I received a call last night (21 March 2020) from Alexandria. She sounded very distraught as she told me that she lost her engagement ring and wedding band set just hours earlier while wading in knee deep water at a lake. Alex asked if I’d be willing to drive to Tuskegee, Alabama to look for her ring. I’ve never been to Tuskegee before. I did a quick Google Maps search from my location in Huntsville to Tuskegee. The trip one-way was 228 miles or almost a 3.5 hour drive! On my Ring Finders profile page, I advertise that I prefer to stay within a 100 mile radius of Huntsville, but can definitely travel further if needed. My mentality is that if someone needs my help, I’m willing to travel anywhere to help them. I got back on the phone, told Alex, « absolutely, » and started planning my trip.
I left early the next morning, so that I could get to the lake in Tuskegee by 8am. I wanted to give myself plenty of time for the search just in case it turned out to be much harder then I thought it would. Alex was certain that she felt the ring slip off her finger while she was reaching down in the water. She also remembered the exact spot she was standing at in the lake. Based on those two factors, I felt very confident that her ring would be found.
I set up my Equinox 800 and headed into the water. Once I was at the correct spot, I started my grid search. I picked up a lot of various signals on my detector. Alex told me that this was a yellow gold engagement ring that sits inside of a yellow gold wedding band. The signals I was getting weren’t coming up in the gold range. I decided to check a few iffy signals, but soon realized the object was too big or too deep to be her ring and moved on. Then, a few feet to my left, I picked up a solid yellow gold tone on my Nox. One quick scoop and there lying in the bottom of my Xtreme sand scoop was Alexandria’s beautiful gold ring set still locked together as one piece!!!
I saw pure joy, happiness, and relief on Alex’s face as we all celebrated! You can definitely see it in the photo below where she’s looking down at the ring back on her finger where it belongs! I praised and thanked the Lord! The night before and on my drive to Tuskegee, I asked God to guide me to Alex’s ring. He sure delivered a quick, safe, and successful search!
Some people might consider that driving 7 hours (450 miles) to spend 10-15 minutes finding a complete stranger’s ring is just plain crazy. But this is what I live for! I love conducting these searches and seeing the priceless reaction on someone’s face when you find their lost item and return it to them. It never gets old!
If you or someone you know has lost a ring, jewelry, or other metal item, please contact a member of The Ring Finders.
3/22/20
I received an email from a woman yesterday who had been house sitting for someone about a month ago. She had lost her paladium engagement ring and the matching wedding band. The owners of the home also had a family of goats.
One day after out feeding the goats, she discovered both her rings were missing. She went back out and searched by eye and found the larger wedding band, but not the beautiful little engagement ring. At some point she was able to borrow a metal detector, but had no luck with that.
She found my ad on The Ring Finders website, sent an email and made arrangements with the owner to allow us to go back and search.
We met there at noon today and got started. After a couple deep signals and about 5 minutes, a got a nice crisp tone that registered an 88/89 on my White’s detector. I knew this was it!! About 2-3” down in the bedding was her ring, I pulled it up and it sparkled in the bright sunlight. She got the biggest smile, and both rings were back together!
After a long Winter of searching for keys lost in the snow, it was nice to recover a very sentimental ring again!
Please click on my name above to read more success stories or to get my contact information.
This ring find began when I got a call from 4 Seasons Security. Security wanted to know if I could come out to the resort and look for a guest’s ring in the lagoon. Since it was getting late I told them I’d be there at first light. The next morning Security met me on the beach and showed me the general area to hunt and if I found the ring to let them know. I went back to my car to get my Equinox & scoop and when I returned to the beach I met Sean from Sydney Australia. He told me he was the person who lost the ring and confirmed the search area. He told me the previous day after applying sun lotion he walked into the lagoon and in waist deep water his Southern Hemisphere white gold ring fell off. He saw it hit the water then disappear. He told me his wife who would be arriving later today had the Northern Hemisphere ring and they went together to complete the Earth. I had to find it PLEASE!!! I swept this area the previous day so their weren’t any targets until about the fourth leg of the grid search and boom the Nox is screaming. One dig and there in my scoop is half the world in white gold. I motioned to Sean who was on the shoreline that I found it and I swear it looked like he burst into tears. So happy to help reunite these magnificent rings. Aloha to Sean!
This ring find started back on October 10th 2019 when I met Ian from Roseville California. While enjoying his vacation at 4 Seasons Resort his Titanium Wedding band came off somewhere in the lagoon. My initial search didn’t find Ian’s ring and the search area would include scuba as Ian was swimming in a large swath of the lagoon. Then there was a spell of bad weather and surf. A few scuba dives still yielded no ring. Finally on Friday March 6 on a dive outside of Ian’s grid I found a Black Titanium Ring with « Modern Gents » engraved on the inside. I immediately texted the picture to Ian to confirm the recovery. After consultation with the Jeweler it was looking like this might not be his ring. Then the Jeweler confirmed it was possible as they work with other vendors. I told Ian I would mail the ring to him so he could confirm himself once and for all. Ian confirmed it was in fact his ring by sending me a pic and a « Shaka ». Glad to finally get that ring find settled. Aloha to Ian!
The pictured lady experienced a turnover when her earring went missing last week.
Her and her mom jumped through hoops trying to end the losing streak.
We agreed to meet this morning and move around the play area looking for a scoring opportunity.
Scanning the half court, we noticed a soft relaxing couch large enough to sit, sleep, lay down and watch the game.
After that tip off, my teammate and I dribbled and passed towards the end of the court to set up and score.
Reaching into and thru a hoop hole in the material, I yelled slam dunk! as I pulled out this beautiful 20 points of diamonds hoop earring!
We were thrilled that all the hoop-lah was over and that our dunkadelic strategy along with playing above the rim defeated the underdog with a large point spread, putting her earring back in the game, and bringing March madness to March gladness!
