Brian Feeny, Author at The Ring Finders

I got a call the other day from Candice, she lost her engagement ring.  It was in thick grass outside of a housing development.  She knew the area she lost it within 20x20ft.  She put me in touch with Eric her finance who would meet me at the location.

They were desperate.  They had contacted RingFinders all over the directory some even 2 hours away.  Eric had searched for over 9 hours!  After the ring was lost (in the evening), and was swallowed by the thick grass, he searched with no success.  He even went and bought a Harbor Freight metal detector!  I have heard many people do this.  I guess, most places don’t sell metal detectors, so people search out Harbor Freight.  I can tell you, I have never heard anyone going this route and having success.  I am not sure if the Harbor Freight detector is garbage, I assume it is.  But even if it was something decent, like a Garrett ACE 250, metal detecting is not something you just go buy a detector and have immediate success with, it takes time and experience.

A huge storm was coming in, and Eric was about 40 min away.  I immediately left and made way to him and met him at the location.  I knew whatever we did we had to work quickly, because the storm was coming in.  I had my CTX 3030 with a large coil on it, which was overkill, but I wasn’t going to take the time to change it.  I also had the Equinox in tow as a backup.  When he showed me the location, I immediately put my detector down.  I pulled out two Garrett ProPointer AT’s (carrots), handed him one and gave him a quick lesson.  I dropped a quarter into the grass and set the sensitivity on the pinpointers.  I told him to take one side of the grid, and I the other, and we were just going to manually sweep the ground on our knees………this is the best approach.

When you know the area, and its quite small (20×20), and you know its going to be on the surface, you don’t need much tech.  If you use a detector, then the approach is you turn sensitivity WAY down………you don’t want to pull in all the garbage, wires, etc underground.  This worked well. I got an immediate hit, it was just a piece of can slaw 1 inch down, which I removed knowing it wasn’t the ring but I didn’t want it masking.  Eric seemed a bit concerned because he wasn’t getting any hits, but he was going about it perfectly, fanning the grass and making a grid.  I told him just keep it pressed into the ground so you get maximum depth.

In just minutes, Eric gets a hit and starts to zero in on it and I hear the pinpointer tones get more centered.  I told him « That sounds promising! ».  Eric digs, and says « Son of a bitch! »……and pulls up, his finances engagement ring!

Our strategy of divide and conquer worked great.  We beat the storm!  Took about 5 min from the time we started until recovery.  Eric had good information to go off of, even though it was dark, he had good knowledge of *where* the ring likely landed, which is the most important thing.

A happy ending!  I was so happy that Eric was able to recover the ring, it makes for a great story.

The picture below is of Eric, with his speedy recovery.  He tried for 9 HOURS to find this ring, and even bought that Harbor Freight detector.  Once he called RingFinders he quickly got his treasure back!

Brian

 

 

Got a call today from Simon.  He had just lost his platinum ring about 30 minutes earlier at Spanish River Park in Boca Raton.  He was playing catch, and when he caught the ball it knock the ring off his finger.  He was smart to take a shovel he had with him and immediately mark the spot of where he was when the ring fell off.  After a Google search he found ringfinders and got ahold of me.  I got down there in about an hour.  Spanish River is a beautiful park, and costs about $20 to park!  If you are a resident of Boca you can get a pass for like $50 a year, but I am not a resident.

I always bring multiple detectors just in case.  I grabbed my Excalibur, as it is my goto detector at the beach, because you never know if your search will lead you into the water.  When I got there, the Excel died almost immediately after turning it on, the battery was drained!  Back to the car and grabbed the CTX3030.  Fired it up, and started gridding the area.  I immediately found a penny, which I knew was not the target based on its ID, and it was like 6″ down, but I didn’t want to have it masking my target, and its always nice to pull out something when I first get to a recovery because it puts the person who lost their ring at ease…..oftentimes they are amazed that I can pinpoint a penny 6″ down and immediately pull it out.  In quick work, less than 4min, I got a nice smooth low tone……I knew it was the ring.  I went in with the pinpointer and out it popped.

