Lost white Gold Tiffany-T Ring Recovered, Crooked Lake – Angola, Indiana
Saturday evening, after the Crooked Lake sandbar Music Festival (in water event), Noah and Kayla returned to their dock site where Kayla went for a short swim around the pontoon. She swam along the side of the pontoon, between it and another pier, when her hand hit the lake bottom for a moment and she felt her ring slide off her finger. She stopped, surfaced, checked her finger and saw it in fact had fallen off.
The bottom is a layer of clay silt over some gravel and sand. The spot of loss was about 3-4 feet deep. They tried to find it, kids helped also, to no avail.
A friend of mine, familiar with my services, put them in contact with me and arrangements were made for the recovery attempt this morning. She sounded confident about the exact spot it had fell off, which was nice to hear.
Kayla sent me a picture of the ring type, a Tiffany & Co « T » ring (a non closed ring), white gold with some diamonds. Non-closed rings, especially with that large of a gap, can be difficult for most detectors to sound off on. It’s just a phenomenon that occurs, as with many bracelets and necklaces also.
I’m running a Minelab Manticore detector, which is one of the newest and most sensitive units at this time. I have confidence that if any machine would « see » that ring, it would.
I let them know about the possibility, that the ring may be undetectable, but assured them that I had confidence in my detector.
In the water I went, began searching, found a couple washers, quarters, several 22 bullets, several prop curls and some nails, but no ring. Expanded the area slighly, to under the pier where her right hand was favoring, but still no ring. Worked the area from different directions, still no ring. Switched to the extra sensitive gold mode and re-swept the area further, finding a few more tiny metallic objects, but still no ring. Got the dive mask and snorkel out, worked some zones visually and with a pinpointer, finding a couple tid bits of 22 shell casings and nails again. About an hour had passed now, I was getting a bad feeling, that either the ring was indeed undetectable, or that maybe it just wasn’t there anymore.
I asked if anyone had seen them searching for it, or if they told anyone where it was lost. They said yes, two younger kids saw them searching, knew what they were seraching for and said they were going to go get goggles and come back to search for it (hopefully didn’t find it and maybe keep it). Well, I had scoured the loss spot and beyond, many many times over and I could see Kayla had a look of sadness, because it appeared as if her ring she cherished dearly was not gonna be found.
I asked if it was ok that i just try another little bit, one more hail Mary (which I seem to do on most searches). Got a very weak and low signal, but faintly repeatable, got the pinpointer down on it and got a somewhat good response with that too. Reached down, grabbed a handfull of bottom, brought my hand up to the surface, the muck fell off the sides of my hand and a nice sight to see revealed itself to me and Kayla that was looking down from the pier above. She was ecstatic, I was very thrilled and relieved (lotsa eyes upon me from above, kids watching too). Walked over and put it in her hand, carefully.
Afterwards, on dry land, I asked if I could test the ring to see how the detector reacted with it. About 2.5″ max, in gold mode, super faint 03 vdi. Glad it worked out, as were they.
On my way home from work I received a text from Habib. He was very anxious to see if I would be able to find his wife’s beautiful diamond earing she accidentally lost at a large family party the day before. He sent me some pics and I was relieved to see the size, due to the fact many diamond earrings are extremely hard to locate. We agreed on a mutual time to meet later in the day, and for him to bring the other earing so I would be able to scan it with my metal detector, which helps tremendously, knowing exactly what tone to listen for. With that information I am able to block out most of the other tones I will receive in a backyard setting. Once on location I met with a gentleman who showed me the entire party setup, and the main areas Saba, Habib’s wife had spent most of the time that day. I decided to begin the search, as Habib was going to be about another 15 minutes due to some heavy traffic. I had quickly covered an area where the tables were set up, especially where Saba was sitting. The yard area was quite huge, and there were many food stations, and activities going on throughout the day. Once Habib arrived I listened to the other earring, and was quite pleased with the solid low tone it gave off. With that information I was able to move quite a bit faster, due to the fact that not may signals of that type would be present. I of course would check anything fairly close. I had changed direction after the first location was done, simply due to the fact the foot traffic would be moving in the direction I was working. I made one pass, and just after I turned to make another one, BINGO, my metal detector emitted a tone that I was almost certain was Saba’s missing earing. After moving the grass around a bit, there it was pressed down even with the dirt, just out of human sight. Luckily there was no damage to the earing. I looked around to find Habib, and he had walked way over to the neighbors house, where there was valet parking, and another possible area the earring could have been hiding. When I showed Saba’s earing to him, he was it total shock, as this recovery could be labeled “a needle in a haystack” Once again all parties involved knew the tiny details to narrow down this vast search area, to just the areas where his wife had spent most of the day.
