Doug Hardy, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 2 of 3

I got a call late in the day that a wedding ring had been lost over the weekend. He’d been working out in the compost pile moving things around, moving dirt to the flower beds, trimming branches, etc. All the fun things that homeowners do. At the end of the day he realized his wedding ring had come off. He borrowed a friend’s metal detector, but hadn’t had any luck recovering the ring, which is when he called me. I met him at his house the next morning, and began searching the flower beds, garden paths, and compost pile. The ring turned out to be in the compost pile, amongst the yard trimmings, food scraps, coffee grounds, etc. As with most husband-ring-recoveries, he was happy, but his wife was overjoyed. Glad to be able to help!

I got a call from a gentleman who had decided to wash his dog in the front yard of his house. He took his wedding ring off, set it on the towel, washed the dog, then grabbed the towel before the dog decided to run around and get dirty again. Mission accomplished — the dog was clean and the drying towel was in the washer, but the wedding ring was nowhere to be found. He and a friend searched the yard but were unable to find it. He called and I came out that afternoon to try to recover it for him. After about 45 minutes, I was able to find the ring, but I also found a sterling silver St. Christopher pendant. He was excited to get the ring back, but was amazed to see the pendant, which he and his wife had gotten for their daughter in Italy. It had been lost for over a year!

I was contacted by a man who had lost his wedding ring the previous evening on a sand volleyball court.  His fellow players had searched the court as soon as it came off, they weren’t able to locate the ring in the sand. Although he was pretty sure he knew when and where it came off,  they were still unable to find it.

After meeting him at the court, he showed me where he had been on the court and what he had been doing when it came off. As you can see in the picture, this is not a normal gold or silver ring recovery; in fact, he wasn’t sure exactly what the metal was.

As it turned out, the good news is that it he lost it on a volleyball court — there is usually only a small amount of trash on vball courts. After balancing the detector, it took less than a minute to recover the ring. Glad to be able to help!

I received a call from a woman who had been out on a dinner-movie date with her husband. Somewhere between the beginning of the movie and arriving in her living room, she had lost her wedding ring. There are wedding rings, and then there are WEDDING rings — she was devastated by the loss of this one. Starting at the theater parking lot, her steps were retraced (parking lot, car, driveway, yard, and deck), all searched with no luck. She thought maybe the ring had come off on the deck and fallen through, so the whole under-the-deck area was searched too — still no luck.

After coming up empty-handed, I went back to her house to give it one more try. Based on that second search, here’s what we were able to piece together about the night the ring was lost.  Apparently, when they got home after the movie and their large dog greeted her at the rear of the house, she threw her hands up and the ring flew off her finger. It not only cleared the deck (and just missed the corner of the house) but landed in the side yard, 30-35 feet from where she was. Although it was covered by some fallen leaves, it was an easy recovery once I included the side yard into the search area. She burst into tears when I showed her what I had found in the leaves.

Of all the places to lose a ring, « in the lake » has to be one of the most difficult. The ring moves as it settles to the bottom, you can’t see the bottom, and you need to use waterproof gear.

I was contacted by a man who had lost his wedding ring throwing a football at in a lake in a local state park. We agreed to meet at the lake so he could show me exactly where he lost it and also so we could get permission from the park staff to metal detect — it’s normally prohibited in state parks. (The one exception is to recover a lost item; in that case, the park management will usually allow someone to bring in a detector to recover something lost.)

We met, spoke to the park staff (who were great), he showed me the spot, and we made arrangements to meet back the following morning to search. This particular lake is anything but clear, so you’re essentially relying on the machine to tell you where the target is and then bring up sand from the bottom a scoop at a time until you find it. It took about an hour, but after 3 quarters, two dimes, a penny, a silver locket, and a different wedding band, I was able to pull up his ring.

His very pregnant wife was waiting patiently (anxious, but trying to be patient) on the beach while we searched, and was overjoyed when I was able to bring it up to the surface. I know she was glad that he had the ring back, but it was also very important to her that he would have his ring in time for the upcoming delivery. I was glad to have been able to help make that happen!