An Unexpected Find
In the company of two American Hero’s
Medal of Honor Recipients
Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta
Staff Sergeant Leroy A. Petry
In the company of two American Hero’s
Medal of Honor Recipients
Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta
Staff Sergeant Leroy A. Petry
I received a call this morning from a young man who said his wife lost her diamond engagement ring in the backyard while playing baseball with their daughter. He said his wife was very upset and concerned that the ring was lost for good. After discussing the search and what it entailed I decided to go after work to search for her ring.I met with his wife and she showed me the area where she thought the ring many have been lost. It was a very large back yard and the grass was long enough to hide a ring with no problem, after talking to the young lady I had a pretty good idea where I was going to start my search.She told me that she searched with her husband for over an hour and a half with a rake and just eyeballing the area to see if they could get lucky and find the ring…but no luck… She also told me that she hardly slept the night before knowing that her ring was lost and she may never find it.Its amazing how emotional it is for the person who has lost that sentimental item and the thought that it may never be found.Well it only took 15 minutes in the pouring rain and dark to find her lost diamond ring… it’s the greatest feeling when your detector sounds off and you look down and part the grass and see that persons cherished item looking back up at you …knowing with excitement that it will make that person’s day when you hold it up and show them! This is the 700th recorded ring found for The Ring Finders Directory! We have over 100 recoveries without pictures…800+ My goal is to see over 1 million Smiles on my Directory before I die! I love my Job!Lost something call ASAPWatch the video of the search…https://youtu.be/iYpfdN4tFeI
Within 48 hours of being registered with The Ring Finders I received my first call. Happy and excited with the prospect of my first recovery I set off for Bournemouth to search for a young ladies lost engagement ring in Bournemouth with the’ big day’ looming. I grabbed my equipment and set off right away along Studland Beach – a place I had previously recovered many lost gold rings and jewellery. Fortunately I received a very relieved message from her that upon returning home and taking off her boots, out fell the ring!
On a family trip five years and one day after Josh and Christine were married, Josh’s platinum wedding ring slipped off his finger in knee-deep water at Pilot Beach on the mid north coast of New South Wales in Australia.
Christine’s email arrived in my inbox four days later closely followed by that « it’s on » feeling I’m sure we all experience at the start of a search.
Pilot Beach is about a ninety minute drive north from my home and it is probably best described as a semi-surf beach lying inside two break walls at the mouth of the Camden Haven River.
After speaking to Christine and gathering information on the time of loss, surf conditions, tide height and the arrival of Google Earth photos of the location and several family photos from the day we set off to search for the ring. Christine expressed gratitude that someone would drop everything and head out looking for something for a total stranger and I suspect that she was not overly hopeful that the mission would be a successful one.
Searching for lost items with no direct contact with the owner can be difficult and Christine was speaking to me from Sydney but her photos and maps and the accuracy of her memory of the location that became apparent on arrival at the search area provided the confidence I needed.
With the search area pegged out from the maps and photos I went to work with my Minelab Excalibur. Encouragingly there were few signals from the detector in the upper sector of the search area and with one possible target marked in the mid sector in about a foot of water. Digging here was futile as the surf returned most of the sand dug right back into the hole so I completed the lower sector in waist deep water as the tide dropped locating one bottle top for the rubbish bin.
A few minutes of careful digging and scanning back at the marked signal uncovered a platinum ring with the inscription confirming that it was the target ring approximately one foot from the surface of the sand. A quick message to Christine on the phone while dodging the beginning of a thunder storm saw us back in the car for the return journey. Mission accomplished thanks to The Ring Finder
Spent a few hours working a local park after a slow month of service calls. The following items were found including this nice ring.
Don Marshall The Ring Finders Victoria, B.C.
Fort Worth,Texas Fire Fighter Looses Grandfathers Wedding Ring in while Fighting Brush Fire!
On Friday afternoon we received a call from a Fort Worth fire fighter. He said that he and his crew had been fighting a brush/fence fire behind a home where a woman had thrown out some 2-day old fireplace coals. The coals had set the compost pile and fence and part of the yards of 2 homes on fire. He said his buddy had lost his Grandfathers ring which he now wears as a Wedding Ring. It was 3pm on Friday afternoon, they were 52 miles away across Dallas & Fort Worth and 5pm Friday afternoon traffic was a major contention. I knew it would take a minimum of 2 hours to drive there so I asked if we could come on Saturday due to traffic, but the young firefighter had panic in voice and ask us to please come.
How can you say ‘no’ to a Fire Fighter? It took us nearly 3 hours to get there due to the heavy traffic.
