Uncategorized Category | Page 168 of 584 | The Ring Finders

Fond du Lac, WI., resident, Jared Kitzrow bent over to brush the grass from his jeans after tending to his garden. To his horror he noticed his wedding ring was missing. He was only married 4 weeks. But it wasn’t just any ring. When he became engaged, Jared’s grandmother had gifted him the wedding ring belonging to his late grandfather. Now the ring was gone!

Four long months passed. Jared searched and searched. He even rented a metal detector. But the ring was nowhere to be found. His rented detector screeched in response to metallic objects in the ground, but none proved to be his precious wedding ring. Jared felt sickened in his stomach at the thought of his grandmother finding out he lost it. Indeed, a family gathering some weeks later, forced Jared to keep his hand out of sight in his pocket, this in case his grandmother saw it was missing and might ask questions.

As the weeks passed, Jared kept searching and hoping the ring would come to light. He concluded the ring must have slipped of his finger while working in a large strawberry patch. At least that seemed to be the most likely possibility. But repeated visits to the garden failed to turn up the heirloom and only served to deepen Jared’s disappointment. That’s when he discovered The Ring Finder’s directory of metal detecting specialists and reached out to me with a brief text message.

I made the 1-hour drive to Fond du Lac the following morning on what was an unusually warm November day in Wisconsin. Jared led me to the back of the house and described his activities in the garden on the day the ring went missing. He leaned over and reenacted brushing imaginary grass off his pants not far from a mature pine tree. The pain in his face was obvious. I made mental notes of the events on Jared’s timeline. The act of brushing grass off his jeans using his ring hand was a plausible and significant event in my mind—a very likely cause. It was top of my list of possible locations.

I carefully searched the garden area but the ring was not there. Next, I turned my attention to Jared’s route back to the house and to the spot where he had brushed grass from his trousers. I observed the extra-long grass in the vicinity. Jared had deliberately avoided mowing it so as not to risk damaging the ring in case it was there. Expanding the search area in an ever-widening grid pattern, I suddenly observed conductivity numbers on my XP Deus 2 controller that were in the range of 14 Karat gold. Sure enough, the ring appeared where it had landed under the pine tree four months before! It was covered with a good inch of needles and vegetation. I concealed it again and arranged for Jared to join me. Giving him the detector, I let Jared locate it and retrieve his precious ring from the ground. The smile on Jared’s face reflects what I have so often said, “It’s more than a ring!”

Jared hadn’t told his wife about my coming. She was at work during the search. He decided to wear the ring and see how long it would take her to notice it. Later that evening, Jared sent me a text message that read, “Well she finally noticed, took her a couple hours! She is very happy!”

If you or someone you know has lost a ring, even long ago, don’t let its story end! Chances are it might still be found. Call me today! “It’s more than a ring!”

A hot July day found Milwaukee resident, John Marszalkowski, enjoying the shade of a canopy in his yard. But when a rainstorm came up, its accompanying winds threatened to damage the structure. John wrestled the thrashing canopy in the deluge to keep it from lifting skyward. In the process, he felt his tungsten wedding ring fly off his hand. He made a mental note where he was located in the yard, thinking He would look for it later when the present crisis abated. But when he returned, the ring was nowhere to be found. He and his wife searched on their hands and knees, systematically parting blades of grass, all to no avail.

As the days turned to weeks, John decided to cut his grass shorter in hopes it might reveal the ring’s hiding place. That too, proved futile. Bumping up his search efforts a notch higher, John procured an inexpensive metal detector, but it too was fruitless. Indeed, the detector’s audio response could only be described as a constant unintelligible din. It was as though the air itself was full of metal.

The months passed. John kept thinking of his ring, one of a matched pair he and his wife wore. While tungsten is generally believed to be one of the hardest metals known on our planet, the polished finish had somehow turned to a dull gray color. A jeweler suggested John’s skin might have a chemical incompatibility. Indeed, some cleaning solutions and chemicals have been known to degrade tungsten under certain conditions. Even though John’s ring didn’t look as attractive as it was when new, its sentimental value kept the memory of it very much alive in his mind. Then John’s wife discovered The Ring Finder’s directory of metal-detecting specialists. I received a text message and arranged to meet John the same afternoon.

In my forty-plus years detecting, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) at John’s house was some of the nastiest I’ve experienced. Thankfully, my XP Deus 2 equipment with its state-of-the-art programming and controls, allowed me to cut its sensitivity back and make the noise somewhat tolerable. In addition, the ground was full of roofing nails and metallic debris of every description, creating a metal-detectorist’s worst nightmare. Little wonder John’s efforts were thwarted.

Barely 10 minutes into the search and a few yards farther than where John believed the ring fell from his hand, a conductivity signal consistent with tungsten flashed momentarily on my controller’s screen. However, other signals and all the EMI threatened to overpower it. But a quick investigation with a pinpointing device, revealed the ring’s hiding place deep in the grass. I invited John to ‘discover’ his ring using the pin pointer. He knelt down beside me and quickly located and plucked the love token from the ground, thus ending 103 days of suspense. John’s emotional response and smile only reinforced the truth; what I say so often, “It is more than a ring!”

If you or a loved one has lost a ring, even months or years ago, chances are it can still be found. Don’t let its story end. Call me today!