Steve Wagner, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 2 of 3

I have another lost, very sentimental, jewelry item that I was able to find and return. I was contacted by a friend who told me that her daughter had lost a really special pendant! The awesome thing about this one was the mother that contacted me kept it a secret from her daughter that I found the pendant and told her that I couldn’t find it. She surprised her with it at Christmas!!

This one was a tough recovery. The item lost was a gold heart shaped pendant. I used one of my wife’s gold pendant that was similar in size to see what kind of tone and numbers it would ring up on my metal detectors. It rang up just like “can slaw”!! Which is little pieces of aluminum cans and from past experiences, I knew there would be a BUNCH of it at the play ground!! I had to dig every one of those signals if I wanted to find it!

Here is the story from the mother that contacted me!

My daughter, Maria lost a very sentimental and unreplaceable necklace pendant in February 2021. This necklace was designed and made for each granddaughter and great-granddaughter from the diamonds in her paternal grandmother’s wedding bands. Fast forward to December of 2021. Maria finally told me that she had lost the pendant. It appears she and some of her friends were playing late at night on the slides at the old Lawrence School in Washington County and after she had slid down the slide she pulled on the neck of her sweatshirt and inadvertently grabbed the chain to her necklace too and broke it. She said she shook out her sweatshirt, searched her jeans but could not find it. Then she and her friends went back in the daylight and looked around, plus she searched the vehicle, but she was unable to find it.

 

In August 2022, I stopped at the school on the way home from a gender reveal party and looked around but did not find it. As much as it upset her, it kept eating at me to try to locate it.

 

On December 14th, 2022, I contacted Steve Wagner to see if he would be interested in looking for it. I sent him a picture of the pendant that was missing. He sent me an aerial drawing of the area and I had Maria’s friend Katana circle the location of where they thought she lost It. Steve said he went out that evening and searched but it got too dark. On December 15th, Steve went out to the location and performed a circle search around the slide. He said 100 pieces of aluminum and foil and 3 hours of searching later he got another strong signal about 20 feet from the slide. He removed the grass from the area and saw something that could be it. He stepped back and took a picture. He then gently removed the dirt around the area and down embedded in the soil was the pendant that had been missing for 1 year and 10 months.

 

From February 2021 to December 2022 that area had been flooded several times, tons of rain and snow as well as other late-night adventures tracked around on the soil. According to Steve, this school playground had also been searched by other metal detecting individuals in the past as well. I cannot express our gratitude enough to Steve for finding this irreplaceable piece of jewelry and I am sure that Maria will cherish it and the memories tied to it forever.

 

Thank you so much Steve, there are no words that can show the appreciation we have for you and the craft you have mastered.

 

 

I got a message from Eric about a lost ring so I immediately made arrangements to go look for it. It was a tough hunt because like everyone’s yard, it’s full of foil, bits of aluminum cans and pull tabs which all give a very similar signal as a gold ring!!

Here is the story in his own words:

The summer of 2021 the wife was out in the yard playing with our little ones and the local kids during a rain. They was all spinning around and having fun. The wife came into the living room crying because her wedding ring had fallen off and she couldn’t find it. So being the husband I’m trained to be, lol, I went to Dunhams and purchased an $80 metal detector and tried for a few months to find the ring. Well a year later from when she lost the ring, I had to message Steve on Facebook and asked for help. He came out on June 12th and spent a few hours in the yard finding a bunch of stuff. Then I look over and Steve motions me over with a big smile. There it was in the ground. We can’t say thank you enough.

I was contacted a couple days ago by a gentleman whose grandson accidentally dropped a pocket pistol in the Muskingum River about a month ago while running bank lines for catfish. We made arrangements to meet and we hopped into a John boat and up the river we went. I just took my powerful magnet hoping we could just pick it up with that. I didn’t want to get into the river with my metal detector because I knew it would be “mucky” and cold. After several minutes and attempts with the magnet, it was obvious that I was going to have to go into the river. We met the following day with my wetsuit and MD’ing gear. Up the river once again to the spot in the river where they was sure it would be. I can only detect in water that is around chest high. We spent about an hour and exhausted the area I could comfortably reach. In a last attempt, I walked in chin deep water holding the metal detector out as far as I could in deeper water and finally got a shallow strong signal I was hoping for but there was no way I could scoop it up out there. Thankfully I had brought my magnet back out with me and we was able to get the magnet on the pistol!