Jon
This ring find began back on 25 January when I received a call from Reeve from Hong Kong who works as a Mechanical Engineer at University of Hawaii’s Makai Pier. While playing in the water along the Pier with his dog at some point his ring came off. He snorkeled around looking for the ring but no luck. The area had a sandy bottom and looked like an easy hunt. When I arrived the next morning Reeve described the area he was in. As I entered the water with my Equinox to start the grid search the detector started going off. The area along the pier is littered with coins, fishing weights and can slaw. To make matters worse just a few inches under the sand were rocks, coral and stones and that made it practically impossible to scoop targets. I told Reeve I would have to return on scuba but my gear was at the shop getting annual checks. When I finally got my gear back the weather played havoc with gale force winds & torrential rain. So finally this AM Reeve and I saw an opportunity and I took off a few hours from work to hunt. This time on scuba with my Excalibur I was able to eliminate many targets by their tone. Then about 20 minutes into the dive I got a nice low tone and in one scoop with my hand there was Reeve’s Gold Wedding Band glistening in the Sunlight. Six weeks in the ocean and it was within an inch of the surface. Reeve texted a picture of himself wearing the ring and his wife was elated and very gracious to me for finding it. Challenging hunt with a happy ending. Aloha to Reeve!
Josh’s 14 Karat White Gold, 1/2 Carat Diamond Stud Earring and 14 Karat White Gold Backing
Josh’s Handsome Stud Earring and Backing Sparkling Again Above the Earth Once More!
Josh and Adriana Celebrating the Unbelievable Sight of the Lost Earring and Backing that were Presumed Gone Forever!
CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644 AND HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!
I will never forget the phone call that I received from a young man who was desperately seeking my help to recover something very special to him. As I was shopping at the local Walmart, Josh shared with me what happened the day earlier when he was playing a football game in Frederick, Maryland. It was supposed to be a fun event for he and his friends who gathered on this particular field from cities located as far away as ones in Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland. The two teams placed the boundary cones on the middle school sports field and marked off a 50 yard by 30 yard football field section, with 10 additional yards for each end zone. The afternoon was filled with much excitement and thrill until the game was finished, and Josh realized that one of his two white gold diamond stud earrings (and the gold backing) had gone missing. Instead of him taking off and heading back to Pennsylvania where he resided, he resolved to find his very sentimental piece of jewelry that was picked out by his wife Adriana. It was a very bold task that he was embarking upon to try to eyeball a tiny object like a stud earring in the midst of so many yards to search on that field. Anything that small would have settled down into the underworld of grass, completely unseen by the naked eye. Josh’s admirable efforts led to no avail. He eventually left the football field completely defeated as he headed back home. None of his teammates had any luck in finding the stud diamond earring either. If you want to learn just how determined Josh was in trying to get his keepsake back on his ear, then you must know that he and his very supportive mother returned to the field once more that evening, driving all the way from Pennsylvania (which is a 45 minute commute back to Frederick Maryland) to do a second search. The two of them brought flashlights and scanned the entire football field that Josh was playing on earlier that day. Again, their efforts were futile. There was just too much territory and the object that they were looking for was way too small to locate within all of the blades of grass. There was nothing more that he could do but to return back home empty handed once again.
It was sometime after Josh arrived back at his house from the unsuccessful recovery attempt that he and his wife researched information on the internet regarding metal detecting. One of the links that popped up happened to be The Ring Finders directory. The couple had never heard of this company that provides a resource to locate a local Ring Finder metal detectorist member who is able to search for people’s lost items. My name happened to surface when they sought to find a detectorist in the Frederick, Maryland area where the earring was lost. Josh got on his smartphone and immediately called me to request my help.
It would be unfair of me if I didn’t share a particular moment that I had while talking with this disappointed young man on the phone about losing his beloved earring. You see, when Josh first started talking to me about his football game in Frederick, Maryland, and the fact that he lost something out on the field where he was playing, I had no idea that what he had lost was not a ring. Most of what I recover happens to be rings, but I also search for plenty of other objects including: smartphones, watches, hearing aids, bracelets, other type of bangles, chains and pendants, and lots more. I will hunt for anything that has metal attached to it. If the object is worth something to somebody else, then I am alright about going off to search for it. Josh innocently forgot to mention what it was that he specifically lost until much later in our conversation. When I started asking questions about the type of ring that had disappeared on the playing field, Josh corrected me and shared that he didn’t lose a ring, but rather a 14 karat white gold, ½ carat stud diamond earring! You should have seen my face at the department store’s checkout counter when I learned of this! I smiled with utter amusement at the realization of what this gentleman was asking me to do for him! A tiny object like his earring, lost somewhere on a football field that was 2100 square yards wide, was not likely to ever be recovered! I truly love a great challenge, but this one was way outside the box! Most detectorists would never even attempt to tackle this recovery scenario because the odds of finding something this small on that much property without having a hint of where the lost earring may have fallen, was astronomical! It would just end up being a big waste of time. However, while Josh was still on the phone, I gave it a quick thought by saying to myself within, ‘Wouldn’t this be a great story if I could somehow pull that little stud earring off of the field and return it back to the ear that it belonged to?!’ ‘What if I could metal detect that much surface area and actually overcome such odds against me with trying to recover that piece of jewelry?’ I played with the idea in my head and at the end of my moment of day dreaming, I absolutely fell in love with the idea of going after the earring! I didn’t even know if my detector would be able to pick up that little bit of white gold coming from his ½ carat diamond stud earring setting. It’s hard enough to get a strong enough signal to recover a lady’s petite white gold band, let alone something this tiny. And I wasn’t even sure the angle of where the post had settled in the grass which would certainly help to determine the type of signal strength that would be picked up by my detector. The backing to the earring would also be comprised of 14 karat white gold. Finding both pieces would be nearly impossible to accomplish. However, I didn’t want to tell Josh that I could not recover his sentimental piece without first giving it a shot and see what I might be able to find on that field. I love “the thrill of the kill” and this hunt would certainly be one of my top prized stories if I could pull it off! Without a blink of the eye, I agreed to help Josh!
Josh and I scheduled a time to meet the following evening at the middle school where he lost his stud earring. Losing this piece of jewelry weighed so heavily upon him that he was willing to give up some of his son’s birthday celebration time in order to show me where he was playing football the day that he lost his earring. I should mention that when I asked Josh about his whereabouts the day he lost the diamond and asked when was the last time that he remembered wearing the stud, everything was a bit fuzzy in his memory. He could not specifically remember if it was on his ear when he left his house to go play football. He checked his video camera at the front door but the door camera did not show evidence of whether or not he left the house with the earring on or not. I asked him to keep searching around in his car and also in the house just to make sure that he didn’t miss any spots where it may have fallen off his gear before he even went to the football field. He agreed and did as I had suggested before we met that evening.
