arboretum.  As Scrap Iron wrapped up the call he swiveled his chair around and looked at me.  I smiled, “Recovery job?”

He wasn’t smiling, “This may be a tough one,” he said.  He relayed her story.  Apparently the woman had been mowing her lawn on a riding lawn mower.  Riding lawn mowers serve one purpose:  To mow huge lawns.  This was about a 2-3 acre lot.  She had finished a large portion of the yard and decided to head towards the rear of the property to tackle the more difficult portion.  This part of the lawn was a little more grown in than the rest.  A large, heavily grown in, unused garden sat very close to the Northwestern edge of the property. Between it and the fence was a narrow strip of lawn just large enough for the riding lawn mower to mow  a clear path.  The western fence row was being crowded by trees and shrubs from the neighbor’s yard, which had not been maintained.  This left branches of various bushes hanging over onto the narrow strip between the fence and the garden.

Since it was only one tiny strip the lady decided to forge through and simply brush the branches out of her way as she quickly mowed the strip of grass.  As she darted through the branches the unthinkable happened.  The branches fought back.  She pressed through as the branches wrapped around her neck simultaneously stripping her left ear of a 1 karat diamond and platinum stud earring.  As Scrap Iron told the story, the smile fell from my face.  “Stud earring?”  I asked.  “Lawn mower?” “2 acre lawn?”  “Yeah, this may be a tough one,” I agreed.

You see, any metal detectorist knows that finding a small stud earring is no easy task.  The majority of the earring is typically a gem.  Gems are not metallic.  Metal detectors do not pick them up.  The remainder of the earring is composed of very little metal…wire basically, and not much of it.  Hardly any surface area and very little density.  They are uber difficult to pick up with any metal detector.  However, when someone loses something of value (sentimental or cash) and calls you to help them find it, you have to give it a shot.  Besides, we we have top of the line metal detectors and our recent recovery track record had been great. The Garrett AT Gold is specifically made to find small pieces of metal.  We took it, the AT Pro and a Tesoro Lobo (another formidable small nugget finder).  Still, this would be a challenging job.

A close up of the large diamond earring.

We arrived on the property and met the husband.  He relayed the story again and showed us where they suspected the earring was.  Fortunately for us they had a good idea of (about) where the earring had been stripped from her ear.  It was an area about 40 feet by 10-15 feet at the thickest end.  Fortunately they had the other earring.  This allowed us to do an air test to see how the earring would  sound on our metal detectors.  This is where the task began to seem near impossible.  On all of the detectors, the earring rang up like a very small piece of foil and you had to be almost right on top of it to get a reading.  The irregularity of what little metal there was caused the machine’s signals to bounce around a little.

Now, if you are out in the middle of the desert, slowly working your way around listening for every small hint of a signal while looking for small gold nuggets, you realize how hard it is to find small pieces of metal like this.  Discrimination is virtually impossible.  But in a lot located in the middle of the city that has been occupied for 100+ years, it was virtually impossible.  Just like in the deser scenario, you would have to look at every little signal…and there were plenty of them. The property owner had already rented a metal detector and searched.  The detector they rented was a very low-end model.  It did not even register the earring they still had.  That is why they called us.  There were signals everywhere.  This was going to be a tough job indeed.

Scrap Iron and I spent about 45 minutes searching the suspected area with no avail.  I even resorted to crawling on my hands and knees with my Pro Pointer hoping to pick up a signal with this method. No luck and it killed my knees.  Tyler arrived and we took a short break.  It was sweltering hot and humid out.  We were soaked in sweat.  We showed him site and told him the story of the loss.  “Wow.  This is like a needle in a haystack….did you check the mower?” We had not.  We had the owner pull the mower out of the shed and we thoroughly searched it.  No dice.  We told the owner the situation was looking dire, but we will look a little longer.  He pitched in and began visually searching and so did we.

Right then I saw something shiny.  Tyler saw me react to the item which was right at his feet just beneath a clump of grass.  I only saw it because of the angle I was in relation to the clump of grass.  I zeroed in on the item and went for it saying, “Look here.”  It was not the earring but it was the back of the earring.  How I saw it is truly beyond me.  But this find gave us all hope we may find the actual earring.  The owner was there and he was amazed we found the back (this was something I was not expecting either).  It was enough to lift our spirits and keep us on the job. He headed back towards the house and I told him we would stick to it for a while longer.  We looked for another 30 minutes with no luck.

