Wedding Ring Found! – Kohler-Andrae State Park, Sheboygan, WI

A mix of sand, water and waves is notorious for making rings and jewelry vanish.

Last Saturday, Elmhurst, Illinois resident, Joe Reiff, saw his platinum wedding band leave his hand after he threw a Nerf football while standing knee deep in Lake Michigan. The ring tumbled out of sight into the churning shore waters. Despite his immediate rescue efforts and those of his friends, Dan’s marriage-token seemed destined to remain one with nature, forever hidden from the light of day.

After Joe contacted me, we arranged to meet at the beach a couple days later. The waves were unusually high. This added to the recovery challenge since gold and platinum tend to keep settling with the wave and sand movement. After an hour or so, I picked up a faint signal in the headset of my Minelab Excalibur detector. But the more I dug, the weaker the signal became as mounds of sand carried by the waves filled in the hole before I could get my scoop back in. If I was going to catch up with the target, it meant working faster. Sure enough, at the 20-inch marker on my scoop handle, the huge hole became quiet. This meant the object, whatever it was, had to be in my scoop. When I lifted it out of the waves and looked, there was Joe’s ring!

It is not often that our oceans and Great Lakes of North America give up their treasures. But this one was no match for technology and perseverance. Even after 40 plus years of metal detecting, it never ceases to amaze me that any rings are recovered. After all, a ring is a very small bit of metal and these bodies of water, immense!

Thanks, Joe, for giving me the opportunity to recover your ring. And thanks for your generous reward.

If someone you know has lost a ring, give me a call. You never know; even Lake Michigan gives up its treasures sometimes!