Ocean City Maryland lost and found Tag | The Ring Finders

Brian Rudolph, Lost Item Recovery Specialist (Land, Water, Sand, Snow, Leaves, Cliffs, Houses & Vehicles) Will Find Your Lost Keepsake! Call ASAP (301) 466-8644!

Tommy’s family heirloom 14 karat yellow gold classic wedding band that belonged to his grandfather for 50 years until he died. Also, Tommy’s sterling silver confirmation crucifix pendant and chain.

I received a phone call from Tommy’s mother Kris who was extremely upset for her son’s loss of his grandfather’s 14 karat yellow gold classic wedding band, Tommy’s sterling silver confirmation crucifix pendant and silver chain that everything was connected around it.

The young lady requested my assistance in trying to recover these very special keepsakes on behalf of her son. Tommy’s grandfather wore that wedding band on his finger for 50 years until the day he passed away. The other jewelry had been worn by Tommy since he was a young boy. Obviously, there was a lot of special meaning connected to each of these pieces of precious metal.

The story goes like this. Tommy was out having fun on the Ocean City, Maryland beach with his friend. When he decided to go into the water, he took off his sterling silver chain which held his grandfather’s wedding band and the confirmation crucifix pendant. Tommy gave the jewelry to his friend who wore it around his neck until he had to leave the beach to go do something else. When the friend was about to leave, he took the chain off that he was wearing and placed it on Tommy’s shirt that was laying in the sand. He assumed that Tommy would see the chain and then place it back on his own neck before leaving the beach. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

It turned out that when Tommy returned from the Atlantic Ocean water, he picked up his shirt but did not notice the chain lying on top of his things. Instead, he put his shirt on and left the beach to meet up with his friend.

A few hours later, the two guys were heading to Dewey Beach, Delaware when Tommy remembered that he hadn’t gotten his chain back from his friend. He asked if he could have his chain back and that’s when his friend told him that he had left it for him on his shirt back on the Ocean City beach. You can imagine what was going through Tommy’s mind at that point. He was really upset and he wanted to get back onto the beach as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the friends were nearly 45 minutes away from Ocean City, so they decided to return to the beach in the middle of the night after returning from Dewey Beach.

After a long night of partying as well as lots of worrying (about the jewelry), the two friends returned to the spot where they were hanging out on the beach earlier the previous day. With their phone lights on, they searched endlessly and yet they had absolutely no luck in finding the sentimental keepsakes. When they were worn out beyond measure, they left the beach and returned later that morning during daylight hours and continued their mission to recover the lost property. Sadly, no matter how much time was spent looking for the gold ring, silver crucifix and chain, all of the two young men’s efforts led to no avail. That was about the time when Tommy called his mother and shared the bad news with her. In desperation, Kris went online and searched for help. Thankfully she found the elite international directory of metal detectorists called THE RING FINDERS! The concerned mother immediately looked up a ring finder in the Ocean City, Maryland area and that’s when she discovered my profile. After talking on the phone with Kris and getting all of the details, I then talked with Tommy and we worked out a time for me to meet him out on the beach to see if I could recover the very special items.

Later that afternoon, I drove 3 hours to the east coast in the attempt of finding Tommy’s lost jewelry. With every minute that passed, I was beyond delighted to be on that mission to help save very special memories that belonged to Tommy and his family.

When I arrived in Ocean City, Maryland, Tommy took me to the approximate spot where he thought that he and his friend had placed their things on the sand. There were some rocks near the water and he said that he specifically remembered that particular landmark. This gave me some confidence that at least we were in the right search zone. The only questions remained. One: Was Tommy accurate as to the distance from the water to where he thought they placed their things on shore? Two: Did Tommy accurately remember the distance (from left to right if looking towards the water) from where the rocks were to over where the guys’ things were placed? And three: Could someone have already discovered the precious metal items from the time the guys left the beach until the time that I arrived to help Tommy out? There are situations where my clients think they remember where they were when they lost their items, but come to find out, they were searching the whole time in the wrong place and with metal detecting gear that they didn’t know how to operate or the equipment was inappropriate for their particular application.

After Tommy finished answering all of my questions as to the search parameters that I was to detect, my client took off down the beach for a nice long walk towards the pier and I in turn got out all of my equipment to begin the search.

I methodically swung my metal detector across the grid lines that I created on the beach. I did not miss a square inch and I made certain that I searched much farther from north to south as well as farther distances east to west just to make sure that there was no room for error.

Once I finished detecting the dry sand that was closest to the water and then towards the middle of the beach, I started to get concerned because the jewelry was nowhere to be found. I concluded that either Tommy had me looking in the wrong area or someone had already detected that section of the beach and walked away with the lost ring, cross and chain.

My last attempt to find the family heirloom and other jewelry was to search farther up the sand in the direction towards the boardwalk. Also, I would detect farther south, in the opposite direction of where the rocks were located.

After just a few minutes of implementing this new strategy, I got a very curious signal on my metal detector. All along, I knew that if I found the missing jewelry, the VDI numbers on my detector screen would vary in sequence. This is because we were dealing with various objects and made of different metals. So, when I got that particular hit, my detector was registering numbers all over the place. That’s when I was pretty certain that I had found what I had been looking for all that time!

I’m happy to share that when I got down on my knees to inspect the sand, little by little I began pulling from down below the most handsome sterling silver chain with a large crucifix and a yellow gold wedding band connected to the chain! I could not have been happier at that moment for my client Tommy!

While I had been detecting earlier, there were some skeptics sitting nearby and they didn’t think there was a chance in the world that I would be able to recover this very special property. Just as a couple of those naysayers were getting up to leave the beach, the two of them were beyond impressed with the successful outcome! I gave much thanks to the Lord for me being able to help Tommy out! When he returned from his walk, he was extremely emotional and blown away by the news! We both thanked God together for answering our earlier prayer that we lifted up to Him!

There was a large crowd that was off in the distance and they all celebrated with the two of us! Then, a whole group of Tommy’s friends eventually came on to the sand from the boardwalk which resulted in many hugs and high fives being exchanged between all of us! I can’t express what a wonderful time that was to be able to help this young man save something as precious as his late grandfather’s gold wedding band and Tommy’s own confirmation crucifix that meant so very much to him! When I spoke with Tommy’s mother later on that evening, Kris was very choked up and her words of thanks meant very much to me! I was so glad that I received her call earlier in the day!