Ryan Cole, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 2 of 4

Lost gold wedding ring found (for a 2nd time) Granger, Indiana

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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9 years ago, in 2013, I recovered this ring for Chris, who had lost it in Donnell Lake (Vandalia, Mi). Since then, he implemented a protocol to always leave it in the lake house prior to heading out on/in the water. The ring is half of a matched set (with his wife’s). Anyhow, he was cleaning up leaves in the yard and at some point noticed his ring went missing. He knew who to call to search for it. I searched most the yard and an area where he said he had lost a gas cap from a blower yesterday, but ended up finding it within the leaves by the street (piled up for the county leaf sucker truck to get). He later recalled flinging some leaves onto a large tarp, which must have sent the ring sailing also. Prior to me going to search, he mentioned being worried maybe he blew the ring away with the leafblower too. I tested that concern with an average weight men’s ring and my extra powerful Stihl 800x blower (had to totally try to move the ring, not a worry, likely different with lighter rings though).
I told him that he’s now in the “twice-found club”, as I’ve recovered another ring twice, years apart, for another guy recently.

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Lost gold wedding ring found, Paw Paw Lake, Michigan

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Lynn contacted me about her husband’s wedding ring that fell off his finger while cranking the wheel on the their boat lift. The ring had also been Lynn’s father’s ring, so it was extra sentimental them. We discussed a time frame yesterday and I went up there this afternoon to search. I brought an underwater tube-lens contraption (for viewing bottom/etc), the usual detector, backup detectors, scoops, pinpointers and also my scuba gear. The water visibility was as bad as I expected (murky/sediment), so the view tube was a no go. The pier and lift station was a maze of metal with large metal pads on the bottom. I opted to start with detector and scoop. Found a multitude of undesirable « trash » targets, cans, nuts, bolts, coins, pier post caps, etc, etc, but no ring. Obviously, the detector can’t « see » when near the metal frame parts, posts and pads. After an hour and a half with detector and scoop, I had to move to the anticipated Plan-B, scuba gear and pinointers, for working close to the framework. I used my fancy little gear cart to bring everything out to the dock site. After dawning the gear, I went to put the mask on and CRACK (the strap fixture broke). Not really wanting to dismount the gear and get repair stuff from the truck, I MacGyver’d the mask strap with a piece of wire I had just dug up and had in the floating sifter, worked perfect, back in business. I searched and searched with pinpointers, all around the metal structures and post pads, still no ring. I was getting worried now and wondering maybe it wasn’t in the water. I noticed the pier had metal supports under the slotted walkway with a channel big enough to catch a ring. I checked all the channels, no ring. Now I was thinking about the two frame parts, that I saw from above, that had holes big enough for a ring to fall into and no way to really check.Then I thought, maybe, maybe the the last place that ring could be was actually laying on one of the metal post pads, where the pinpointer nor metal detector would see it. I started moving the inch of sand/dirt/sediment off the pads and checking that with pinpointer. On the second pad, doing the same, I felt my finger tip go into what really felt like a ring. Bingo, that was it!

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Lost gold wedding ring recovered, found in leaf pile, Baroda, Michigan, Berrien County

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Larry, his wife and some family had been doing some fall cleanup of freshly fallen leaves on the property.
Later in the afternoon, Larry noticed his wedding ring, that he’s worn proudly for 49 years, had slipped off and was now missing.
For hours, they searched, sometimes on hands and knees, scouring the leaf piles for the missing gold band. They tried using a metal detector, but said it was making all kinds of noise on random targets and they weren’t sure on it’s settings or how to really use it.
Larry’s daughter had seen a Twitter tweet about someone’s ring being found by a ringfinder (me) and they decided to look to TheRingFinders.com for help.
The first potential area of loss was where the loads of leaves were being dumped. They had taken some photos during the day and saw that Larry still had his ring on his finger at some point.
I started searching, found several undesirable targets that were under the surface, some flakes of copper and foil pieces on top of the ground, slightly prolonging the process.
I have found many lost rings, often just outside of where they are thought to possibly be.
I got a good strong signal near the back side of the compacted leaf piles. I rustled carefully through the leaves to locate that particular target with my pinpointer. They didn’t expect the ring would be right there though. A brief moment later and I saw the golden edge of a ring at the end of the sounding pinpointer. Bingo! I said. I immediately handed it back to Larry.
I’ve seen many happy reactions from people and families, which is awesome, this was no exception. He was so very happy and gracious to be reunited with his lost ring.
I’m glad I was able to help. Took about ten minutes to find.