Drenched from head to toe in sweat, and losing momentum quickly, I sat down in the spot we were searching and said, “If I were this lady I would grab a cold drink, sit right here, and do this.”  I sat there sifting through the grass and clover.  Removing clumps of clover by hand to clear the way for my visual search.  The metal detectors most likely picked up the signal of the earring at some point or another, but differentiating it from every other signal was near impossible.  And with the time you spent going up and down it seemed to me to be more productive to search visually.  Scrap Iron was over in the garden right near where I found the back of the earring in the yard.  The reasoning being perhaps the mower had launched the earring away from the narrow strip of grass and into the garden.  This went on for another 10-15 minutes when I saw it.  A glimmer.  It is something that the human eye is attuned to picking up.  Gold, platinum, silver, diamonds.  Once you get your “eyes right” they will be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  My heart jumped.  This seemed like a dream.  Almost impossible.  At this point I had truly lost hope that we would find it.  But we did.  “Travis, look.”  He did not turn around and probably didn’t think it was possible that I had found the earring either.  “Travis, look!”

He nonchalantly looked over his shoulder.  I held the earring up like a trophy.  He sprung up and came over offering a celebratory high five.”Good job man!”  This was unbelievable.  We were both amazed.  After about an hour and a half of looking we emerged successfully.  We were completely stoked and, frankly, surprised.  We had both, I think, lost hope of a successful recovery only 30 minutes ago.  But we persisted and prevailed.

I snapped a quick picture of the find.  We grabbed our gear and headed up to the garage where the man was working on cars.  He casually looked up, “Calling it quits guys?”  He clearly had doubted the success of recovery too.

One happy owner, notice the sweat. We all looked this way. Very hot and humid Kansas day.

I replied, “I think we are going to wrap it up…” and paused for effect.  He nodded with an indication that he understood the difficulty of the task.  I continued, “…but only because we found it!”  I think he almost fainted.  He was beside himself and could not believe we found not only the earring but also the back (which still surprises me).

He was extremely thankful.  “I cannot believe it.  Thank you guys SO much!  I think I am going to wait to tell my wife until she gets home…let her sweat little.”  He went on to tell us a story of when she had lost a large tennis bracelet at the lake.  At that time he had to hire a diver to find it.  Apparently she loves her jewelry and always wears it.  I kindly suggested she should remove it while doing yard work.  This is when, according to my experience, most people lose their jewelry…and when at the lake.

“Well, hang onto our number.  You may end up being our best customer,” Scrap Iron replied which generated a chuckle among the group.

One thing I learned from Chris over at The Ring Finders is that the reward is only a part of the recovery mix.  Don’t let this be the focus of your search and don’t get greedy. He has done recovery jobs for many thousands of dollars and some for a loaf of banana bread.  Often, it is better to let the owner set the price.  Frequently you will get more than you would have asked for.  Besides, without knowing the cost of the lost item, it is hard for you to determine a fair price at times.  I assumed this pair of earrings to be anywhere from $2,000-3,000 maybe more.  As he reached for his wallet I told him, “In terms of our reward, you can pay us what you think our service was worth.”

He looked at us and said, “Is a couple hundred dollars fair?”

“Yep.” Scrap Iron and I replied simultaneously.  In all honestly we would have been happy with half.  We left the job site a couple hundred dollars richer and much wealthier in spirit.  It is always a good feeling to help someone in need while at the same time earning a fair wage in doing it.

www.HighPlainsProspectors.com

 

 

Lost Gold Medallion in the water … Belmont Shores, CA. … Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Friday   May  2, 2014

Ami had called me about an hour after her boyfriend , Nick had lost his gold medallion in the water at Belmont Shores Dog Beach.  She had found my phone number on TheRingFinders website. I asked her a few quick questions. What time of day, Where , dry sand or water and would they be able to wait for an hour to direct me in the general location.  I checked the tides and realized that the tide was coming in which will hamper the search. More important was that I meet Nick to hear his story and see where he was when it was lost.   The normal drive would be about 30 minutes but there was a major traffic problem and it took three times as long to get there.  Nick was able to wait but the tide did not, it was already nearly high tide.  Nick told me that he had been in about 3 or 4 feet of water when his dog swam up to him. The dog’s paw got entangled in the necklace and Nick felt the chain break. After hearing the story I had to give it a try even though I felt it was out in the deeper water. I searched for about 30 minutes in waist deep water with small waves, not one signal. Nick had told me the medallion was a sentimental family heirloom. I was confident I had a better chance to search for it early the next morning which was a minus .3 ft low tide. As it worked out, I was able to find the medallion and the chain within 30 minutes at 6:30 am Saturday morning.  Ani was able to meet me so she could pass it off to Nick. I also learned that this medallion had belonged to Nick’s dad which made it so very special.  It was a pleasure to help Nick, his Mother and Ani find this heirloom and to hear how happy they were. I was told they didn’t have very much faith that the metal detector would be able to find it. I get that “I don’t believe that thing will find my ring”  “LOOK” quite often, but it just makes it more exciting when I find the lost item.