He was waiting for us when we arrived and explained that he had been inside the backyard of the home and was knocking out the burning fence slats with the palm of his hand while fighting the fire. He knew exactly where he was standing (in the wet, smelly compost pile) when it came off, and it was lightly raining… Get the picture?, pretty much a yuck site.
With a desperate customer, our Garrett equipment and rubber boots we went to work. Thinking the ring flew off some distance into the field behind the home, we searched everywhere. Eliminating nails, iron, junk, etc. doing everything we could to find the ring. After an hour it was starting to get dark and everyone was loosing hope my wife went back into the backyard and began slowly going through the compost pile with her detector and pinpointer. Understand this compost pile was about 18-inches thick and 5-ft by 5-ft in size. It was soaking wet from the fire being put out, burnt from catching on fire and wet burned trash just really stinks. But this is what the fireman was standing on when he was knocking out the burning fence slats. I was coming into the backyard to help her when I heard her yell out « I Found It », the fireman was standing right there when she found his ring, he was so excited. He kept saying « you guys are awesome, you guys are awesome, unbelievable!, wait till I tell the guys back at the station! ».
This was by far our dirtiest hunt, but one of our most rewarding.
Our Firefighters across this country will run into a burning home or building for us without thinking twice about it, the least we can do is work through muck to find a wedding ring for them.
This was a very emotional find for us and we are so glad to be part of « The Ring Finders ».
Till next time, detectors ON!
Don & Ellen
We got a call from a wonderful lady that said her husband (a pilot) had lost his ring while working in their front yard. He was standing in a culvert ditch tossing some large rocks from one side of the driveway to the other and felt his ring slid off; he said he heard it « tink » twice but never saw it land. He and his family searched for months looking for the ring without luck. He bought a cheap metal detector himself but without success, his father-in-law came over with another detector but had no luck either. Months past and his wife was playing around on the internet and found « The Ring Finders » website and called us.
We arrived and met with the couple, I truly think the husband felt is was a lost cause. The ring had be lost for over 6 months. With the snowy/wet weather we have had this year he felt it was lost forever.
My wife & I got our Garrett Detectors and went to searching; we checked everywhere the husband said he thought is might be but had no luck. So we went back over to where he stated he had been standing originally when he lost the ring. The ditch was knee deep in leaves, trash, mud and an 18-inch metal pipe that went under their driveway. After scanning over that area many times we decided everything had to come out of the ditch due to way too many hits on trash. So on our hands and knees we began to pull out all the leaves and junk using our Garrett pinpointers to check every handful of trash for the ring. After a short time I saw something shiny and I told my wife « I Got It ». There stuck in the mud, 5-8 inches down in the muck, right where the husband had been standing throwing the rocks was his ring. The « Tinking Sound » he heard must have been the ring hitting the metal culvert not the driveway as he thought. The ring was in great shape.
And for the fun part, we went up to the door and rang the bell, the wife came to the door and she said « No Luck Huh » and we just smiled and I open my hand revealing her husbands « Palladium Wedding Ring », she said « Oh my gosh, let me go get him » he was thrilled and we had « Another Successful Hunt for the the Dallas Ring Finders ».
God I love this hobby!
Till next time, detectors ON!
Don & Ellen
I was contacted by a student who had lost his ring in the snow at his college parking lot. He lost it when he threw a snowball. He lost it almost a week ago. I told him I would come out immediately, since we were expecting a heavy snow in a few hours. I knew that if we didn’t find it now, we might not find it til spring. The ring was found in a bank of snow that the snow plow had pushed to the side. Very lucky that he found it.
It’s the beginning of March, and soon the snowbanks will be melting. Lost IPODs, rings, keys, and other valuables will soon be revealed. My equipment can find rings in snow, but a good spring thaw expands search possibilities.
I found 15 lost rings last year, and 16 the year before. With the ground thawing and lakes and rivers opening up, now is the time to contact me if you would like to schedule a search.
Don’t worry if it’s been lost a long time. Once, I was called to find a depression-era gold class ring that was lost in the late 1940’s. At the time, a little girl had borrowed the ring from her dad to play with it, and hung it on a pine tree branch so she could climb the tree. It flipped off and was seemingly gone forever. Many decades later, it took me a bit of luck and 20 minutes worth of searching with a Tesoro Silver Sabre to find it. Smiles were on everyone’s faces as their precious artifact was returned.
The school insignia needed some restoration, but the main portion of the ring kept its beautiful shine, as gold always does.
So call me to discuss your loss, and perhaps schedule a search. The least one can do is try.