Both of us arrived at the school sometime around 7 p.m. I had the opportunity to meet the birthday boy who turned sixteen. From the parking lot, Josh took me across one field and then eventually we reached the particular field where he was playing. He started to point out all of the white chalk lines that the guys used as end zones and sidelines. On the day of their game, cones were set up on one side of the field to mark off the width of the parameter. As I shared above, they played 30 yards from left to right and 70 yards from end zone to end zone. Essentially the dimensions were 1/2 of a pro football field. Due to the fact that Josh had no way of measuring 30 yards from left to right (the night I was detecting), he estimated the approximate location of where the cones were placed to indicate the left sideline. He stood in a particular spot and then I counted a certain number of feet until I reached where he stood to show how wide his playing field was that day. I counted 30 yards in total. Josh was fairly confident that what I measured was the width of their football field that day.
Once I had all of the dimensions, I wanted to do a test on Josh’s one remaining stud earring. I needed to get a reading on my metal detector as to the type of signal his earring would give off. Then, I could search for that type of metal in the field that would resemble the same reading. In addition to that, I wanted to increase the sensitivity level on my detector and see just how high I needed to crank it up in order to capture the signal coming from the lost earring in the field.
The three of us huddled together on the grass to conduct the tests. Josh carefully took his only remaining stud earring out of his ear and placed it on the grass so that I could swing my metal detector over the earring. Surprisingly, the Minelab Equinox 800 detector wouldn’t even recognize the metal. Because the diamond stud setting and post were so small, there was very little precious metal for the detector to read. Even I was taken back by this outcome.
I knew that most studs, if they were below the ground, would barely be readable at all. But I was testing an earring that was above ground and I was still getting nothing. Then, I took out my Garrett handheld pinpointer and placed the end of the detector on top of the earring. The result was just as surprising, if not more so than when I swung the detector over the white gold. The 14 karat white gold piece would not even react to the metal unless it was positioned in a certain direction. I couldn’t believe it. All of this was documented on video which I will publish in the next few months.
Things did not look good for an effective search to take place at that point. I couldn’t read the earring on the Equinox 800 and my pinpointer was pretty much useless. I wasn’t sure what to do at that point. Josh and his son were looking at me for answers and they frankly were dumbfounded themselves. At that moment, things even got worse. After I recalibrated my detector with certain adjustments that I hoped would help pick up the target signal from the earring, I placed the detector down towards the ground and I realized that I couldn’t find the stud earring that had been tested moments earlier. The three of us had not moved an inch since we started testing the piece of jewelry, so it was still in front of us on the ground, but our eyes couldn’t spot it! It went completely missing! I asked the two fellows to help me focus in on where the earring was and they too could not find it. Using my pinpointer was completely useless, so we needed to find it by eyesight only. I looked at Josh, and I said to him, “Now you have a really good idea of how almost impossible this is going to be to find your earring out there on the field. If we can’t find the sister earring that was just placed in front of us and it then disappears, how much more is it an impossibility for me to find the other earring out there!” Josh totally got the logic that I was conveying and he realized how bad we had it in trying to recover the earring.
Eventually, after 10 minutes of searching, Josh’s son found the test earring and we were all relieved that we didn’t have to spend any more time looking for the jewelry that had gone missing. Josh got a very good picture of how impossible this would be to recover something this small unless I came up with some other technique to help me detect the earring.
Figuring out a new strategy with how I could find Josh’s sentimental earring was my top priority. I thought about it for a bit and then a new idea came to mind. Thanks to Chris Turner, the CEO of The Ring Finders directory, for publishing his own search videos, I came up with an alternative plan that could possibly help me with our search. I recalled watching a video that Chris had shot regarding a stud earring that he was trying to recover for someone during the summer. He was getting so much interference from the electrical power lines above the property that he took his metal detector and tried to detect with a setting called: Gold Mode. It’s a very special setting that is used for mining gold. Usually, the metal detectorist will not need this setting because it’s not the usual type of hunting that most of us do on a regular basis. Though the technique proved to fail for Chris because of the constant electrical interference he was experiencing, his idea was filed in my head for a future time as this one. Chris ended up finding the earring that he was looking for by implementing a different strategy. He ended up stretching out his entire body on the ground like a sniper, scanning the yard with a handheld pinpointer like a windshield wiper until he finally located the jewel! Incredible! A must-see-video on his YouTube Channel called: The Ring Finders.
I told the guys what my next plan was and I immediately set my detector to Gold Mode. Then, I swung the coil over the diamond stud earring and I did get a signal! It was barely anything, but I did in fact get a reading of the earring! This was my only technique for trying to recover Josh’s missing sentimental piece. I would have to go very slowly over the ground and have the coil as close to the surface as possible. The problem with using this particular mode was that I would end up picking up signals coming from all sorts of other targets. The numbers that kept coming up on my screen were in the range of Number 1 and 2. I would end up getting a lot of trash that would be in that range, but I had no choice but to try this setting out on the field. After a couple of more tests with this function, Josh picked up the earring, safely placed it back in his ear and the three of us would say our goodbyes shortly thereafter.
I stayed on the field in the dark with my headlamp powered on while Josh and his birthday boy walked back to their car to head back to Pennsylvania to celebrate their son’s birthday. In the meantime, I would spend the next three hours grid searching the field for the missing earring. I moved very slowly forward with slow swings from left to right and back again, hoping that each signal that I picked up would potentially be the stud that I was looking for. I was also looking for the backing piece of the earring, as well. Once I finished the first grid line, I headed back the other direction and started the next one. The search was tedious, with tons of target signals coming up on my screen because of the type of mode that I was working with. Every signal that was in the Number 1 and 2 range would sound off that familiar signal through my headphones. Then I would take my handheld detector and place it on the ground where the signal was coming from and I would see if I could perhaps isolate and identify the target. I figured that if I couldn’t find the item with the pinpointer, it was either that the target was too far down in the ground or I may have found the earring because the pinpointer was having a hard time picking up the signal of the test earring unless it was in a particular angle.
