metal detector rental Laguna Beach Tag | Page 6 of 13 | The Ring Finders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe and Natasha were sitting on the sand at Venice Beach, CA. His electronic car key slipped out of his pocket into the sand. After a couple hours sifting through the sand with their hands. Someone on the beach told him about TheRingFinders.

Joe called me telling me that he was sure the key was in the area that he was sitting. He would be able to stay there until I could meet him. Always a good to help for a successful search. So often people leave the area before realizing they have lost their key. Then they can’t find the general location where they had been.

I met Joe and Natasha less than an hour after his call to me. It only took a few swings with my metal detector to locate his car key. With this type car key it may require a tow to the dealership to have new electronic key programmed. Very expensive plus a lot of time waisted especially if it’s a weekend. It was nice to meet the both of them and help them find the car key.

 

 

Jannae’s husband was standing on the back porch of their home when a bee came at him. He swatted at the bee and his platinum wedding ring went flying somewhere in the yard or possibly below the wood decking. They had just celebrated 10 years of marriage a month before and this ring was a gift from Jannae to her husband.

I met Jannae the next morning to search for the ring. The gardeners were there but holding off cutting the lawn until I went over the grass with my metal detector. The ring was not in the lawn and there was no sign of the ring under the patio decking. The gardeners had a ladder that they used to check the rain gutter on the roof. I also checked all the potted plants with my handheld pinpointer. 

There was a wall with some shrubbery 8ft. high about close to the patio. We shook the plant several times trying to dislodge the ring if it had hung up in the upper portion of the plants. Not having any success by shaking the plants, I asked the gardener if he would use his leaf blower machine to blow into the plants. After about 15 minutes the ring came bouncing onto the ground below the plants. This was another lesson for me. It has happened at least three other times on other searches, where the ring was definitely hung up in a bush. Platinum is heavy and this ring was probably 20 grams. It was hard to believe that it didn’t fall through the plant. Also, just shaking the plant was not sufficient enough to dislodge the ring.

The process worked, we eliminated the lawn, under the porch area , the potted plants and even the rain gutter on the roof. The shrubbery was our last chance. 

Jannae was so happy that the ring was found and planned to surprise her husband after he gets home from work.

 

 

 

 

Josh called me the morning after he lost his rose gold wedding ring. He had been at North Beach in San Clemente, CA. enjoying a fire on the beach with his family. Before leaving the beach he was putting out the fire by throwing sand onto burning embers. He felt the ring slip off his finger going into the fire pit.

I was sure that this would be a situation where we would need to use my sifting equipment to retrieve the ring. Josh had given great directions that made it easy to find the exact fire pit. After an hour an a half of sifting the 4 ft. square area the ring could not be found.

Next option was to use my metal detector to check the area outside the cement fire pit. The first 18” nearest the fire pit was congested with nails, other metal trash and the rebar reinforced cement fire pit which made it difficult to use my metal detector there. I took my sifting equipment to go through that sand. After a few minutes I located Josh’s rose gold wedding band. 

Josh met me on the beach twenty minutes after calling him and it was a pleasure to return his ring. He tried to apologize for giving me the wrong directions but I assured him that it’s normal to find these small items outside the location where they are thought to be lost. The most important thing is the ring is back where it belongs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pedro had been at Hermosa Beach, CA. with a group of his Marine friends. They had met up to have a little reunion along with playing volleyball in the sand. It was a great get together, except when Pedro returned  home that evening his Palladium wedding band was missing. He had lost some weight and it was loose so he assumed it had come off while playing volleyball. 

The ring was purchased eight years ago in Brazil and had become part of him with irreplaceable sentimental value. He returned that evening spending several hours crawling on his hands and knees searching for the ring. The next morning he found TheRingFinders on line calling me to set up a time to meet on the beach that morning.