Nick's Pendant

Nick’sPendant

Ani came to get the pendant for Nick

Ani came to get the pendant for Nick

Keys Lost At Blackmud Creek Ravine Edmonton

  • from Edmonton (Alberta, Canada)
Contact:

matt VW KeyVW Fob

Received a call from Matt last night around 7:30 to see if I was able to come out and try and find his key fob for his Volkswagen  that he lost on Saturday on a toboggan hill while he was sledding down the hill with his family. I told him if the keys are on the ground I will find them for him. I told Matt I would be there in 30 minutes I meet up with Matt at his house and walked over to the hill with my trusty V3i, Matt told me that he spent some time on Saturday evening looking for the keys but it was too dark to see also he was out early Sunday morning with no luck. Matt showed me where he was sledding on the hill and he had a spare set of keys on him, I tested his key fob and was getting a visual display of 37! Within 5 minutes I received a clear loud 37! on my unit Bingo!!! Key fob was located buried in about 4 inches of snow, another happy client Thanks Matt.

Lost Ring playing soccer… Cherry Park – Lake Forest, Calif. .. Found in Grass

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Saturday  Sept. 28, 2013

I had just parked at a beach in Laguna and was getting ready to do a little metal detecting.  I got a call from Daniel, he was in a park in Lake Forest which is about 10 miles inland.  He told me he had just lost his ring while playing soccer. This sounded like an easy search so I asked him if he could stay in the location and I would be there in 45 minutes. When I arrived Daniel showed me the exact place he was standing when he blocked a ball that came at him.  This really sounded like it was going to be a quick recovery.  I started about 20 ft.  back from that location to begin my grid search. Daniel was familiar with metal detectors because he had used them while in the military. I started showing him how good my detector could separate different targets and identify quarters from pennies, etc. Also I could tell how deep things were eliminating a lot of work stopping and checking deep signals. Even with all this advantage I was unable to find Daniel’s  tungsten wedding band.  He was super positive that the ring flew off his finger in this 10 ft. square area. I probably cross gridded it 4 or 5 times.  I spent a total of 2 hrs. searching the rest of that end I’d the field till dark. Then  I had to admit I could not find it.  Parks are not the easiest searches because there is a lot of trash metal. If you want to make yourself crazy rent a metal detector and go try to use it in a park.

I went back to try the search for a second time after about 12 days.  I had thought about Daniel’s lost ring several times wondering what I had done wrong. Chris Turner often says it’s a game of inches and I agree. This time I took a another tungsten ring to get an accurate ID reading from my Minelab CTX 3030 metal detector. I had planned to set up my grid to cover the whole soccer goalie  area and places he may have chased the ball.  After the first 15 minutes it started to rain, the first rain in So. Calif. that we have had for 7 months. I went to my truck to get rain gear because I wanted to give this my last try.  It took about an hour and a half then I found the ring. It was more than 20 ft. from where Daniel had blocked the ball. Here’s the best part of the story. It was actually within the first couple feet where I started the search the week before. I believe that I probably wasn’t paying attention to my detector when I was bragging to Daniel about how good my expensive detector was.  

I had not told Daniel that I would return to search for his ring. After finding his ring I sent him  a photo of his ring and he called me back excited. He and his wife had already been researching the purchase of a new ring. We made arrangements to meet up the next weekend when he gets back in the area. Besides being able to return the ring, this was definitely a humbling experience and I’m learning more with each search.

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Lost Weddding Ring … Tourmaline Beach, San Diego, CA. .. Recovered Ring

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Friday, Sept. 27, 2013

I live in San Diego, CA. part of the year .  I go to my club meetings of Coinshooters of San Diego on the 4th Friday of the month. Thursday night I checked Craig’s List .. Lost and Found. Just out of curiosity. I usually don’t reply to Craig’s List postings, but I sent a message to Becca who had ask for help finding a ring that she had lost a week before. She and her husband had been surfing at Tourmaline beach Saturday 9/21/13.. They both put their rings in a backpack with cell phones and car keys. At one time during their stay at the beach, they took the car keys out to get something from the car. Later, when they were at the car getting ready to leave they went to put the rings on. His ring was there but Becca’s small platinum w/ 3 clear diamonds was not in the back pack. They assumed that the ring had been pulled out of the backpack when removing the keys earier on the beach.

The next day they sifted through the sand and Monday they rented a metal detector ($60 ).. They could not find the ring.. A week pasted and Becca took a chance and posted on Craig’s List.  After I contacted her, I told her I was a member of TheRingFinders metal detecting service. She could research my blog to see if she could trust me. She gave me a general location and said she could meet me after I got there. Sometimes when people assume the ring was lost at a certain time or place it just turns into a time consuming, failed search. I just had to give it a try. If I couldn’t find it I had a nice beach and a beautiful day to go metal detecting. I got there at 10am and found the ring within 30 minutes. Becca was still on her way to the beach. I texted her a photo of the ring and told her to drve careful. It will be waiting here for her. It stayed under the sand for a whole week evading other metal detectorists and the high tides of this week.