I searched and searched and still there was no sign of Josh’s belonging. I have to admit that I wasn’t enjoying this type of hunt. There was no way of knowing for sure whether or not I walked right past the earring already. It’s even easy to overstep a larger object like a ring, so therefore it was very probable that I could have already missed the target and wasted the rest of those hours in a search that appeared to be futile. Still, I didn’t give up and I resolved to continue my search efforts until I had little left in my “energy tank”.
Another problem that I forgot to mention earlier was that the ground was covered with droplets from an earlier rainstorm, so everything was glistening and sparkling from my headlamp light source that was hitting the water and bouncing off reflections of light. It was a visual nightmare to try to eyeball a piece of jewelry that small with everything else that looked like a small diamond reflecting light from beneath the grass.
I think I may have covered half of the field before calling it quits that night. I felt that I did an extremely tight search with my gridlines. I also felt that the speed in which I used to swing the detector was slow enough that I shouldn’t have missed much metal that was on the surface. Again, there were so many signals that read off the same numbers as the gold earring. With everything I had to detect and pinpoint, I really could have missed something in between all of those numerous targets.
One other thing I forgot to mention earlier. The sound coming from the detector was extremely irritating because of the mode that I set the detector to. The higher the sensitivity that I set it to, the louder the hum-noise sounded off in my ears and it was becoming unbearable to listen to as I continued deep into my search. I was glad to wrap things up because I had nothing left in me at all. I have to admit that I was extremely frustrated and I had no intention of coming back to this field even though I hadn’t finished searching the entire perimeter. I just felt like it was just too much for me and I wasn’t even sure if I could pick up the target signal accurately since it was so faint with the test earring. And nobody knew if the earring was actually lost on that field! I believe when I started heading back to the car, I had already searched for about three hours. I packed my gear up and left the school property with the intention of never returning! I wanted to get on with other searches that were much more reasonable to carry out and not something as crazy as this search and recovery operation. I was no longer excited about the challenge due to the obstacles that I had faced with the uncertainties that were constantly flowing through my mind.
As I drove home, I texted Josh to let him know that I had left the field and that I would give him an update the following day. I would reach out to Josh in the morning. However, I got no response back from him due to a family crisis that he had to endure for the next several weeks. My intention was to tell him directly that I would not be able to return to Frederick to resume my search, but after a couple days had passed, I refreshed my attitude about the whole situation and decided to give it another go around. It kept bothering me that unless I tried to find Josh’s earring, I really believed that nobody else would have ever found it for him and it would be lost forever on that football field. I truly did not want that outcome for Josh and I felt like I needed to finish what I started. Then, if I had no success, I could then walk away knowing that I did everything I could to recover his property. So, I sent a text to Josh sometime mid-week letting him know that I would be heading out the following day to continue my search for the missing earring.
By the time that I arrived back at the middle school later in the week, it was dark outside again but this time there was no evening dew on the ground and everything was dry. This was a huge advantage for me because I could identify metallic objects on the ground including anything that appeared to look like glass that showed some form of reflection of light – like a diamond!
With my headlamp on and detector in hand, I started searching at the very location where I had quit the other night. Because I then had a better understanding of how many feet I needed to count from the chalk lines out to one side, I counted 30 feet to the left and put orange cones up to identify the left sideline of the football field which Josh had set up with his friends. I then knew exactly how many yards I had to search before I completed the entire field.
It’s important to also remember that the entire time that I was searching for Josh’s earring, there wasn’t 100% confidence that the earring was ever lost on the field. There still was a chance that it was somewhere in his house, in his vehicle, or even perhaps on the grass leading from the parking lot to the field. There was no way of knowing for certain where the diamond came off. So while I was searching so diligently for this tiny object that was supposedly hiding somewhere on the surface of grass, there was always that question mark of whether or not the jewel had ever gotten lost during his game in the first place. The only fact that I could stand upon was that it was most likely lost as a result of being tackled, whereby the earring was hit and then it popped off Josh’s ear. It was the most likely theory.
I continued my search, swinging the detector from left to right at a very slow speed as I did a few days earlier. Having the machine set up in Gold Mode provided the only opportunity to detect something as small as this 14 karat white gold earring. Like I shared before, the hum coming from the machine into the headphones was quite annoying, but I had to put up with it in order to use this function properly. Every time I got a VDI (visual identification) Number 1 or 2 on the screen, I pinpointed the location of where the coil was picking up the object and identified the source of the signal. All of my finds came up negative.
As the hours passed on, I continued with diligence in searching every single signal that was registering on my detector and I was determined to finish what I set out to do for the sake of Josh and his wife Adriana who gave her husband this very special gift. All of the signals that I was picking up led to no discoveries of either the earring or the backing. I recall praying as I swung the coil back and forth, just asking God to help me by providing me with the ability to find the earring and to make the impossible somehow possible! If one could think about how many gold stud posts and diamond gold settings would equal one gold ring; that’s how much easier this search could have been had I searched for a gold band. It was absolutely a needle in a haystack!
Target after target signal that I investigated turned out to be nothing at all. I pulled up pieces of aluminum and very small tiny objects that were in the range of what I was looking for. However, I did not find any gold earrings. Eventually, I got to the second to last grid line and in a matter of minutes I would be on the last pass which was 50 yards in length. If someone were to predict that I was about ready to find the 14 karat white gold stud diamond earring at the backstretch of my search, I would have most likely told them that they were a false prophet! I certainly have found rings and other objects at the very tail end of my recovery efforts. It always surprises me how those stories tend to end up successful at the 11:59 position on the clock! I certainly did not think that the conclusion to this search would resemble that kind of plot ending! Yet, a surprise was waiting in store for me!
