Lost Gold Wedding Ring Found in Tigard, Oregon
I received a text from Kyle saying he had lost his gold wedding ring in his front lawn several days ago. He and his wife had tried several different approaches to locate it, but had no luck. He said he had found me on Ring Finders, and asked if I would be willing to come help him out. I told him I could be there the next morning, and we were set.
I arrived and met Kyle, who showed me the area he suspected the ring had departed his finger. On the day in question, we had some heavy rains in our area. As he was moving the trash bin to the curb, he stopped to shake out a tree limb that was being weighed down by all the water. When he let go, the limb snapped-up and he felt it catch on his ring. The area had a nice, thick lawn, which about 3″ tall. Kyle went back in the house to work, telling me to give him a yell if I needed anything, and I pulled ot the AT Gold and started under the tree. I immediately got an interesting hit, but it seemed too deep and scratchy for a gold ring, so I moved on. I started an East-West grid across the lawn. After my second pass, I just had to go back to the signal under the tree. I had to cut a small plug and about an inch down, there it was…a AA battery. Back to the grid.
Right away I heard another good one just on the edge of the lawn. Scraping away dirt I didn’t see anything, but the pinpointer told me there was something there. I pealed back the sod and pulled out a bent, copper bracelet that had been there a long time. Not being what I was after, I set it aside and moved on. Maybe two steps further and I heard that golden tone. Sweep from the other direction and knew. Pulled apart the grass and there it was. About a 25 min. search.
Us Ring Finders are always looking for interesting ways to return folks lost items, so I called Kyle thru the window, asking him how big the ring he had lost was. He came outside, saying he thought it was something like a size 12. I held up the braclet-thing and said, « So, it’s not this big then? » We had a chuckle and talked about the item, then I pointed to the ring in the grass, asking him « Or is it more like this? » He seemed genuinely suprised to see his ring again and said he ‘Could just hug’ me. We went with a hardy handshake.
Nothing better than these expressions!
Thursday morning early I received a call from Chris. He and the family were playing on Pensacola Beach late Wednesday afternoon when his wife, Katarina, noticed her engagement ring was missing. Chris asked if I could help, that he and the family were due to check out of the condo they were staying in a few hours and had to travel back to Austin that day. They had a photo of Katarina or the beach with the ring on her finger and she hadn’t gone in the water so the assumption was it was lost somewhere in the sand. I told him I would be glad to help and would come immediately. Fortunately my gear was already charged up and in my van. I quickly kissed my wife bye and headed for the beach. I arrived about two hours before condo check out time so I got with Chris and Katarina right away and got details about where they were on the beach and the activities they took part in. They pointed out approximately where they set their beach chairs, but there was significant surf the night before and the beach had significant erosion from the waves. Now beach erosion is very common here, sand is constantly, moving around, but their spot was able to set the longitude axis so we started there. Katarina said they played catch with a ball and she had jumped up several time with her arms raised with finger reaching out, which sounded like the place to start searching. All in all the area was pretty big, between one half and two thirds acre. Because the ring was lost in late afternoon and this was the next morning I assumed it was not deep in the sand, my first mistake. Because they were under time restraints I was working faster than normal, my second mistake. Two hours later we got together to reassess and I started again but this time I set the detector to search deeper and moved much slower. I started from the spot where the beach chairs were located and followed the anticipated route Katarina may have taken to where she played ball. About half way to that spot I got a fairly good signal but it was two to three times deeper that I expected. I set my recovery scoop as deep as I could so I could get under the target causing no scratches or damage to a ring, spread the sand on the surface and checked for a signal, got nothing. I quickly stuck my detector coil in the hole and received a much better signal, carefully digging a second scoop of sand and spreading it out I ran the detector over it and pinpointed the ring. Reached down and held it up for Katarina. She was overjoyed! Now there were probably thirty people on the beach many who had watched me hunting not really knowing why. When Katarina received her ring and held it up most of those thirty or so people understood and started clapping. Her two daughters were excited and when to get their Dad. I apologized to Chris for my two mistakes that delayed their trip home, but he didn’t care he was just glad they were returning home with the ring that had been on her finger for 15 years! I think both had half way come to accept the ring was lost forever. It was a happy ending all around. I do not know how the ring was able to get maybe 8 to 10 inches deep and was glad I found it after about three and a half hours but I would have kept going till it was recovered.