It was now Saturday morning and he had asked the people using the volleyball court if we could have a few minutes to search for the missing ring. After completing the   grid search of the court I went to the outside the edges of boundary lines. I was getting coins and other metal targets so I knew this area probably had not been searched by other detectorist. By now I was beginning to run out of search area and it was not looking good. Then the magic happened, a nice solid tone with a quick dig with my sand scoop, there was Pedro’s palladium wedding ring. He was overjoyed and the people that gave us time to search the court also celebrated the find.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laura had called me with a request to help her find her mother in-law’s diamond ring. She believed that her 7 year old son had removed it from a counter in the house. When she confronted her son, he admitted taking it and throwing it off the second floor balcony into a rose garden. No one in the house saw him with the ring. He was terrified that he had done something wrong and kept insisting that the ring was in the rose garden, 30 ft. away.

Laura was desperate for my help to search for the ring as this had created a family crisis. I met her that same morning, where she showed me a large rose garden that had maybe 50 roses in full bloom. After about an hour and a half of searching with a small coil on my detector that could get into tight areas around the base of the plants, I could not locate the ring. I expanded the search to the lawn and other landscape shrubbery.

There was a possibility that the ring could have hung up into rose plants. I threw a test ring several times into the plants and it fell through each time. Walking through the plants more than three times during the search could have dislodged a ring hanging in the bush? We also took time to probe each plant with a hand held pinpointer to no avail.

As I was getting ready to tell Laura that I had run out of places to search. I showed her how the only possibility ( if the ring was really thrown), would be that the ring hand been stuck in one of the plants. I tossed my test ring into a nearby plant to show her how it falls through the plant each time. This time it didn’t seem to pass through the plant. I couldn’t get a signal at the base of the plant, so I probed into the plant several times. After that I got a strong signal on the ground at the base of the plant. Laura was close so I asked her to retrieve the test ring.

She reached under the rose plant grabbed the ring and handed to me. Guess What? It was not my test ring, it was her mother in-law, Lucy’s  very sentimental wedding ring , which she had worn for 28 years. It had been hung up in the bush and I knocked it free with an aggressive probing with the detector coil. The test ring had passed through the bush and was about 18” away on the ground.

Lucy was in the house when Laura walked in to hand her the ring that had seemed to be lost forever. When Lucy came out to thank me, she still had tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. It was awesome to help them find the ring but I know it was a miracle that I didn’t walk away. You can’t tell how these small end up. There’s so many places a ring can hide. Finding rings takes a some skill and a lot of luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, Don and his wife Karina had been at Aliso Beach near Laguna Beach, CA. Karina had put her white gold diamond ring in the pocket of her shorts. When they returned home she went to retrieve her ring and it was not in the pocket. It must be at the beach?

Don took the next day off work, rented a metal detector and spent three hours finding several hand fulls of metal trash, mostly nails. A passerby suggested that he contact TheRingFinders website. It was 4:30pm when I talked to Don. He wanted to know if I was available today or tomorrow? Knowing the beach, I told him tomorrow may be too late. 

I met Don at the location, he was standing next to his rental metal detector with a pile of nails, stacked on top of the trash can. He was totally frustrated and at his wits end. This was an area that had been a fire pit. People burn wood pallets that are loaded with nails. In one way I was glad that the possible loss of the ring was in a trashy area, because other detectorist avoid searching these type areas. Another possible problem was Don had pushed a lot of the dry surface sand down a slight embankment which could have buried the ring out of detection depth.

I have practiced many hours with my detectors for this type search. It was a small area but it took a lot of concentration to listen for the right tone. My alternate plan would be to return the next day with my sifting equipment. After about an hour I got a mixed signal which turned out to be Karina’s beautiful white gold diamond ring in my scoop with two nails.

Don told me he had all but given up as he saw me nearing the end of the area. He had walked away to put things in his car. When he walked up to me he was expecting me to tell him that I couldn’t find it. Nevertheless he was surprised to see me hold up the very special ring. Another happy day for him and his wife Karina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was at Huntington State Beach doing a grid search for a ring that was possibly lost in a massive area, when Lauren and her twin sister, Lexis asked me if I could help them find a small gold heart pendant that was lost in the sand. 