As I continued detecting, I knew how close I was to wrapping things up and that it looked pretty grim for me to discover the missing earring. I even analyzed my search techniques and asked myself if I had perhaps detected over the jewelry at some point during the last 1,995 square yards of detecting. It was quite possible, yet I went so slow and was so careful with making sure that I stopped at every single signal in the range of this stud earring, that I felt pretty confident that I had successfully covered all of the yardage up to that point towards the end of the search. Again, I kept myself focused and said to myself, ‘I came here for a purpose which was to finish what I started and I am going to keep hoping for the result of finding Josh’s earring until I’m done with this search attempt.’
14 Karat White Gold and 1/2 Carat Diamond Reunited Together Again!
Eventually I got to the location in my search where I was about 20 feet away from completing the second to last grid line which would then be 50 yards in length remaining. After that last pass, I would have completed my search of the entire football field that Josh and his friends had marked off for their game. Just as I neared the end of that second to last line, I got another target signal which was no different than any of the other ones that I had to bend down to pinpoint before. Still, like with all the others, I knelt down to observe the target signal that I was getting and applied the pinpointer to the spot where the coil was reading the piece of metal in the grass. I looked at the depth meter on my detector screen and it told me that the object was just below the ground or on top of the earth. That didn’t mean too much to me because I had picked up all kinds of little objects that didn’t pan out to be anything. Just as I locked-in on the exact spot of where the target was located, my eyes immediately focused in on what appeared to be a small silver object that was laying sideways between the blades of grass! I then looked even more closely, and to my ultimate amazement and complete unbelief, I saw Josh’s treasured 14 karat white gold, one-half carat diamond earring hidden in the grass! I couldn’t believe it! I was blown away by what I was looking at! After all of the hours that I had been searching during the first evening and right up to the end of this second search effort, there it was, right at the invisible edge of the football field sideline! Nothing could describe accurately just what was going through me when I knew at that point that I had found Josh’s earring! It was too good to be true! It was a dream and that dream actually came true! Knowing that I set off on a mission to do something that was so far outside of the box in trying to find something this small on this much real estate, and that I pulled it off – there was just nothing like that feeling of excitement! I want to give credit where credit is due, which is that I believe the Lord helped me pull this search off! He gave me the abilities necessary to continue on, persevere and not give up, keep the focus, and apply the methods I used to effectively search for and ultimately recover the missing jewel from the huge piece of real estate!
I picked up the stud earring and stared at the beautiful diamond that was sparkling in the light as I was observing it! This piece of jewelry that was made up of a valuable stone and precious metal was going back to its owner and would eventually be worn on his ear soon enough! It wouldn’t be left out there on that field, to be trampled over and eventually buried inches in the dirt, serving absolutely no purpose! I found it! I really did find it! Here I was in total darkness with just my headlamp lighting the way! It was just me, all alone out there on that desolate field, celebrating the discovery of something so special! It really was thrilling! I knew at that very moment that I had not missed a single inch of territory! Upon looking for the lost piece of jewelry, I was so encouraged to realize that my meticulous grid searching in Gold Mode was perfectly done and that I had not overshot the very target that I was after! Springboarding off of that thought came another crazy one. That is, that it was quite possible that with my success of finding the earring, the white gold backing to its counterpart may be somewhere in the vicinity of where the earring had fallen off Josh’s ear. The backing had to come off first in order for the earring to eventually slip off of Josh’s ear. Therefore, it was quite possible that the backing was most likely not detected yet by my Equinox 800 and it could be still in the path of my remaining yards to search! I got totally excited about the idea that I might in fact find the backing during this last stretch of detecting. Now that I had recovered the most important item of the two, this would be the cherry on the top if I could pull off another find!
Brian, Josh and Adriana Partying It Up Knowing that the Search for the Missing Jewelry was Over! The Stud Earring was Back Home for Good!
I wasn’t going to leave that field until I covered every last inch of the football field that Josh had marked off last week. I may have searched 10 or 15 yards at the beginning stage of detecting the last grid line when I got another signal that was registering in the 1’s and 2’s. This time, I couldn’t wait to see what it was that I was picking up on my detector. Could it be the backing? Or was it another piece of trash like the handful that I had in my pouch pocket? I was about ready to find out, and to my shock again, it would not be disappointing! I got back down on the ground with my pinpointer, approaching the location of where this object was resting, and yes, once again, I hit gold! I found the backing! I couldn’t believe it! Yes, I found the 14 karat white gold backing to the earring! I was simply overjoyed at this discovery! It was incredible! It was absolutely fantastic to find even the backing to this earring! Most people would not have even taken the time and the effort to attempt a recovery like this because it was just too grueling and too time-consuming to detect every single signal in Gold Mode! This was not normal metal detecting by any means! I could not believe that I found the backing and yet it was a true reality! I was pump fisting and yelling out loud, “Yes! Yes! I can’t believe it! Yes, I found it!” I was praising the Lord and thanking Him for my abilities to find both pieces of gold! It was truly an amazing moment for me to experience something quite like this!
I stayed out there on that pitch dark field for a while, taking photos, video and commenting about the happiness that I was experiencing at that moment. Just thinking about the fact that I was so close to the end of the search parameter and that I was able to pull both pieces of gold off of the football field, was just an incredible thing for me to think about! What are the odds of this discovery? If I had placed the cones closer in and Josh did not give me a proper estimated distance from the chalk line extended out 30 feet from it, I may have undershot the search and would not have ever found the earring. Generally, I will search farther out from the parameter that is given to me so it’s possible that I still would have found the gold, but the techniques I was using to find such small objects was truly amazing with the results that I came away with that night! I kept thinking of how I was originally not going to return to the middle school field to attempt a second recovery and I was beyond happy that I chose to stick it out and continue to try to help Josh recover this earring with one more attempt! Wow! It was just awesome! I packed up my things and joyfully headed back to the car, thinking only thoughts of amazement and how blown away I was to find the earring and its backing!
I believe that by the time I got to the car it was nearing 10 p.m. I wanted to surprise Josh with my findings, so I eventually called him to see if he was still up since he told me that he was a night owl. However, I didn’t get any response. Eventually, I would surprise him with the good news and both he and his wife would be just as shocked as I was when I pulled his two pieces of jewelry from that field! It certainly was a fun moment to reveal my finds with the couple!
If you would like to see the search video and the moment that I revealed the missing earring and its backing to Josh, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel at the link below.
