5 September 2026.
Andy and his wife were on the interstate headed back to Pennsylvania when he called me. Their vacation on Cape Cod had ended, and tomorrow they would be celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary at home. Sadly, Andy’s wedding ring would not be part of the celebration. It had been left behind somewhere in the sand of Old Silver Beach about 24 hours ago.
As Andy described the situation, he had placed his ring in a small side pocket of his chair at the beach, He’d forgotten about it when they packed up and left in mid-afternoon, only later to discover that the ring was gone. So the ring most likely was left in the dry sand where they’d been sitting, or possibly in sand along the route they’d taken back to the parking lot. He described the ring as white and yellow gold with 4 small pavé diamonds.
I asked Andy to text me a map indicating his best guess of where they’d been sitting and told him I’d leave for the beach right away. Old Silver Beach is popular with detectorists and I was concerned that his ring was a ‘sitting duck’ that might already have been found or could soon be found, so time was of the essence.
When I arrived at the beach I grabbed my gear and headed for the spot marked on Andy’s map. On the way I passed a man and his son who had a detector. I stopped and told him that if they found a white and yellow gold ring with 4 small pavé diamonds, I had the name and contact information for the man who lost it. Dan, the father, said ‘we found it’! I outlined the situation to the point that Dan seemed satisfied that I was not ‘scamming’ him (unfortunately you can’t be too careful these days!). He provided his phone number which I sent on with a message to Andy so that they could talk directly with one another.
While Dan and Andy were conversing and arranging a return, I learned from Dan’s wife that their daughter had found the ring using their son Ben’s detector, so there was some sibling rivalry as to who deserved the credit. In any case, she had some cute pictures that had been taken of a gleeful Ben with the ring.
Dan and his family left shortly after his conversation with Andy ended, so the serendipitous timing of my arriving at the beach and meeting Dan was a real stroke of luck. There now of course was disappointment, especially on the part of Ben, but there was also an honorable ending with the ring in the process of being returned to its rightful owner.
And a 29th wedding anniversary will be celebrated with joy and not with a modicum of regret!
UPDATE, 9/11: Andy received his ring a week to the day from when it was lost. A big thank you to Dan and his son Ben!
Andy’s wedding ring.
Andy, very happy to have his ring back!
Dan’s son Ben, thrilled by a ring find with his new detector!