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Lost wedding ring recovered from Lake Michigan, Union Pier, Michigan

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Got a call from David, who had lost his white gold wedding ring while out at a Lake Michigan beach, near Union Pier Michigan. He wasn’t certain when the ring had fallen off his finger, but knew it was either up on the dry sand or out in the water, possibly deeper than head deep, within a certain “width” area.
Lake Michigan quickly claims many rings and can be quite uncooperative or merciless due to prevailing winds/waves. The wind forecast looked promising for a morning search the next day. Upon getting to a nearby parking area that next morning, I could hear an unwelcome roar of the surf.
We met at a certain stairway, walked to the beach and I could see the 3-4 foot high-freqnency whitecaps that make searching in the surf nearly impossible. The water temp had dropped from cold water being moved in. Temp from mid 70’s down to what felt like upper 50’s. I searched the dry sand area, then near the water line with no luck. Started in the frigid water, working the shallowest parts, getting battered by the waves and powerful multi-directional currents, as if the lake wanted to take me. With numb legs and that terrible feeling of failure, I accepted that the big lake wasn’t going to let me to find this ring today. I had to call the search and break the bad news to David and Silvia, who were standing on the beach watching with hopes of good news. They had to check out and leave for home again this same morning. I told them that I’d be back when the conditions were better so I could try searching more.
I returned to try again when the wind forecast looked good, but as usual with Lake Michigan, it wasn’t as forecasted and was still wavy enough to interfere with searching, no luck after trying a couple hours before work.
Fast forward a few more wavy days, there was finally a few hour window of nearly flat calm in the forecast and I took advantage of it. A few days of heavy wave action, wild currents and mass sand movement were not bringing positive thoughts for a recovery. I had a couple hours to search and had until 1130, which was when I had to stop and leave for work.
I searched the dry sand again, then the surf zone and found a few dimes, a nickel, a quarter, a couple pennies and some junk pieces of metal or tin. Moved out deeper, no promising signals of any kind. I had taken into consideration the wave directions, the current and searched quite a distance beyond where David said he’d been. For awhile, I was even using my scoop and detector like « arm stilts », so I could detect deeper than head deep (I’m 6’3″), nothing but junk targets. . 1130 came, it was time leave for work, no ring, that bad feeling of failure again set in.
Started back towards shore, I figured I’d go even further South of the search area to keep swinging the detector until back on the beach. About halfway to shore, chest deep, I got a potential lone signal of gold or a nickel. Scooped it up and there it was, a white gold men’s size wedding band. It had inscriptions in it and I confirmed with David that it was indeed his lost ring.

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Lost gold cross ring, found in Little Long Lake, Fremont, IN

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Kyle and Brent’s aunt had lost her gold-cross ring (diamonds cross) in the swim area of the family cottage.
She had been lounging on a tube/float when it fell off somewhere between the stairs and end of the pier. They said the ring had sentimental value and she really wanted it to be recovered.
We set up a day when the weather was cooperating.
I started shallow, found a couple pieces of metal junk, then got a signal with a few targets close together. Scooped out a piece of foil, a piece of aluminum, then a nice gold ring with diamond cross. Took all of about two minutes.
I was also able to scoop out a large nasty shard of glass that may have recently gouged one of their kid’s feet recently. It was bad enough to require stitches they said.

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Lost Gold wedding ring recovered from yard, South Bend, Indiana

