Pete McGhee, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 3 of 11

How to find a Manhole Cover – Russell, Bay of Islands.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Had a call from Gary – He’d lost a manhole cover!
A big, heavy, cast iron manhole cover… put down over a water bore in the early 1990’s.

Now normally a manhole is an easy target, except this one wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Going off the 30 year old recollections of the previous caretaker who was present at the installation showed that memory can be a fickle thing especially with the passage of time.

As more memories came in, the story about the location became confused and strewn with ‘red herrings’. Was the manhole even still there, or had it been replaced with wood, or had the plastic bore casing and alkathene been sealed and backfilled with no metallic targets to find?
Consulting old aerial photos online , and even the Regional Council borehole database didn’t help improve the odds of refining the actual, or even general location given the database showed it was out in the adjacent estuary.

With the bore stated as being « 60cm below surface », the orchard started to show the effect of false, but promising targets.

An old fencing stake buried vertically below the surface was chased downwards in the hope it was marking the bore (that was a big hole!), and even a spoon made an appearance in another hole as I hunted for a potential deep brass, copper or galvanised fitting.

As the final remaining pockets of grass among the trees were cleared, the detector – set for maximum sensitivity for a deep target, suddenly overloaded the headphones – and there, just under the grass was the edge of a manhole cover.

Fortunately only 6cm down, and not 60…

A significant expense to drill a new bore had been avoided.

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Kaikohe Wedding Ring Lost Over Edge. Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Yesterday, Moana was tidying up her vege planter and throwing the weeds over the edge of the bank in Kaikohe, when she heard and felt a clash of rings on her throwing hand.
Checking, she realised that she had just lost her mums precious gold wedding ring over the steep bank and into the Kikuyu.
Someone loaned her a cheap detector, however without decent equipment and experience in recoveries the odds were stacked against her.

She didn’t locate it.

I got a call last night asking if I was able to help, and this afternoon I was shown the scene, not the toughest job I’ve had, but would have been in the top 10 – I certainly had my work cut out on this one.
Looking for a tiny ring in knee-deep Kikuyu on a slope that ranged from steep, to having to hang onto handfuls of grass to stop sliding away had potential to be a long hard battle.
90 minutes later though, I was knocking on the door with the gold ring in my hand.
The reactions I get are always worth far more to me than gold.

If you’ve lost a ring in the garden or even a paddock, maybe you’ve hired a metal detector or a friend has had a go without luck and you’ve given it up as lost – give me a call !
I’ll do my best to put that ring back on your finger and a smile back on your face!

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Important Key Lost in House – Found by Intensive Search

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Kim phoned me on behalf of a friend asking if I was able to do a house search for an important key.
I generally don’t do domestic searches for lost items purely because they can be. by necessity, very intrusive into peoples ‘space’.

Whilst conventional metal detectors are ineffective inside houses, I have a range of small coils, pinpointers and remote cameras to aid a physical search.

Kim explained the circumstances: Her elderly friend had lent their car to another elderly friend – who had misplaced the key.
It could have been anywhere from the car to inside the house, maybe in a wood shed…or, who knows?

Knowing the significant expense and hassle involved in an insurance claim, especially for an 80-something year old, I agreed.
Though it was over 100km away, the travel would largely be covered by a Pay-It-Forward recovery I had done recently.

I arrived the following morning and met with Jan, she was most apologetic as we went through retracing her steps as best we could, and I explained how I would be conducting the search.
Starting with the car, the last known point where she would have had the key, I began the systematic and meticulous elimination of areas.
With the car and driveway cleared, the search progressed up onto the deck and then into the house.

From here it was a matter of examining everything Jan had, or had potentially interacted with the previous day. On, in, under, beside, behind…

An hour later, in the bottom of a box of assorted dog leashes, treats and toys etc. a shape caught my eye.

I held up a key,  » This it? »

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Phone Lost in Russell, Found in Dense Scrub

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Jimmy contacted me as his houseguest had lost his phone in some scrub near Russell.

He had been helping him clear invasive trees from a steep and very overgrown hillside, with his phone ‘safe’ in a leg pocket, secured by a hefty press-stud.

At some stage in his wanderings and stumblings through the dense undergrowth, the press stud on the pocket had been caught and come undone – The phone likely found its way out shortly after. « Murphys Law » came into play with zero reception, so his attempts to ring or otherwise locate the phone were futile.

The going was very tough with a large coil, negotiating the many trees lying where they had fallen, in places the branches meant I couldn’t get closer than a metre or more to the ground surface so I focussed on clearing the more accessible areas with the big coil and the machine running in full sensitivity for the merest whisps of a signal. Constant impacts from branches and vegetation, coupled with the mineralisation of the ground made the machine extremely « chatty ».  It took all my focus to decipher the barrage of sounds, whilst trying to stay upright negotiating the steep slippery ground, fallen branches and trunks.

I was already planning on how I would go about searching the area with the small 6″ coil on a special wireless rig I custom made for such scenarios, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the many potential hours this recovery might take. However it was a tightly defined – albeit extremely difficult,and relatively large – area, so I knew it was just a matter of getting a coil close enough to pick up the missing phone.

I worked my way through the gorse and scrub, and in one area where several trees had been felled, I got a faint, but repetitive signal coming from under a trunk.

Placing the machine down, I slipped my arm in through the tangle of branches and stretched my fingers out under the fallen trunk.

It was with great satisfaction that I felt my hand close around a shape and glassy texture definitely not encountered in nature.  After facing a potentially very slow and intricate search across the hillside, I was possibly more relieved than the owner!

