Austrailian Opal Pendant Lost in Horse Stable in Thousand Oaks, CA...Found and Joyously Returned.

If you lose your ring or other metal item of value, don’t wait, time will work against you, please call as soon as possible. 310-953-5268

I was on my way home from shopping when Mark called. He told me how his wife had been tending a young horse this morning, when the horse reared up, and one of its hooves hit her in the neck and knocked off her opal pendant. Mark and Farina had been married now only 3 weeks, and this had been a gift Mark bought for her on a trip he had made to Australia. She had also wore it in their wedding, so it had a very sentimental value for them. The stall where the loss occurred was covered in thick sawdust, and they had looked for almost an hour for the lost pendant. I let Mark know that as soon as I got home I would gather my equipment and be on my way.

Mark told me the pendant had only a small thin clasp for metal, so I knew I needed specialized equipment for the search. When I got there Mark and Farina took me to the stall, and explained how the incident occurred, and I got my equipment ready for a search. I must admit it looked like she took a pretty good hit. When I began, I realized we had a problem, the whole floor of the stall had bits of metal in the rubber backing, and I could not get a good signal anywhere. We decided we needed to remove the sawdust from the stall, and put it in an area that had no, or very little metal. I searched shovelful by shovelful with no signal. I think I was expecting a little more metal being involved. I then began to rescan all of the sawdust we had laid out, and when about 3/4 through I heard the slightest squeak in the headphones. I turned up the pin pointer and put it in; nothing. I went over with the coil again, and got the squeak. I put the pin pointer in again, nothing, so I moved the sawdust around. After I moved the material around I saw the smallest glimmer of gold, and reached in and pulled up the pendant. There was almost as much metal involved as a small stud earring; you have to have the right tool for the job. I showed Mark, who rushed over, and gave me a big hug, as did Farina. I am so glad to have made their day; great smiles all around!

Farina sent the following testimonial:

We’re so grateful for Steve’s help in finding the Austrailian Opal Pendant!
It was last Friday and I was working with one of the young horses at the barn, a 2 year old stallion who was feeling frisky, when he reared up in front of me and kicked my collarbone right where my Necklace was. He ripped it off my neck and my blue Opal disappeared in the shavings of that stall. I was super upset about it because it was the first Birthday present my Husband ever gave me and I was wearing it on our Wedding just 2 Weeks before.
I tried to find it for over an hour..( That doesn’t sound that long but the Area where it possibly could have been was so small )..I gave up and called my Mark, my Husband.
He came up with the idea to try it again with a metal detector, because the Opal is held on the necklace by a small piece of Rosegold. Mark looked online to buy a metal detector & was having a hard time finding one for sale nearby. He could get them online but felt we didn’t have time for that since they need to change the shavings in the stall soon. So then he searched for renting a metal detector and came across a website called ringfinders. He clicked on our location and Steve’s name came up.
We were surprised to see there was someone out there who was helping people in this way & we called him immediately. Steve answered on the first call and told us he would love to help us find our lost item. He said he was on his way home and could pick up his equipment and meet us in about an hour and 1/2. As we waited for Steve to come to our side of town we said to ourselves what a great guy he must be to just drop whatever he was doing and spend hours of his time to help us.
Steve showed up as fast as he could, we drove together to the farm and began our search in the stall. We quickly learned the metal detector would not work in the stall because of the metal in the rubber mats on the floor which were made of old car tires. So we decided to empy all of the shavings out onto the ground in front of the stall. Steve was using his metal detector on the shavings and it appeared to be working fine on the dirt floor of the barn but he was not finding anything. This went on for over 1/2 and we had not found anything. My husband and I got down on our hands and knees and started sifting thru the shavings with our hands and after about 15 min of this and a couple prayers Steve turned to my husband and said,  » Does it look like this? « .
We were overcome with joy and gave Steve a big hug & thanked him profusely. Steve is a real human being who is helping people out of a genuine desire to do good in the world and we are grateful to have met him. If you have lost something precious, you should call Steve. He’s like a superhero on his way to the rescue!

 

I will work hard, using the most up to date metal detectors, to help you find what you thought might never be found again. I search, Beverly Hills, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, Northridge, Pasadena, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Venice Beach, and all parks, yards, gardens, and ponds (to 5 foot depths) in all of Orange County, all of Los Angeles County, and Ventura County.