I will never forget this search and the amazing finish to what was one of the most difficult search efforts that I had ever tackled. Nothing could compare to the type of excitement that I was handed as a result of successfully finding Josh’s gold diamond earring and its backing, as well! As I drove home from surprising Josh and his wife Adriana with what I was able to recover, I hoped inside that I would have more of these types of challenges in the future. However, for the time being, I wished my next few recovery missions would not involve something of this magnitude…at least for a while!
What a search and what a fantastic finish!
If you would like to watch the SEARCH VIDEO and RING REVEAL pertaining to this story, the YOUTUBE link will be provided shortly. To receive the notification letting you know when the video is uploaded to YOUTUBE, feel free to SUBSCRIBE to BRIAN’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL by typing: THE RING RETURNER.
CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644 AND HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEO YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO RECEIVE NOTIFICATIONS WHEN THIS LATEST SEARCH VIDEOIS UPLOADED! BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEOS ARE FOUND ON HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL – THE RING RETURNER.
fellow ring finder Kent blethen and his girlfriend Mary Jane and I went out detecting at a beach an hour and a half drive away, we got there about an hour before low tide in hopes that the beach had lost some sand and would bring up some of the better gold targets. The first 20 minutes or so were pretty slow and there were only a few coins and pieces of trash showing up which is a bit discouraging but we pressed on (it wasn’t even worth turning the GoPro on). I decided to walk just into the water to where the beach dropped off on to the flats which was about 4-6 inches of water and i got a signal on my minelab ctx 3030 that showed as a 12.23-12.25 it was a solid signal so I turned the camera on and I’m glad I did, about 6 inches down was a class ring 10k yellow gold from Medford high school Class of 1947 With the initials FGF. My first thought was wow 1947 I highly doubt the owners was still alive and if so 89-90 years old.
i pocketed th ring and continued about the trip and managed to come across another gold ring and a gold earring. Back at the truck for the return trip I figured that we had an hour ride back to their house so I’d at least try to find a picture or name for the guy with the ring, 10 minutes in I had a name frank fredella, after finding his name in the year book I searched it on google with the town the school was in and several towns away there was a match with a 90 year old man and a bio saying Medford high, a few minutes later I had a number to call which I left a message on the answering machine saying to call me back. Shortly after the call I searched Facebook for another name that was listed as related persons and found his daughter who I messaged to have her call me. We got back to the house around 1:30 pm and I got a call from frank who said he was told to call Me, I said I believe I found your class ring and he asked which one, I told him the 1947 Medford high ring but he told me it was in the drawer (that’s what his wife told him) he then told me if it was his he’d like to have it back and where I could meet him the next day to return it, we hung up and made plans to head there the next day. I shot him a picture of the ring with the initials and he responded very quickly that’s it that’s my ring. The next day Kent and I went up to return the ring and were met by frank who is probably the youngest 90 year old person out there and is a super nice guy. He told us he was very Leary of the call at first which I understand and that his wife was telling him it was a scam until he got the pictures of it, he asked her to go grab the ring when I sent the pictures and she couldn’t find it, he told her that if I was a scammer then I was doing a really good job I even put the initials in the ring. Needless to say he was very happy to have it back and I was very happy to help.
You just never know what you will find when out detecting or if you’ll find the owner of what you found.
Blanca’s 14 Karat White Gold, 2 Carat Diamond, Surrounded by Accent Diamonds and Ring Wrap, Engagement Ring
Blanca’s Princess-like Diamond Enagagement Ring Finally Reunited With Her Ring Wrap After Two Weeks Gone Missing!
Blanca, Chris and Family Celebrating the Recovery of Her Beautiful Diamond Engagement Ring!
CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644 AND HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!
I received an email from a couple who were at their wits end in trying to find a lost 14 karat white gold, 2 carat diamond engagement ring in their house. For two weeks, Chris and Blanca searched for the bride’s missing ring but came up with absolutely nothing. The backstory goes like this: Blanca was hanging out on the couch in the family room and was ready to take a nap. She remembered taking off all of her rings and giving them to her son who was kind enough to walk the handful of jewelry down the hall and into his parents’ bedroom. He laid the rings on Blanca’s vanity table which was located in a small sitting room adjacent to the master bathroom. Blanca fell asleep and when she woke up, she tended to some things around the house and eventually strolled into the bedroom to retrieve her rings and place them back on her fingers. This was the moment when Blanca realized that her gorgeous engagement ring was missing amongst the wedding band and her other rings that included her exquisite ring wrap that the engagement ring slips into. All were accounted for on the vanity table except the engagement ring. It didn’t make sense why all of the rings were there except that one band. She called her son over to ask him if he may have accidentally dropped the ring somewhere along his route to the master bedroom, but he swore that he made no detours and that he didn’t see anything fall to the carpet. His mother quickly moved back to the living room couch where the two of them began searching around the cushions and pillows. They looked everywhere. There was nothing found under the couch or on the area rugs nearby, either. Blanca carefully placed her fingers down into the crevices of the couch and still she could feel no pieces of jewelry wedged in any of the gaps down below. With not being able to find the luxurious keepsake anywhere in the house, they wondered if the band could have been accidentally thrown away in the trash. However, when the couple recounted their steps, there was nothing deposited in the garbage between the time that Blanca last wore the ring right up to the moment that it had gone missing. As the minutes and hours ticked by, the disappearance of this gorgeous and sentimental ring became a mystery for this family to unravel.
When all of the family’s efforts were initially expended, Blanca and her husband Chris took the bull by the horns and decided to do an extensive search in their family living room couch. Chris still kept feeling like the ring had been lost in that piece of furniture and that perhaps it had never been given to their son when he took the other rings to the vanity table. Blanca’s determined husband put his hands in the crevices of the sofa just like Blanca had done days earlier, but this time he spent a whole lot more time working through the stationary cushions, just in case the beautiful band slipped farther down into the couch. Nothing became of his energetic attempt to return the ring that he presented to his wife when he asked her to marry him many years earlier. A couple of more days went by and when nothing turned up in the house, Chris gathered a few of his friends who teamed together by picking up the couch and flipping it upside down to see if the ring had been lost in that furniture the whole time. Next, he made an incision across the bottom of the couch so that the gang could look inside the guts to see if the band had fallen deep into the hidden chambers within. Unfortunately, Chris and his helpers still had no luck in discovering the sentimental and beloved object.