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Lost Wedding Ring at Te Ngaere – Found.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Jojje posted a message to Facebook stating he had lost his silver wedding ring at Te Ngaere beach near Whangaroa.  He had, ironically, taken it off when he went paddleboarding so as not to lose it…

Placing it in a jacket pocket, he forgot about it as they packed up and headed back to the car, realising too late that it had fallen out.

I was tagged by one of the local Facebook community, and with low tide due at 2am, I headed straight out that evening.

It was a relatively quick recovery on a very cold but clear night under a full moon, the ring being located in the first search pattern – but outside the indicated area.  I messaged Jojje before it got too late in the evening to let him know that his precious lost ring was now secure.

A couple of days later, we met up and you could see the physical and emotional relief as he slipped it back on his finger where it belonged.

 

 

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New Wedding Ring Lost at Matauri Bay, Found in minutes!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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James gave me a call at midday yesterday, he had just lost his new wedding ring in the sand at Matauri Bay.

He had been playing with the dog, and felt his wedding ring get pulled off his finger and instantly lost to sight in the sand.

After the family spent some time searching for his ring, he jumped onto Google and searched for « How to find a Ring lost in Sand », and Ringfinders popped up.
I already had the gear in the car from an ongoing search that morning for a ring lost on a property 50yrs ago, and so arrived just half an hour later.

In a matter of minutes I dropped his missing ring back into his hand, and after a couple of pics I was heading home.
It’s nice to have an easy recovery once in a while, one of my recoveries at Matauri Bay took three months and a couple of hundred hours, but the ring did have another three months head start!

If you lose a ring at the beach, please contact an experienced Ring Finder as soon as possible, it can make the difference between minutes and months.

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Lost Kerikeri Ring Found in Car

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Karen contacted me this afternoon asking if I was able to find a very sentimental silver ring that had ‘Just disappeared’ inside her car.

She remembered taking her ring off in the car to place it in the centre console before going to work, but when she went to put it on at the end of the day, it had ‘disappeared’.

She had searched the whole car to no avail, and in desperation phoned me to see if I could help.

I offered some likely places to look, but she had already tried those.

A few hours later, I was firing up the Ferret remote camera to search those sneaky areas inside the car that humans are unable to reach…

Late into the evening, the ring was spotted – tangled in the carseat rails.

Unfortunately the ring had been crushed by the seat moving in the rails, but at least it is salvageable.

A bittersweet victory, she had her precious ring back and is going to make an appointment with a jeweller to restore it to its former glory.

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Sentimental Dog Name Tag Found and Returned – Tutukaka, NZ

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Not all recoveries are planned.

I was doing a casual hunt at Tutukaka the other week, and dug a pets name tag, Rizla.

I always offer found tags to the owners, in case the pet has passed and they would like them as a keepsake.

It had two cell phone numbers on the reverse, one was not connected (unsurprising as the tag had been there a while).

The other put me in touch with Scott, Rizlas previous owner still living in Ngunguru.

Rizla is still alive, although now residing on the other side of the planet, in the UK.

Scott was very pleased to hear I had found it and met me in Ngunguru the other day so I could hand it back to him.

 

 

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How to find a ring lost in a garden? Call the Kerikeri Ring Finder.

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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After reading of my recent recovery of a lost earring in a garden near Kerikeri, Lucy contacted me to see if I could help locate her aquamarine engagement ring, lost in a lawn four months ago.
She had her jewellery out while getting ready for a trip out, and when she came to put it on noticed it had been moved, and her precious ring was missing.
It didn’t take long to discover her three year old had been playing with it, and taken it outside.
On careful questioning, her daughter admitted she had lost it « in the grass ».
After the inevitable immediate search, Lucy gave up hope of ever seeing it again, and more so after the lawn was inevitably mown.
Until yesterday, when I turned up to see what I could do.
Being a farm environment, the going was very slow with the many targets you find in this sort of ground, each needing to be verified before moving on.
I cleared the likely play area, and moved down to the orchard – after all, what three year old can resist fresh plums!
It wasn’t long before I got a low tone in the headphones, in amongst the trees.
As I lifted a small plug of soil, the edge of a ring was visible – I teased it out from the grass roots and gave it a quick rinse in a nearby puddle while Lucys son went to find her.
Her tears flowed freely as I handed it back to her, and she explained to a confused three year old that these were « tears of happiness », and not like the « sad » tears when she realised it had been lost.
I waited a while for the teary red eyes to subside before the reunion photo 🙂
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Tiny Diamond Ear Stud found in Kerikeri Lawn

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Adrienne had been working in her Kerikeri garden a few days ago, when she felt her diamond ear stud flick off her ear – and disappear into the kikuyu lawn.
After searching for some time on hands and knees, they gave me a call in the hope I would be able to locate the lost ear stud.
I turned up today to find they had already marked out primary and secondary areas with spray paint, along with a generous safety margin of unmown grass. Textbook stuff.
Whilst they had been able to isolate most of the adjacent electric fences, there was one which they couldn’t trace – that and a buried powerline running right through the search area weren’t going to make life easier when listening for a whisper of platinum though.
I got started with a very tight search pattern and the machine running as sensitive as I could stand, the phones twitching and chattering incessantly from the electrical interference.
After clearing a few false hits, I was pulling at the kikuyu down to the moist soil underneath, where a tiny ear stud was making itself very comfortable.
It’s always warm fuzzies when I’m able to return something so precious.
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