How to Find a Lost Ring , Ship Bottom NJ, LBI, recovered by Edward Trapper, NJ Ring Finder
It was very late in the evening when I heard my phone ding, it was the sound of an incoming text. The text was from Skylar, who had earlier in the day, lost 3 extremely precious rings, with great sentimental value. Unfortunately, the exact location information was also posted on a local Facebook page. I will ALWAYS make contact and request that information to be pulled down immediately, just for safe keeping. It was around 3 A.M., and when we finally made phone contact, Skylar agreed pulled down the location info, as I was going to head out to the location and attempt to recover the rings. Once I arrived and made just a few short sweeps of the area, my metal detector signaled a real nice high tone, which was consistent with the material her rings were made of. Sure enough, in the first scoop, BINGO, all 3 rings were safely in my possession, waiting to be returned, later that day. I sent Skylar a picture while we were on the phone, but prior to telling her I had the rings. I could tell by the tone of her voice when she opened the pic, she was in total shock. Its those moments that make this so rewarding. We arranged to meet half way to return her rings, talk a bit, and snap a few pics.
Wolfie contacted me about locating his brand new wedding ring. He explained that after spending the day at the beach, he notice his ring went missing after they returned home for the day. Unfortunately, this happens quite often with newlyweds, as they are not used to having the ring on their hand, so it hasn’t become habit to notice it missing. I wasn’t able to head right out as I usually do, but assured him I would be out later closer to low tide. I had him do all the essentials in the mean time, pin location in google maps, take pictures of the location, secure the area if possible, and make some kind of identifying mark of the spot just encase all other measures failed. It was very dark that night which limited my visibility, even with the bright headlamp. As I was still maneuvering to the pinned location, Wolfie showed up and put me right on the spot they were set up that day. Within about 5 minutes my metal detector sounded off a sweet low tone, which was consistent with the ring he had described. Sure enough, Wolfe’s ring was now safely in my sand scoop, soon to be back on his finger, just after a few quick pics for my recovery story.
Ally reached out to me, as a last-chance effort, in trying to get her precious engagement ring back, that unfortunately was dropped in the bay, on a nice Jersey Shore summer afternoon. She was very concerned there was no hope, as it had already been in the water for close to a week. I asked why she waited so long to call me, and her reply was « another local ring finder looked and had no luck ». I usually wont make it a practice to follow up behind another ring finder, but Ally hadn’t heard any more from him about his follow-up search, and was desperate at this point. After quite a long conversation, I decided Ally really needed me, and agreed to do the recovery. She sent me all the pertinent information, and I assured her I would go at the first possible brake in the, wind, and weather. The tides would also have to coincide with the search day. Our first conversation was 11 PM the day before, when I told her I would check in with her next morning. The following morning at 5 AM, as I was getting ready for work, I looked the weather over real good, and guess what, » today is the day ». I text Ally and told her I was going for it today before low tide, she was thrilled with the timely updates, which she was not used to. I suited up with all my gear, and proceeded with the 1/3 mile walk in the water, just to get to the location it was lost. Once I was set up, I started to do a tight grid search, clearing over 20 signals, all of which had potential, to ensure her ring wasn’t missed by an overpowering signal. It really seemed like to many targets for an area that was supposedly searched, just 6 days prior, even though this is a huge boaters party area. And no they were not recent drops, as they were all down at least 4″ plus. I was super confident of my location, so I kept plugging along and after about 45 minutes my Metal Detector screamed out a low consistent tone, that almost immediately had Ally’s ring written all over it. While clearing the sand from my scoop, I could feel the tink, tink, tink of her ring, but at first glance, I didn’t see it hiding under the shells. But I knew that tink was NOT a shell, and gave the scoop a little wiggle, and there it was, WOW, was this a heart testing moment, seeing the diamonds sparkling back at me. My gut was right, I was in the right spot, and NJ Ring Finder just made someone’s last chance hopes a true reality. !!!!
Caitlin called In reference to locating her necklace, that was lost on the beach. She told me she had left to go home, but knew the exact location where it could be. She explained that she took the necklace off, and placed them inside her hat, which she then placed on her blanket for safe keeping. When she was getting ready to leave for the day, she had forgotten about the necklace, and placed the hat on her head and started walking up the dune path to head home. It was very windy that day and at one point the hat had blown off her head. After retrieving the hat, she continued over the walkway. When she got to the top, she realized she had placed her necklace in the hat and it was gone. She went back to take a look he wasn’t able to find anything. I was able to go the following morning, and after about 20 minutes I was able to locate the necklace. Unfortunately, the cross was nowhere to be found. My guess is the cross never came out of the hat and was lost in a different location.
I was on the road heading home from a recovery, when I saw a message come across from Alan. He lost a very sentimental gold charm, on the volleyball court the day before and was very interested to see if I would be able to locate it with my metal detector. He told me it was a private location, and with that I knew I had some time before I had to get to his recovery. I asked him to give me a call later on in the evening and I would see what other calls I had in that area and try to schedule them together. As it turns out, I was heading up to that area the next morning and told Alan I would do his recovery right after I finished the first one I had already scheduled . I got all the details I needed, as he was 95% sure the Charm was on the volleyball court. Once I got there I made a couple of paths along the one side of the court, when I got a sweet tone from my metal detector, and sure enough, it turned out to be his charm. I sent Alan a picture, which he could not believe that I was able to locate it. He was not in the area anymore, so he requested that I leave the charm with the homeowner. Alan requested to withhold his picture, and I fully understand , some people just don’t want to be on Facebook. Another recovery in the books .
I notice a text from Christopher requesting some help in locating Sandra’s David Yurman bracelet she had somehow lost on the beach in LBI the day before. They were not exactly positive that it was lost on the beach, but figured it was the most likely place it could be. The day before Sandra and some friends were doing some whale watching from the beach, and getting some excellent drone footage of the whales at the same time. That made me just a little nervous, as the whales move rather quickly up and down the beach, and it was very possible Sandra did the same. We arranged to meet at the house and walked up to the beach, while we discussed exactly what area they had spent most of the day prior. I asked Christopher to walk in front of me to box out the spot, as I followed behind, dragging my sand scoop around the perimeter. It was just a short while later, right in front of a group of people, that actually follow NJ Ring Finder on Facebook, where my metal detector got a loud signal, consistent with the bangle bracelet. Sure enough, It was Sandra’s bracelet, safe in my sand scoop, after spending two days buried in the Jersey Shore sand. Another near tragedy turned into memories !!!!