You just never know what you’ll find or if you’ll find the owner

Sunday March 1 2020

fellow ring finder Kent blethen and his girlfriend Mary Jane and I went out detecting at a beach an hour and a half drive away, we got there about an hour before low tide in hopes that the beach had lost some sand and would bring up some of the better gold targets. The first 20 minutes or so were pretty slow and there were only a few coins and pieces of trash showing up which is a bit discouraging but we pressed on (it wasn’t even worth turning the GoPro on). I decided to walk just into the water to where the beach dropped off on to the flats which was about 4-6 inches of water and i got a signal on my minelab ctx 3030 that showed as a 12.23-12.25 it was a solid signal so I turned the camera on and I’m glad I did, about 6 inches down was a class ring 10k yellow gold from Medford high school Class  of 1947 With the initials FGF. My first thought was wow 1947 I highly doubt the owners was still alive and if so 89-90 years old.

i pocketed th ring and continued about the trip and managed to come across another gold ring and a gold earring. Back at the truck for the return trip I figured that we had an hour ride back to their house so I’d at least try to find a picture or name for the guy with the ring, 10 minutes in I had a name frank fredella, after finding his name in the year book I searched it on google with the town the school was in and several towns away there was a match with a 90 year old man  and a bio saying Medford high, a few minutes later I had a number to call which I left a message on the answering machine saying to call me back. Shortly after the call I searched Facebook for another name that was listed as related persons and found his daughter who I messaged to have her call me. We got back to the house around 1:30 pm and I got a call from frank who said he was told to call Me, I said I believe I found your class ring and he asked which one, I told him the 1947 Medford high ring but he told me it was in the drawer (that’s what his wife told him) he then told me if it was his he’d like to have it back and where I could meet him the next day to return it, we hung up and made plans to head there the next day. I shot him a picture of the ring with the initials and he responded very quickly that’s it that’s my ring. The next day Kent and I went up to return the ring and were met by frank who is probably the youngest 90 year old person out there and is a super nice guy. He told us he was very Leary of the call at first which I understand and that his wife was telling him it was a scam until he got the pictures of it, he asked her to go grab the ring when I sent the pictures and she couldn’t find it, he told her that if I was a scammer then I was doing a really good job I even put the initials in the ring. Needless to say he was very happy to have it back and I was very happy to help.

You just never know what you will find when out detecting or if you’ll find the owner of what you found.