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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George contacted me a few days ago about his unfortunate situation of losing his cherished gold wedding ring. He said that he had mowed most of his yard, unloaded a few bags worth of grass clippings and then noticed it was missing when almost done mowing. He was unsure when the ring went missing and assumed it may have fallen inside one of the three bags of wet grass or in one of three areas where he recalled taking the glove off. He checked inside the glove, attempted searching through one of the bags of wet grass, but realized a metal detector may be the answer. He turned to google to search for the possibility of renting a metal detector. He also considered buying an inexpensive detector, but then realized even if he did either, he wouldn’t know how to use it anyhow. He came across the TheRingfinders.com website, quickly found my information and had me on my way when our schedules meshed.
I searched the bags of grass and the areas where he had taken his gloves off, with no luck, which meant searching the whole yard knowing there was a chance the ring got mowed over and possibly shot to who knows where by the riding mower.
Typical of most yards, there were several shallow targets to deal with, a sprinkler system throughout the whole yard, buried yard lighting wires, edging stakes and buried phone/cable lines in the back yard.
I opted for the larger 15″ coil on my Equinox 800 detector, which makes it hard to miss much of anything when covering a large area like a yard.
Knowing it was going to be just laying in some totally random spot, I had my fingers crossed I’d come across it quickly, a little luck is always welcome and it happened pretty quick, considering.
Got a banging nice surface signal, started checking it with my pinpointer and saw that fantastic color of Gold nestled under the thick blades of grass in the front yard.
George was so happy that he gave me a big hug and when I asked him if it was ok to get some pictures, he posed for the camera, giving his missing ring a big ole kiss. He said his wife put that ring on his finger in August of 63 and that he couldn’t thank me enough.

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Lost Gold wedding ring recovered 20 years later, Lake James, Angola Indiana

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Last month, Corey contacted me after reading about a guy from The Ringfinders, me, recovering a lost ring for someone that lives on the same chain of lakes that he does. We spoke and he mentioned that the lost item was his late father’s original gold wedding ring, lost many years ago. He said it was certainly in the water, near their pier in probably 3 to 4 feet of water.
Fast forward about a month, we discussed the details further and we were able to finally set a date and time for the recovery attempt.
After some mild rain storms cleared out, I arrived all prepared for the search. Initially he mentioned a rather small search area, but this grew somewhat as he pointed out the potential loss areas.
Immediately, I was getting signal after signal, from large amounts of metallic debris, filling my headphones with all kinds of sounds. I quickly covered the area initially for any obvious clean and loud targets, removing several coins, pull tabs, pull rings and bottle caps.
Next, I slowed down to do a more methodical grid-like search, finding several more targets amongst the iron/metallic debris around the pier.
I covered the area from several directions, moving slightly outside the area where he thought the ring may be, just in case.
It was thought that his dad had lost the ring either cranking the boat-lift wheel, or doing something around the pontoon boat that was on the lift (lift no longer there).
Corey said that his dad even tried finding his lost ring with some sort of metal detector that he had for locating water pipes (when the lake homes were just starting to be built there). This home was built around 1936. Corey also tried using that same detector device to find the ring in the past, with no luck.
Being rather tenacious, I searched and searched for hours and ended up digging every target I heard, even the « iffy ones », just in case again. There was one particular piece of junk i dug, a large perforated tin can lid that was over a foot deep. This deeper junk target will come into play later in this story. I scoured under and around the pier posts and had to contend with digging/scooping in lots of weeds towards the deeper end of the pier. If it was in there, I was going to find it!
It was going on 3 1/2 hours now, long beyond the half hour or hour I had planned to search. I had already said « I’ll do one more grid » to myself several times over. At about the 4 hour mark, not having eaten lunch, hungry, thirsty, skeptical and ready to call it, I told myself « ok, one more absolutely last sweep »! In the deeper water, near where the back of the pontoon would’ve been I got a good sounding target in the edge of the temporary crater where I had scooped the big tin can lid. I scooped out a big heavy blob of weeds and muck, slopped it into my floating sifter and checked it with the pinpointer. The pinpointer rang out quickly, so it definitely wasn’t something small like a penny or a fishing sinker this time. I swirled and sloshed the sifter around some more, poked the pinpointer back in it and as the muddy water began to turn clear, I could see the wonderful color of gold and the round shape of a ring’s edge showing itself!

Got it! This ring had been in the water for the past 20 years now! That large tin can lid was right under where the ring had settled and due to being so large, it « masked out » the ring from being seen initially.

It’s always an amazing feeling of satisfaction when there is so much sentimental value involved. I worked hard for this one, but the persistence paid off.