This ring was given to Becca by her husbsnd when they worked in South Africa several years ago. It ment the world to her. It also made my day. All these recoverieso are important to me and I often get caught up in retelling these stories to other people.

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Lost Ring … Laguna Niguel, CA. … Found at the beach in sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Saturday .. Sept. 28, 2013

Sara’s boyfriend Conner called me around noon Saturday asking me about The RingFinders.  He needed help to find a small silver ring that his girl friend Sara lost in the sand at the beach. I was able to meet them at a small secluded beach in South Laguna. All these beaches are accessible only by stairways with over 200 steps. They are beautiful and not used by many people.

As we walked down the steps Sara told me that before going for a swim she put her ring on her sandals. When she came back she picked up the sandals and the ring went into the sand. Several people spent a couple hours searching the sand. I could see the whole area they searched from the top of the stairway. I started a grid search from the middle of the area spiraling outward. Conner started his stopwatch app on his iphone.The same iphone that helped him find The RingFinders and call me with directions to their house.  Eight minutes later we had the ring. There was another family on the beach that had helped sift through the sand before I got there. They all yelled and applauded when the ring was found.

Sara burst into tears. She told me that this small silver ring was given to her by her mother, when she was baptised 10 years ago. Her mother passed away 3 years ago and this ring was so very special to Sara. I will never look at a small silver ring the same. You can never tell how sentimental a ring is by it’s size or what it cost. I believe I’ve found and returned more than $70,000 worth of jewelry but this small silver ring I will not forget. I have found many rings that I could not locate the owners. I’ll look at them differently from now on..

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Lost Ring … Doheny Beach, Dana Point, CA. … Found in Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Monday, Sept. 23, 2013

Just after finding the two rings that Jordin lost in Newport Beach, I recieved a phone call from Kattie.  She had been searching the internet to rent a metal detector. She got a hold of a dealer in New Jersey, Demarco Detector Sales. Joe Demarco told her about TheRingFinders and Kattie called me.

I was able to set an 11:00am meeting at Doheny Beach which is in Dana Point, CA. Kattie and her friend Rene drove down from Marina Del Rey, CA. which is probably 60 miles the other side of Los Angeles. I drove about 25 miles to meet them.

When they got there, I was told that Sunday they came to Doheny Beach so Kattie could do a some surfing. Doheny is a great place to learn to surf. When Kattie went into the ocean she gave her ring to Rene for safe keeping. Rene put it on her finger and not being use to wearing a ring she did not notice that the ring had slipped off her finger until after Kattie came out of the water.

The best part of the story was Rene had remembered exactly where she had been and I was able to find the ring within a few minutes. They both were very excited and really didn’t believe I could find it. Then they both gave me giant hugs. Rene was no longer guilty and the ring was back on Kattie’s finger where it belongs.. It was a pleasure to help two very nice ladies. They took a few minutes to listen to my RingFinders stories and do the photo opp, which is part of my deal with them..

 

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Lost Ring… Strand Beach, Dana Point, CA… Found in Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Chunky – White Gold – with 1 ct. Square Cut Diamond

I had just finished doing some recreational detecting of 27 fire pits at Corona Delmar Beach. I like to practice detecting around the fire pits because it’s a challenge to find a good targets amongst all the trash. That’s how I entertain myself. I call it practicing my hobby. Driving home with my detectors ready to go, I got a ringfinders call out from Emily.. She lost a gold ring yesterday afternoon while trying to catch a football. Her and her friends spent hours crawling around on the beach running their fingers thought the sand to no avail.

In the morning Emily and her friend got online and found a link that brought up The RingFinders. I always carry my cell phone and pulled to the side of the road to get the directions and ask a few questions. I did ask her what type material was it made of and was it small or large. She told me it was gold and it was “Chunky”.  I had to drive about 10 miles and walk down about 150 steps. By the time I got to the location I Emily had text message a google map and other information. The best help was they were near a group of 3 trash cans and about 20 ft. from the rocks . I started in a straight line swinging slow and low. Only 30 ft. into the search I got a signal that almost overloaded my detector. It was that beautiful unique ring and I now know what “Chunky” is. I sent her a text photo of her ring on my finger, saying Guess What.

What’s special about this is, we did this all with our smart phones and it wasn’t necessary for Emily to drive 40 miles to show me the location. It was less than an hour from the first call. We arranged to meet back in Newport Beach and she had her ring in about 2 hours from the time she called.  It was all smiles and a  big thank you. She promised me that she was never taking the ring to the beach. Also promised me to send me a message with the weight of her ring. It was definity unique and would have been a heart breaker to lose it.

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