At this point, Blanca and her husband had no more ideas to implement in trying to recover the lost ring. They went to the internet and began searching for alternative ways to somehow find the piece of jewelry that went MIA into thin air. With all of the attempts made, the next source of information that they obtained online may easily be considered their best chance of finding their ring yet! They pulled up a website called The Ring Finders, which is a directory made up of men and women who specialize in finding rings with their metal detectors and other sophisticated equipment. The couple searched for a local Ring Finder in their area and my name popped up. After Chris called me and shared all of the details of what had transpired since the day the ring disappeared, I encouraged him with words of hope, quite confident that the ring was still somewhere in their house. Because the couple was pretty much drained empty of any “positive power” after trying everything to find the missing ring, I became their new source of bright light to shine upon all of their doubts and discouragement!
I told Chris that I not only specialize in metal detecting, but I also specialize in recovering rings from within people’s personal located in their homes. Not all detectorists will tackle in-house searches. But, in this case, he called the right guy. On the phone that day, we scheduled a time for me to come out to their house later that evening and I assured this desperate fellow that I would do everything I could to get that ring back for him. He was extremely encouraged by my words, and we looked forward to meeting later that night.
That evening, I headed to Alexandria, Virginia to conduct the in-house search for Chris and Blanca. The moment that I arrived at the front door, the family was extremely warm and inviting towards me. I had all of my gear in hand and as they guided me into the foyer, they directed me into the family room where I organized my gear and prepared the equipment for the recovery efforts. The couple introduced me to their children and then I requested a meeting with Chris, Blanca, and their son who took mom’s rings into the other room when she had laid down for a nap that day. I then began asking all kinds of questions in order for me to get clarity about what had happened on that dreadful day when the ring disappeared.
My first request was for Blanca to show me where she was lying down on the couch when she handed the jewelry to her son. I then wanted the family to take me step-by-step through the sequence of events, from the time she rested on the sofa until she arose after her nap and realized that her diamond engagement ring was missing from her vanity table. Their young son took me from the couch where he was given the rings and led me in a straight line, passed the kitchen and down a long hallway to where the master bedroom was located. He turned right and entered through a doorway and there in front of us was a small sitting room with a vanity table in the corner. A bathroom was adjacent to that sitting room along with the master bedroom entrance to the right of it. Their son shared with me that he never took the rings into the bathroom or into the master bedroom. He said that he did exactly what his mother had told him to do, which was to take those rings and to place them on the vanity. He never stopped anywhere along the way during the time that he traveled from one side of the house to the other. While the young man was guiding me along the path from the couch to the vanity table, I searched corners and looked for any cracks where the ring may have fallen to the floor and then slip into a space larger enough to consume the object. However, there were no little cracks in the corners or slits in the hardwood floor where the beloved betrothal piece could have dropped into.
I checked the floor of the bathroom and it was clean as a whistle. I also checked outside of the entrance to the master bedroom and searched under the furniture that was nearest to the doorway that led into Chris and Blanca’s room. Still, there was no ring to be discovered. We then moved out of that room and went back into the hallway and I looked to my left and right to see if the ring may have bounced onto the floor and ended up in a closet or another room. Unfortunately, everything was clear of an engagement ring. Next, I searched the dining room floor, which was all hardwood except for the area rug located under the dining room table, but again my results came up negative for any jewelry found on the floor. It was completely clean. Quickly, I moved into the kitchen area. It only took me seconds to search that space because the floors were perfectly clean and it had no slits or openings where the ring could have bounced from the hall and into some hidden area in the floor.
After I eliminated every other possibility as to where this ring disappeared to, the only place remaining to search was the family room. I concluded that Blanca’s band could not have ever exited that living area because it was nowhere to be found anywhere else in the house. Now, my entire focus was given to searching the family room for the prized possession. If I didn’t find it in there, I would not be able to help the family any further.
Before I spent my time searching the couch, I wanted to make sure that the ring did not end up in a throw blanket or that it perhaps landed underneath the loveseat. I probably spent about five or seven minutes metal detecting all of the blankets with my handheld pinpointer before I checked every other possible spot besides the sofa. There was no ring snagged on any of the fabric, nor was there any sign of it underneath any of the furniture. I also made sure that it didn’t end up on the floor, as well. Once I eliminated all of those other possibilities, the couch was my soul center of attention and nothing else.
As I shared above, Chris kept going back to the scenario that the engagement ring had to be in the couch when the family failed to discover it anywhere else. This would mean that Blanca never actually handed her engagement ring to her son when she gave the other rings to him to take to her vanity table. Upon taking the rings off, her band would have had to slide through the diamond encased ring wrap and fall between Blanca’s fingers at the time of the transfer, and eventually slipping down into the couch without her aware of it. This was my last hunch to investigate before I had to call it a night. Chris and Blanca agreed that there were no other options remaining after checking out this piece of furniture.
With tackling the sofa, my first search action was to experiment with my handheld pinpointer and scan around the cushions to see if the ring could be located in any of the obvious crevices in the couch where there were no adjacent pieces of metal such as staples or screws. I wanted to see if the ring may have ended up in an area that was isolated without any other metal so close to it, which would make it very easy for me to discover. When I concluded that the couch staples were being picked up by the pinpointer, I knew that I would not be able to spot the ring with that method.
Next, I immediately set up my endoscope which is a fiber-optic probe that has a lens for viewing hard-to-see areas such as inside couches. I can monitor what the snake is seeing, record video of the movement of the endoscope, along with taking still photos. It’s a fantastic instrument used for searching for lost rings in automobiles, as well as for in-house recoveries. Depending on how a particular sofa is designed, the endoscope can be pushed down into spaces where it has a chance to view the internal spots where jewelry can fall into. It all depends on what limitations you are handed when dealing with a particular style of couch. Sometimes I am greatly restricted with what I actually can view because of the internal hardware of the furniture that hinders the probe from traveling farther distances within the environment that I am searching around. If the object cannot be detected with the use of the endoscope, the only last option is to make incisions in the furniture in order to confirm for certain whether or not the item was in fact buried in the sofa or not.