Simon, a happy person, thanked me and gave me a nice reward for my time and effort.  It was a beautiful day at the beach, and a nice happy ending.  A smiling pic of Simon below with his fine specimen!

Got a call the other day from Arianna.  She had lost her mothers ring while walking in the yard on the side of her house.  The ring was very interesting, it was actually 3 rings linked together, but on the small side.  I wasn’t able to get to it right away but told her I would be out the next day.  When I arrived, it was already dark.  I brought my AT Pro and Pro Pointer and as soon as she showed me the spot I went to work.  In less than 20 seconds, I hit a 52, which was a a solid gold signal.  Out popped the ring, and she was very happy.

 

I got a frantic call yesterday.  A man described how his wife had lost her $12,000 Tiffany engagement ring on the beach!  The couple had just been married hours earlier  He was so distraught he said he can’t even go look for it he is sick to his stomach.  I told him I would be right over.  I arrived at the Indian River Resort on Hutchinson Island, Florida.  There was an entire wedding party there, with the bride in a bikini and a coverup, a really cool Florida beach wedding.  They had the area marked off.  Apparently the bride removed her engagement ring to show the sister in-law, and the sister in-law dropped it, it hit a cooler and bounced into the sand.  Even if you know the approximate area a ring is in the sand, finding it with your hands by sifting is almost impossible in the fine Florida sand.  I got to work and found the ring in less than 10 minutes.  Everyone was extremely happy and the day was saved!

 

I saw an ad on Craigslist that Jesse had lost his crystal necklace (quartz).  It was a rather large piece of quartz, about two inches in length.  I started several communications with Jesse because I needed to know details: Which beach entrance did you go in? Where were you sitting? Did you go in the water? If so, how deep and at what time? etc. etc.

Jesse knew all the details, he gave me markers of where he was.  It turns out this necklace had a magnetic clasp (a recipe for losing any item).  He recalled having it on in the water.  Shortly after he left the beach he noticed it missing.  I was concerned, as it could be in the water.  Not a problem, as I am fully outfitted for underwater recovery, but it was the evening now, and it would have to wait until the next day if it was in the water……but maybe it wasn’t.

I swung by the location Jesse mentioned at 10pm.  I came upon a huge cut.  It was probably 4.5 feet of vertical drop.  Jesse mentioned there was a cut and he was sitting just behind it.  I searched the area but only found a few bottle caps, it was actually a very clean beach.  I then went down and did started checking the cut itself, not easy when its so steep, and at night.  In the cut, like many do, I saw a slight valley that bathers were using to go to and from the beach to the ocean.  Usually these are created because someone first tried to make the journey, fell or slid and opened a valley.  I know that most bathers would be using this to make the journey to the ocean and back, and that many slip and fall here as its still pretty steep.  I got a hit, and out popped Jesse’s necklace, magnetic clasp and all.

He was completely floored that I found it.  The quartz necklace is basically worthless.  Its on a ball chain, and is a basic quartz crystal that is wrapped in wire.  Jesse however gave me a generous reward, saying that this was very important to him and had sentimental value.

Here is a picture of the find:

As a Ring Finder, I get some unusual requests for lost items.  Last week I got a request from a young lady who’s mother had lost her dentures.  She was at the back bar, on the beach, at a very nice resort in Palm Beach.  She had fainted and when she came to, she was missing her teeth!

Before I had arrived, the staff had used many tools such as shovels and rakes to sift through and move sand about.  I was a bit concerned because this can actually make the recovery a bit more difficult.

It took a few hours of digging, because this particular area of the beach was a high traffic area located right next to a staircase, a bar and a trash can.  Trash can mask targets, so I first started by eliminating all objects I could.  Dentures have a bit of metal in them, they are connected by thin metal wires.  This does not register as the strongest signal, but it is definitely detectable.

After getting the area cleaned out, I got a hit and dug out the dentures!  The owner was very happy to be reunited with her teeth, as she was on vacation and it would have certainly been a spoiled time if she had to continue without them.