Uncategorized Category | Page 392 of 584 | The Ring Finders

This is a story of overcoming trials and not giving up to find a lost wedding ring. I received an email from Tim a « desperate husband » stating he lost his ring in a lake while playing with his daughter. Our first obstacle we had to overcome was our limited time to search.  The lake was private and we were only allowed to search for one hour before they opened to the public. The manager was gracious enough to come in early for us, but needed us out before they opened to the public. After about 10 minutes of searching, my Garrett ATPro began taking on water and shut down. We continued to search with pin pointers, but with no luck.  As I had to send back my detector to Garrett, this approximate two week delay allowed more people to walk and swim in the search area. Garrett’s excellent service department found that a seal had went bad and was allowing water to enter.

Once I received my new detector, we made arrangements to search again. We searched the area hard for 1 hour and 15min, again with no luck. Did I mention that the water was about 4 1/2 feet deep and very cloudy, which caused even more difficulty in searching. Because of our work schedules and having to wait on the manager to allow us to search, we had only one more day to search, as the lake was about to close for the season after Labor Day. We arrived on Friday morning for our one our search. We found lots of coins but no ring. As the manager came over to tell us we had 10 more minutes to search, I  got a great hit around 65. We dug a few times but came up with only a penny.  As we were about to walk out of the water defeated, knowing we needed to leave and that we would not be able to search again, I got an excellent hit around 58 and 2-4 inches deep. Tim swam under, felt the vibration with the pin pointer and dug up a lot of sand. Nothing. I told him I still had the signal under my coil and he went under one more time. As he came out of the water he screamed that he had the ring in the sand scoop. We were both so excited and just could not be any happier.

This was by far my most difficult search due to the limited time we were allowed to search and ruining my first detector to water damage. I was determined to find Tim’s ring as he had photos of himself and his daughter in the water, which gave us an exact area to search. Plus he personally designed the ring so it was even more sentimental to him.  So never give up searching and always call a professional from The Ringfinders to help you search for your lost jewelry.

After completing a successful Ring Finder search for a client in Royal Oak, I was doing a little searching on my own at Grand Haven State Park.  I was approached by fellow West MI Ring Finder, Gregg Larabel.  A woman had stopped him on the beach and said she had lost a ring while walking along the shoreline between the pavilion and the pier.  He told her he’d look and that if he found it she could contact him through The Ring Finders website and he would get it back to her.  I was more than halfway to the pier at that point so I started searching the shoreline going north while he looked to the south.  About 15 minutes later I found it just a few feet from shore.  Not knowing if Greg was still on the beach, I texted him a picture of the ring and dropped it off to him the next morning to deliver to Michelle.

I received a call Thursday from Joe who had lost his wedding ring the day before in Lake Michigan at Grand Haven State Park.  He said he was from the east side of the state and they were about to leave for home. They had been in Grand Haven celebrating their 3rd wedding anniversary where they had been married on the beach in 2016.  I asked him to photograph the beach with landmarks (benches, buoys, etc.) to give me a general idea of where to start looking (it’s a REALLY long beach).  After searching for over 2 hours the next morning, I called Joe to get clarification on the search area.  He said the ring had slipped off about 10’-20’ from the buoy, so I tried again.  After about 10 minutes I saw gold in my scoop!  I texted him a picture of the ring.  He was so happy.  I mailed his ring to him and asked him to take a picture of him with it for my Book of Smiles.

I got an unusual call from SB Swae in Grand Haven to locate a ruby bead from a necklace that had broken while he was felling a tree next to Tech Audio, his uncle’s business.  He said the necklace contained several pure silver beads that had fallen off the strand along with the ruby bead and, if I found the silver beads, the hope was I might find the ruby bead also.  We both knew it was a long shot but it was worth a try.  In the event I found the silver beads but not the ruby before it got dark, I stopped at Home Depot to purchase a UV flashlight knowing that rubies glow under UV light.  When I arrived, Swae had staked off a 25 sq/ft area where the necklace had fallen off, believing the beads would be in that general area.  While I searched he told me the story behind the necklace.  Swae had purchased the necklace in India and had it blessed by the Dalai Lama.  It only took about 10 minutes to locate where the silver beads had fallen.  At that point, we got down on our hands and knees with a pin-pointer and carefully sifted through the brush and were able to find all but 4 of the 35 lost beads, including the ruby!

Gregg Larabel, my fellow Ringfinder, and I searched for a lost house key for LeAnn (a special education teacher) a couple of weeks ago with no luck.  During that search LeAnn mentioned she had lost a ring years ago, and knew it was gone forever.  We had to twist her arm to hear the whole story.  LeAnn’s Dad gave the ring to his wife to celebrate LeAnn’s birth, and Mom passed the ring on to LeAnn in her sophomore year in high school.  In her senior year a friend pushed her off a dock into the lake, and her ring flew off into the water.  Last night LeAnn gave Gregg the address of where she lost the ring, and off Gregg and I went this morning for the treasure hunt.  Shortly after arriving at the lake I was in waist-deep water when I got a good strong signal, probably a pull tab I thought.  No, this sounded better than a pull tab.  Could this be the ring?  (Your heart rate really does go up a notch.)  Several scoops in 6 inches of muck, and the ring appeared in my scoop.  Almost 10 years under water has been a little hard on the ring, but we hope a jeweler can fix it up for her.  The plan is to get a picture of LeAnn with her repaired ring when it is completed.