The Ring Finders Blog | Page 347 of 1119

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!”