It was beginning to get dark . I took a little break from my other search to give them a half hour and see the location with Lauren’s explanation of how the small pendant was lost. It seems the neckless had become unlatched while the Lauren was playing a game in the sand with her friends. Her twin sister had a matching pendant that were family heirlooms passed down from her mother and grandmother, irreplaceable and very sentimental. We were able to test my detector settings using the matching pendant and even though it was small my detector could get a signal.

I could not find the pendant that evening in a 50’x 50’ area but I knew I would be coming back the next day, so I took a phone number of their father. They thanked me for trying and I think they didn’t believe that I would return the next day.

The next day with nice sunny weather, I used my metal detector set up with a high frequency coil. The area was relatively free of metal trash which made it easy to listen for tones of small metallic targets. After about a half hour I was able to find Lauren’s small gold heart pendant. (Total weight of the pendant was .63 grams)

I sent a photo of the pendant to Jeremy, Lauren’s father and we met the next afternoon so I could personally return the pendant. He took time to thank me, telling me how much these family heirlooms meant to his twin daughters. That is why I love doing this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on the beach detecting about 4 miles away from Newport Beach when Mary called asking if I was available to help her husband to find his wedding band lost in the sand. She texted me the location and I met the family on a crowded portion of the beach a half hour later.

Mary’s husband Dee had been waving his hands in the air when he felt the Silver wedding band fly off his finger. All their attempts to find the ring by dragging their fingers through the sand became frustrating. Then someone on the beach told them about TheRingFinders website. 

They had contacted me in a timely manner and were able to stay in the location till I arrived. These are the kind of searches that I like and can tell them, I will find your ring.

It was a quick find. Most detectors could have found it. The problem would have been that the wrong person found the ring and had no way to find the owner. It was a pleasure to help Mary and Dee. Their visit to the beach was not upset by the loss of a sentimental keepsake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I reeived a call Sunday afternoon from Melissa she had a unusual situation where a family heirloom ring may have been lost on the side of a toll road. She generally explained to me that her husband’s brother had lost a gold ring that had belonged to his deceased father. It had happened a couple weeks ago, possibly on the side of the Orange County 73 toll road. Her question was, would I be willing to try searching the area?

We agreed to meet Monday with her brother in law, Josh. He took,a few minutes to tell me the what happen the evening of the loss before we drove onto the toll road. Two weeks before he had pulled to the side of the highway where he suffered a seizure. He was able to get out of his car, confused and disorientated, Josh remembered walking alongside the guard rail a couple blocks toward the next exit. He said, he had fallen a couple times. The next thing he remembered was was struggling with ambulance attendants as he had another attack. Later at the hospital is where Josh realized the ring was missing.

It is always a long shot when a person doesn’t feel the ring come off and so many possibilities of where the could have come off. I agreed to give it a try, at least to eliminate the area. I wasn’t quite sure how to legally proceed with the search. Pedestrians are not permitted on this particular toll road. When they searched the area they had called the highway patrol to get permission to search. The highway patrol sent a patrol car to ok the search location. 

It was too cold and windy Monday and I needed at least two hours to cover the large area. Tuesday after traffic slowed down I was able to park safely off the side of the road. 

Walking up to where Josh had parked his car, I started my grid search on the safe side of the guard rail. It was a 3 foot wide dirt path with marble size rocks. One side had asphalt and the other side was thick brush. I wanted to eliminate this 100 yards first but in my mind the best possibility would be where the struggle with the abundance personnel happened.

There was a lot of tin foil and pieces of aluminum trash, but 50 yards from the start of my search I got a pull tab or gold signal. Looking down I spotted the unique gold ring lying in the hard packed dirt amongst the rocks.

It was amazing, considering all the places that it could have been lost. I was also concerned that the highway patrol would not give a second permission to search because of liability laws.

I was able to send a photo of the ring to Melissa, who was totally responsible for making this happen. She talked me into giving a try, saying it was their last chance. Two hours later I met Melissa’s husband, Justin to return the ring.

He told me how his dad had worn this ring for as long as he could remember and that it meant so much to the whole family.

This was not an easy search but worth every minute of preparation and I’m so glad I didn’t refuse to try something that seemed impossible. I can’t get tired of seeing miracles.