Constantine Hatzis, Author at The Ring Finders

Grandfather’s lost ring found

I had a call the other day from a young man who lost his grandfather’s ring while throwing a ball about in his garden. It was definitely around as he heard it bounce as it landed.  The question was which garden had it landed in? It was either their garden or nextdoor. After a thorough search in their garden including a pile of grass clippings that had unfortunately been contaminated with a few dog « lumps »….(the owner very kindly removed them), I decided to search nextdoor, with the permission of the owner of course. This garden was a complete contrast to the very tidy garden I had just searched. It was very overgrown, there was old furniture, broken jars and pots all over the place, and generally a disaster of a garden. This made it quite difficult to search, even with a 5 inch coil. It was time to use my pinpointer. After about half an hour or so I hit my target, a slightly deformed and worn signet ring. Another great recovery for a family to be reunited with grandfather’s ring.

Signet Ring Found near Woodstock, Oxfordshire

 

When I realised the ring I had been wearing non-stop for the last 10 years wasn’t on my finger one morning, I immediately panicked. This ring was a 21st birthday gift from my parents, engraved with my initials on the top and a message from them on the underside, so it was incredibly sentimental to me. I wracked my brains as to where it could be and my heart sunk when I realised there was a chance I could have lost it on a run the day before.  

I posted about losing my ring on an online neighbourhood community group which is where someone recommended ringfinders.com, which led me to finding Constantine. 10 days passed between losing my ring and Constantine coming to the rescue. These 10 days were spent tearing my hair out and turning my flat upside down, searching through hoover bags and food waste bins – glamorous!  

I had a gut feeling that my ring would most likely be somewhere outside, as I had been cleaning out my guinea pig’s hutch the morning I noticed it missing, and it was a particularly cold morning so my fingers had probably shrunk and were verging on numb so I wouldn’t have felt the ring come off.

 Constantine scanned the garden and piles of leaves thoroughly, but no joy. Then we decided to empty the garden waste bin (the contents of which covered the lawn!). I saw Constantine bend down to pick something up, and there it was! He’d found it! I couldn’t believe it. 

Antique diamond ring recovered from longboat marina in Warwickshire

 

I received a call from Willi who lost his diamond ring that his partner gave to him only three days before!

She had been looking for this very special ring for about six months and finally found one, only to be told by Willi that it had only just slipped from his finger while they were moored on their longboat in the marina where they live.

This happened about three weeks ago and they had since been on holiday on their boat, when they decided to give me a call.

In my time as a ringfinder I’ve done a fair few searches in water with great success. So we agreed I would do a search on Saturday 21st.  I was told the depth was about 25 inches, so off I went with my trusty Sorex Pro, waders and a couple of scoops.

When I got there the whole situation seemed a lot more challenging, there was no gentle slope onto the water but a drop straight into the marina.

A ladder was now required which we soon managed to find. Now the fun began , the depth may have been 25 inches in one place but it was more like 4 feet plus about 8 to 10 inches of soft silt. This meant the control box had to re positioned to the very end of the detector shaft and detecting with a normal one handed manner was not possible. Instead I had to use two hands and use the detector almost like a stirrer while also trying to keep my scoop and floating plastic tray nearby so I could offload the silt/clay into as it would not wash through my scoop very well.

Anyway after about 20 minutes, I kept getting a very clear signal that I just had to recover, problem was I was also getting very strong signals from the steel hull of a nearby boat, so that had to be moved. After much perseverance and much smelly water filling up my waders I managed to remove the signal from the marina bed and emptied the contents of my scoop into the tray. The pure signal was now in the tray! After a little feel around in the silt out came this beautiful ring. The only signal I managed to recover and it was the lost ring!

The look on Willi’s face was priceless, along with the sound of delight from both him and his partner and a fair few onlookers.

This has to be one of my most memorable recoveries , and so pleased at the outcome.

Willi has now been told he must have the ring re sized. Good idea as I really don’t want to have to go back into that slime pit again!

