Yarmouth, MA: One Year to Find and Return a Ring by Richard Browne

July 18, 2025 It was on July 27, 2024 that I received a text requesting help finding a lost ring.

“Good morning! My son lost his wedding ban in the water on Smugglers Beach in South Yarmouth this past Sat. He was about waist high when he believes it must have slipped off. Is this something that could be found? It is a gold band and I think it was around 2pm that he lost the ring. Thank you! Jennifer (mother)“

As luck (good or bad) had it I agreed to help and arranged for myself and two other detectorists, Leighton and Jim) to go and search the next low tide. Well the water was quite rough and after a couple of hours in the water without results the search shifted to the dry sand again without good results. This could only mean one of two things. One, we did not pass our detectors’ coil over the ring or it was not there, unlikely in this case.

I went back to the area when the water calmed down on several occasions, never giving up hope it was still somewhere and could be found. It happened 51 weeks later when I was in the water chin deep when my detector alerted me of a metal object below its coil. One scoop and you bet, it was the ring sitting all alone at the bottom of my scoop. After a ¼ mile hike back to the parking area, putting on dry shoes I was on my way home to contact the owner.

A search of my records one had the original E-mail from Jennifer. I called her to verify that the ring was her son’s. “YES, I be right over, I live about a mile away” and she was. I handed over the ring with a promise to get a photo of her son with the ring for the Book of Smiles.

It was a really great day for Matt not only did he get his long lost wedding band back but a new addition to his family. It seems Matt was at the hospital waiting on the the arrival of his first son Arthur, aka Arty when I called his mother about finding the ring. Arty was named after his Mom’s Dad who passed when she was 2. And now his happy parents have the wedding band back and a lesson about never giving up to pass onto Arty. What a great way to have a wonderful day! Congratulations!