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Lost Wedding Ring, Recovered, Lake James, Angola Indiana

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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At the lake for the weekend, Ryan was tossing a football with friends in the shallow water and enjoying the weekend. There were a few boats anchored nearby, along with his. It was a nice day on the lake, until Ryan threw the football again and something happened. The stitches on the football stripped his rose gold/tungsten ring off his finger! They all looked for the ring, scouring the bottom in the general area, but with no luck. Ryan took to google, discovered The Ringfinders and was hopeful his wedding ring could be reunited with him.
Luckily, they had taken some cellphone photos and videos from their boat and the geolocation coordinates were enabled, leaving an accurate point of reference to search!
As I suspected, there were lots of beer bottle caps and can pull tabs strewn all around the area. An hour went by, grid searching the area, but nothing but bottle caps at that point.
The night before, I scanned several tungsten rings to double check the vdi range they registered on my detector. Most registered in a specific vdi range, but there were some anomalies with a few, so it was going to be a mostly « dig-everything » search.
After another half hour, I got a clean and loud signal unlike the bottle caps and pull tabs. In the scoop I saw a mens tungsten ring, But, it was the wrong color and not Ryan’s!
I kept to it, some rain was starting and had storms moving into the area very soon. This morning was our soonest window of opportunity to take advantage of.
With time dwindling, I moved slightly outside of the search area, picked up the pace and it was looking somewhat grim. Then, I got a smooth clean signal, vdi number 18, the same as most of the tungsten rings I had scanned last night…. aha.
With high hopes, I reached down using my pinpointer to locate this target. I could feel a Ring!! I secured it on my index finger, then into my grasp. It was rose gold in color!!
Ryan and his wife were watching from nearby and I could tell they had been losing some hope. Going on two hours of searching now, I carefully held the ring up and signaled to him…
Ryan burst into the water, rushed over and was completely overwhelmed with emotion and relief as he got close enough to see his ring, he was in total disbelief that I had actually found it!

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Lost men’s wedding ring found, Lake Wawasee, Syracuse, IN

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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Richard and family were visiting with friends at the lake house for the 4th of July weekend. With all the heat and humidity, the lake was the place to be. Much time was spent in the 85 degree water, around the dock, on the big foam floating pad, on the raft and tossing a ball back n forth to each other in the swim area. When it was time to get out of the water, Richard noticed his gold wedding ring was missing from his finger.
I was contacted by Richard’s friend, a friend of mine familiar with the ringfinders, we discussed the details of the loss and I was on my way within an hour. They had tried looking for it visually, but the water was somewhat stirred up from all the boaters.
The loss area was essentially « anywhere » around the dock, float, raft, within a 10 yard by 20 yard area and 4 to 5 feet deep. Sand bottom, with some silt, some rocks, waves and not much visibility.
There are almost always variables that can effect outcomes and immediately upon detecting I was hearing « good » sounding shallow targets, even with sensitivity turned way down on detector. The first target was a 12 gauge shotshell brass, then a piece of propeller, an old brass swim buckle and another piece of scrap aluminum. This was literally in the first two swings of the detector, which meant it could be a very lengthy endeavor with all these targets in the search area.
I rarely rule anywhere out, so i had began the search right near where he had entered the water. I figured I’d start detecting under/around the floating foam mat to eliminate that possibility. Got a good sounding signal under there, carefully scooped it and when I looked in the scoop, there was a men’s gold ring with 3 diamonds! I was relieved to have found it within just a few minutes, the 5th target scooped.


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Lost ring recovered, Diamond Lake, Cass County Michigan

  • from Granger (Indiana, United States)
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XXXXX (name to be updated) is in town for a couple weeks, visiting his parents here at their lake house.

Yesterday, in the private swim area, he was pulling a raft back to shore, walking backwards, stumbled and lost his ring in the process.

He and several of his friends tried finding it, but had no success.

I was out detecting in this lake today and just happen to launch from this site due to the public site being closed temporarily. I was wading with my kayak in tow and just happen to pass by his friends that were just hanging out in a docked pontoon nearby. One of the friends asked if that was a metal detector i had and if i could find rings. I said certainly and they went to get XXXXX, who came over and displayed how and where he lost it.

After a few minutes of searching and finding a couple pull tabs, a couple clad coins, I got a loud signal that sounded like a shallow ring sized object. I scooped the target and could see the « black » Star Wars ring in the scoop.

XXXXX was ecstatic when I said « here it is ». His friends were amazed and onlookers were also excited that it was found.


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