 

Diamond set Omega watch recovered from lake in Warwickshire village

This search was a difficult one. It was the second time I had been to recover some items that had been…well no easy way to say it but quite literally thrown in a lake.

The first visit was very difficult, it was just before Christmas and half the lake/ large pond was frozen which in some ways was helpful as the lost items would have been on the surface of the ice, so I only needed to look where the water had thawed. The water was extremely cold but I did have very high waders. that session I managed to recover one diamond ring and two bracelets before the cold really started to wear me down. Also I didn’t have the best sand scoop.

So I decided to return a couple of days ago with an all new sand scoop constructed by me using an old aluminium fire extinguisher. This thing worked great and was small enough not to grab masses of silt that was very heavy last time. The problem was this time there had been lots or rain and the water level was about a foot higher. this meant in the deepest parts the water would go over the top of my waders ( nearly 5 ft) and fill me up, very uncomfortable, also the control pod of my detector would have been submerged so that was cable tied to my shoulder strap. Anyway after a few hours and bits of trash I had a good signal, there was zero visibility in the water as one could imagine with the amount of silt, so retrieving that target was a challenge, what came out was part of a watch bracelet that was an item I had been tasked to recover. The rest of the watch had to be very close, another ten minutes and out came the rest of the the watch. It was diamond set ladies Omega Constellation with mother of pearl dial and diamonds for each numeral, and still working!

A very happy lady! and a very smelly drive home!

Lost platinum wedding ring found in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

 

« I was absolutely crushed when my wedding ring flew off into some very thick trees, bushes, ivy and other dark undergrowth when out jogging one evening. Unfortunately, I had been unable to see exactly what direction it had flown off in so had quite a wide search area of about 10 metres square to thrash through.
After a total of six hours (across the course of the evening when the incident happened and the morning after) of searching I had given up on ever seeing it again but decided to go online – just to see if I could get any last ideas of how I might find it and stumbled across Constantine’s profile. In short – he saved my life. I contacted Constantine in the morning and by the afternoon he had come up from Oxfordshire with his equipment. It took him about an hour to find the ring – deep under some brambles. 
Worth every penny of the modest call-out fee and reward! »

Diamond platinum engagement ring found in Warwickshire village!

I was contacted while on holiday by the husband of a lady who lost her ring while feeding her chickens.

The husband was quite upset as was she and there was talk of lots of hassles with the insurance company.

I was convinced it would still be there unless the chickens stole the ring!

After an extensive search of the garden and repeated searches in the shed, I found the ring in a sack of hay!

Very happy all round!

 

Lost gold ring found back in May near Reading

I recovered this gold ring after and extensive search of a garden near Reading, the compost pile had been scanned along with all the beds and under every bush etc. At first I hit a signal but it was too deep but I had to investigate as you do. This was a real bonus as out popped a lovely silver ring the the gents wife was very fond of so she kept it. Sorry but no pictures for this one.

A few hours later while searching in the vegetable patch I found the rather large gold ring! A very happy Professor!

Lost Gold Ring Found in Oxfordshire

A young lady lost her gold ring a couple of weeks ago. It was  given to her by her grandmother. This was a family heirloom and needed to be recovered.

After a long search in a very popular scenic site of Wittennham Clumps  in Oxfordshire the pair were finally reunited.

Made everyone’s day.

Lost pendant and cross recovered

After losing a pendant my father gave me thirty five years ago and a tiny cross in an English field of long grass whilst hiking, I never thought I’d see them again.   Then we found theringfinders.com and got in touch with Constantine.  Constantine was fantastic – he changed his plans for last Sunday to come out to a field in the middle of nowhere to look for my jewellery and found these tiny objects in really really long grass!!
Throughout it all, Constantine was also really great to chat with, really supportive and extremely helpful, even picking me up from our B&B.  Really appreciated his help and would recommend him to anyone – thank you so much for all your help, Constantine!!

Lost Gold watch

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Lost gold watch found after the owner was tidying his garden. Problem was it was in an area which was used for fires for many years, which was overgrown and full of trash. recovered in about an hour. He gave it a little wind and it sprang into life!

Smiles all round!