I set up the endoscope and synced it with my smartphone so I could view everything that the probe was looking at. Then, I had the family turn off all of the lights so that I could see the screen much more clearly. I slowly moved the endoscope down into the first crack in the sofa and carefully guided the snake over to one side and then back the other way so I could view everything in that particular section of the couch. I repeated these steps from one side of the sofa and then all the way to the other end. I still could not see anything that looked like a ring.
Once I completed that step, I requested Chris’s help to flip the couch over onto one side so that I could place the endoscope inside from the bottom section. This would help me view any possible spots where the ring may have gotten trapped on the day that it went missing, or possibly when Chris and his friends initially flipped the couch and made his first incisions. I then moved the snake around the inner parts of the piece of furniture, hoping that I might spot something that resembled a halo. However, other than a few small objects found within the inner chambers of the couch, there was nothing discovered that could be worn on a finger.
Happiness Doesn’t Describe How Blanca was Feeling Inside Now That the Ring Was Back!
Just as I neared the edge of the other side of the furniture, I finally saw something on my screen that appeared to be similar to the shape of a ring. I had seen a photo of Blanca’s huge gorgeous ring and there were in fact some similarities between the picture and what I was viewing on the monitor. From the angle that I was probing this particular item, I was not able to manipulate the snake in such a way that I could clearly identify what the item was. Therefore, the only way that I could accurately identify the mysterious object was to flip the couch back over to its original position. Then, I would reinsert the snake into the crevices of the couch on the side where I had detected something that resembled an engagement ring moments earlier. Chris wanted to help me out in my efforts, so I told him that I would take one section which was the left side of the couch, and he would take the center section. Then, we would travel across and meet at some point in the middle. If we still couldn’t find the object in question, I would lastly go to the far right section and probe that end, as well. We chose these two areas to start with because the object that I had been viewing would have been between the left side of the couch and the middle area. Obviously, Chris did not have a probe to work with. However, he still could use his long fingers to effectively push is way down into the crevice between the stationary cushions and perhaps be able to feel around for the item. As I traveled in his direction, the probe was not picking up anything that resembled what I saw on the screen earlier. Just as Chris started to move his fingers in the direction of where my probe was heading, one of his fingers felt something small and hard that was way down in one of the sections of the couch. At first he thought maybe it was something that was part of the hardware of the sofa, but then he noticed that it moved slightly when he was touching it. He said out loud, “What the (heck) is this?” Then, before I had a chance to look it over with the probe (since I was getting closer to where he was searching in the couch), he hooked the object with his finger and brought it up from within the cushion. There it was! The long lost engagement ring! Blanca’s gorgeous gold diamond engagement ring was found! Unbelievable! Chris had found his wife’s ring which had been lost within the chambers of the sofa for the last couple of weeks! His prediction as to where the ring had ended up was absolutely accurate from the beginning!
The Search Was Finally Over! Now Celebration Began!
Blanca was in complete disbelief and started to cry tears of joy as her husband showed proof that the missing band was truly in his hand! It was not only an incredible moment for the family, but also for me as well! I could not have been happier for the couple that had been so stressed out over the disappearance of this ring for so many days! What I viewed on the probe was absolutely that engagement ring, and it was there in the couch all along! I congratulated Chris for ultimately being the hero that night! The couple could not stop thanking me and the children eventually gathered around their parents and viewed the ring, almost in unbelief that it really was back in their possession after all of this time! I had prayed on the way over that the Lord would help me and guide all of us in finding this very important keepsake, and I believe He delivered! God loves the covenant of marriage and especially the betrothal process in promising oneself to another by way of giving an engagement ring! We certainly felt God’s favor with the return of this ring from the inner chambers of the family room couch! What a night it was! All of us rejoiced and thanked God and spent a little while longer reviewing all of the places that the family and I had searched in the past couple of weeks! In the end, the sofa was the last possible spot where Blanca’s band could have ended up! And that was exactly the location where it had disappeared all along!
After we took some pictures together, I packed my gear up and walked towards the front door of their house to leave. Chris and Blanca thanked me one last time for assisting in the search and recovery of what Chris had eventually found – his wife’s amazing diamond engagement ring! So much time had gone by from the day it was lost until the very evening that the couple called me into their world to help them find the ring. I was honored to be the one who pushed the search process to its final conclusion that night! I was quite humbled by their words of kindness and I will never forget how excited I was to be a part of the search and recovery of Blanca’s love keepsake! It was certainly an in-house search that I will never forget!
If you would like to watch the SEARCH VIDEO and RING REVEAL pertaining to this story, the YOUTUBE link will be provided shortly. To receive the notification letting you know when the video is uploaded to YOUTUBE, feel free to SUBSCRIBE to BRIAN’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL by typing: THE RING RETURNER.
CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644 AND HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEO YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO RECEIVE NOTIFICATIONS WHEN THIS LATEST SEARCH VIDEOIS UPLOADED! BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEOS ARE FOUND ON HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL – THE RING RETURNER.
I had another ring find adventure today in New Concord Ohio. I first have to thank Jeff Morgan (#seattleringfinder) for the encouragement and help that he gave Kendal. And thanks to Sam, the first Ringfinder, for all the time you spent looking for it. The client told me everywhere you looked so I knew the ring wasn’t there, which narrowed my search area considerably. I found it where no one would expect it!! Crazy how it got way back there!! Here is the story from Kendal.
My husband lost his wedding ring back in Nov 2019. Our golden retriever had just started jumping on cars when pulling in our driveway. As we pulled in, she started jumping on our car, so he put it in park, got out, and went to swing at her and his ring flew off his finger. (Obviously 2 big he just wouldn’t go get it sized. We have been married since Aug. 2012) We searched for hours. Days. Weeks. Had another ring finder come out. They searched for about 4-5hours. No luck. I wasn’t ready to give up. I knew 100% it was out there! I contacted Steve and he was willing to give it a shot! In less than 3 hours he FOUND it on the other side of our driveway not far from where my husband was! Whoop whoop!
THANK YOU Steve!!!!
Now to make him go get it resized
