Lost for 15 Years — Great-Grandmother’s 1890s Black Hills Gold Ring Found and Returned by metal detector specialist—Trevor Oxborrow.
Two weeks ago, my cousin Shawna, told me about a friend of hers that had lost her ring and she would pass along my contract info.
Then a few days later, her friend Margie, contacted me requesting a ring search. The ring had originally belonged to her great-grandmother and had been passed down to her. Margie’s mother had given her the ring just shortly before she lost the it in a Nevada hot springs.
No big deal, that sounds doable. Only thing, the ring was lost 15 years ago.
Fast forward to October 17th, I drove two hours out to the hot springs on the edge of the Black Rock Desert Playa. The ring loss location was near the edge of the hot springs soaking natural pool in about 5 to 6 feet of water. The bottom had 5 to 6 inches of soft thick mud and a harder gravel mud base below that.
The search area was specific, since Margie had noticed the exact moment the heirloom ring slipped off her finger—15 years ago. Would it still be there after all this time?
The water was deep enough that I used my blu3 Nemo dive system, weight belt and mask. Other equipment included my metal detector, pinpointer and digging tool.
The water was clear as I started searching, but immediately clouded with the fine grey muddy silt.
So I was searching with zero visibility and only able to listen for targets from my metal detector via the bone conducting earphones and through the vibration of my pinpointer.
Old ring-pull-tabs were the order of the day. Each one took time to locate, pinpoint and dig out of the fairly hard gravel mud base.
It must have been about an hour and half of searching underwater when I got one more signal that sounded just like the last zillion pull-tabs, only this time I felt the weight and thick shape of a gold ring.
Margie was super happy and we were all a little shocked that the ring was found after such a long time buried in the mud at the bottom of the hot springs.
Another successful lost ring recovery
by Trevor Oxborrow.
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