metal detector for hire Tag | Page 12 of 12 | The Ring Finders

Engagement Ring Found .. San Clemente State Beach, CA. .. In Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Cori and Drew’s Story … 4/18/15 … Califia St., San Clemente State Beach

So, Drew and I decided we would take a night to go watch the sunset at Calafia state beach in San Clemente (about 5 min drive from our house ) as a way to celebrate our engagement and get some time for just the two of us -kid-free woo hoo! Like always though, we are scrambling to gather a few items to bring (champagne, blanket, etc.) and rushing out the door to make it before the sun goes down while trying to say bye to the kids etc. We make it out the door and I even remembered my camera! When we get there I decided to put the self-timer on my camera, lay out the blanket and snap a few pics of us. I notice their is a lot of seaweed obnoxiously photo bombing us and to avoid having to Photoshop it later, I quickly start to brush it away with my hands far from our blanket where we are sitting. I continuously run to and from the camera to try to get a good shot with the self-timer.

As we are taking pictures, I suddenly notice the engagement ring is no longer on my finger!! Drew and I both panicked, retracing our steps frantically everywhere . Here we are, 15 minutes before the sun goes down , crowds of people on the beach, and we are searching for my ring. I start thinking hard , “Did I have it on before we left the house? Did it fall off in the sand? Did it fall off when I took off my sandals in the sand? “ etc. I start hearing my mother-in-laws nagging voice in my head “you should have worn it on your middle finger until you got it re-sized!” The ring was loose and too big and we hadn’t had a chance to get it resized yet.
Anyways, we searched the car, the camera bag , go back to the house , retraced all steps in the sand- NOTHING.
At this point its pitch black outside and we are freezing our butts off losing all hope that we will find it , the tide is starting to roll in and any sign of society has vanished, ha. Drew and I are both wearing helmets with lights on our heads , we rush to Big 5 to purchase a $140 metal detector , go back and pace back n forth with this little machine we have no idea how to use. Still- NOTHING
OKAY- Well, the look on Drews face- I mean seriously -I lost the ring – I also knew this was practically the same chances of finding a needle in a haystack. It is starting to set in and we are sitting in an empty beach parking lot losing hope, thinking we are just going to have to accept this as a loss .
I start to Google on my phone and discover that their are literally professional ring finders, I mean what? TheRingfinders.com , yes! I start to think “What are the chances they will even find it though? And how much are they going to charge, practically the price of the ring I bet . . “ It’s worth a shot though , I think to myself. I give a call to the one we found in our area, this sweet man is willing to drive 1.5 hours to us from his ‘Riverside Metal Detecting Contest.’ Ha. Yes, apparently there is such thing.
He arrives, this sweet man, with his $3,000 metal detecting equipment. Drew is looking at me like “ c’mon really? You think this guy is going to find it? “ All odds are against us at this point because its past beach curfew, hitting 11pm, the tide is rolling in strong and we are pooped. An officer comes and tells us we will need to leave shortly but that he can give us a little bit of time to look , he chuckles “Good luck!” while walking away.
Moments later, I hear his detector, my heart sinks, “Oh just tinfoil” he says . Still no luck. Suddenly, out of nowhere- he starts skimming an area and HE FINDS MY RING!!!! I swear- I never in a million years -thought it was possible AND if we had waited till morning to go back again and look- it would have washed away with the tide !
I am so beyond grateful! I jumped up and hugged him with tears down my face asking him over and over “HOW DID YOU FIND IT?!! I CANT BELIEVE YOU FOUND IT! OH. MY .GOSH!”
So I say to him , “OK- we now owe you big time! What do you charge for something like this?“ (Yes, you would think we would have asked him before but I guess it didn’t cross our minds because 1. We were frantic and desperate for any help 2. We couldn’t put a price on something this sentimental to us -not just materialistic)
He replies, “Well, I work on a reward system. You pay me what you can afford to give and what its worth to you for me to find it. And I give 15% of the proceeds to the children’s hospital”.
I mean seriously? Is this real? Drew and I look at each other – wow this is definitely a pay-it-forward experience.
And yes, we compensated him well for his incredible gift and generosity We are FOREVER grateful . 😉

 

PS.. I had started my grid in the area they had set up their blanket. I made about 5 passes from the rocks to the water about 30ft. in each direction. Asking Cori questions when she remembered moving the dried seaweed away from the photo background. I changed my grid pattern and made one pass along the top of the waterline where the seaweed was and dug the ring with a piece of tin foil in the scoop.

 

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Platinum Diamond Wedding Band Recovered … Malibu, Calif.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Pt. Dume State Beach, Malibu, CA. #1    ……  Saturday April 4, 2015

Rachel’s husband Joel contacted me Saturday morning asking for help to find a wedding ring set that was lost by his wife in the sand Friday at Pt. Dume State Beach, Malibu, CA. I asked them to get to the location to secure the area that the rings were lost. It is spring break and with the great weather the beaches have been crowded. I was on the road soon after the phone call but it would be about 11am before we could meet up.
After arriving I met Rachel and she explained that she had taken off her wedding ring set off, setting them on her towel while applying sunscreen. Later in the day she picked up her towel shaking the sand off. It wasn’t until after they got back home that she realized that her rings had to be in the sand at the beach.
I started to grid search the immediate location where they had spread their beach gear. I was racing to search the part of the beach not claimed by other beach goers. Twenty feet away from them I found the platinum wedding band. Normally the larger engagement ring would be very close by, but it did not show up. We were right at the most used part of the beach the towel line, next to the lifeguard tower and close to the restrooms. I still could not get to all the sand area it could have been thrown when she shook the towel. After waiting 3 hours for people to leave the un searched sand, I could not find the larger diamond ring. It was hard to tell Rachel it was not there, but I know that I covered the area thoroughly and it was not there. It is very likely that somebody had found it, there are many people that work these beaches with detectors everyday this time of year. Especially the towel line. Rachel did tell me that the ring I found was very sentimental to her because it had diamonds from both her mother and grandmothers rings. She had worn these rings over sixteen years.
Normally I could search that type location in about one hour. I stayed more than 4-1/2 hours till I felt I had gridded the whole area in more than three directions in all metal mode with the highest sensitivity I could set my detector. Later I called a local detectorist to asked if he knows of any recent find from this beach. We also posted a lost ring add on Craiglist in hopes that someone has found the other ring.
This was a disappointing search for me, because I’m used to finding both rings when a set has been lost. I guess this is what they call a bitter – sweet type feeling. Rachel’s 11 year old daughter was so happy after finding the wedding band, she said that she made two wishes that morning. One wish was that we could find the wedding ring .. She said she couldn’t tell us the other wish, because it would ruin the wish.

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

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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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

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Keys Lost At Blackmud Creek Ravine Edmonton

  • from Edmonton (Alberta, Canada)
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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.

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

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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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