Diamond Championship Football Ring – FOUND on Sylvan Beach New York
This last May I decided to spend a morning using my metal detector on Sylvan Beach here in Central New York State. The wind was blowing quite hard from the west when I arrived at the beach so it would not be comfortable searching in the water today. That left me the dry sand to search. Working the dry sand is not that productive as most people are able to locate any rings, cell phones, etc. that they drop, but that still leaves lots of coins as targets. Most times working along the beach parallel to the water works best as you can concentrate on the “Blanket Line” where the most items are dropped. This day I worked perpendicular to the water. In other words, down to the water and then back up the sand to the edge of the beach as this covers the edges which are missed most times, and it also works the blanket line at a 90 degree angle to what most of the detectors have worked.
Well that paid off. At the very top of the beach, right next to the fences that separate the beach from the beach houses my Excalibur jumped to life and I started to dig. This target was deep, about 9 inches, and it took 6 scoops to UN-earth it. Out of the sand came this BIG Beautiful Football Championship Ring.
This was ONE BIG RING. I’m 6′ tall, weigh 200 pounds, wear a size 10 1/2 ring and my finger was just swimming in this one. It was silver with 10 diamond chips.
One thing about school rings is that they almost always have the school name engraved on them and also at least the initials of the owner. That makes them easy to return. Well this one not only had the name of the school in Pennsylvania, but also the name of the player. When I got home I called the college and talked to the football coach. I asked him for the address or phone number of the player. Well the coach protecting his player said that he would contact the player and have him call me. Sure enough about 2 hours later the phone rang and the player was on the line. The player had been on the beach the previous Sunday. (I found the ring on the following Thursday) The player had the ring in his bag and in taking assorted “stuff” out of it and he dropped the ring into the soft sand. They spent the better part of the rest of the day trying to locate the ring. He had hoped that someone with a detector would happen by, but as most of us know, beaches and beach personal don’t like us on the beach during the busy weekend days so no one was on the beach.
Think of this. In 5 days that ring went down 9 inches in the soft sand. That is way me must be notified ASAP if we are to have a chance of finding the ring.
Back to the story. The school had won the Pennsylvania State Football Championship for division 3 schools last year, (2015) when the player was a freshman, and he had gotten his ring this school year, (2015 – 2016) and he had lost it already. He lives in Utica New York, about 90 miles from where I live so I asked if we could meet at a Dunkin Donuts or some public place in between where I could give him back his ring. For some reason he did not want to meet, and he asked if I could send the ring to him. I reluctantly agreed. I really like to see the expression on their faces when I return the rings. Anyway, I boxed up the ring and sent it too him via USPS Priority Mail at a cost of $7.95
And that was the last time I heard from him. No thank you note, no payment for the shipping, and nothing for finding the ring. It makes me wonder if the ring really means that much too him.
Now I’m really not complaining. I must remember that he is a 18 year old kid and still does not have the social graces. The important thing is that the ring is back into the proper hands, but lesson learned for me.
Thank you Chris for starting up “The Ring Finders” web-site. I believe that you stated in ” The Ring Finders Infobook” that charging a turn out fee, or mileage beforehand, lets you know if the ring is really worth something to the owner. From now on I will follow your directions and hopefully this will not happen again.
