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Door county lost rings were quickly recovered

  • from Green Bay (Wisconsin, United States)
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Tom Caldie was helping a friend with an art gallery near Fish Creek in Door County, Wisconsin when he received a call from a Milwaukee resident who had been visiting over the weekend.    She brought her two young sons swimming for their first time in a lake, and the experience was saddened by the loss of her 14k diamond engagement ring.   Even though the family purchased a metal detector, their inexperience and lack of a water scoop meant the ring was probably lost for good.

A Google search brought up Tom’s name, and Ringfinders came to the rescue.  By coincidence, Tom was only minutes away from the beach where it was lost, and quickly started a grid search as soon as the gallery was closed for the day. After a few hours of sweeping the area, and a phone call  to the owner to pin-point the probable location, this beautiful diamond ring and its memories were finally  recovered.    It was shipped overnight to Milwaukee and back on her finger in no time.

Not much later, on July 4th, Tom received a call from a man who had lost his palladium art carved wedding band near Sturgeon Bay.    After a joint effort involving scooping and moving several large rocks and gravel,  the ring was found.   Another happy ending!   I don’t have a pic of that one because of a phone glitch, but the memories and feelings that went with it will always be unforgettable. IMG_0763[1]IMG_0560[1]

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Water recovery of stolen jewelry in Appleton, WI

  • from Green Bay (Wisconsin, United States)
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On June 15th, Tom Caldie received a call from a homeowner in Appleton, Wisconsin, who had been burglarized.    The alleged thief was spotted running out the back door with a laundry bag over his shoulder.  He burst through a hedge, scurried down a retaining wall, and darted downhill through a neighbor’s heavily wooded lot to the Fox River.   911 was called and the police arrived shortly to find a man attempting escape by swimming across the river.   He refused to come to shore, and a police boat was launched to apprehend him.  No trace of the loot was evident because he had stashed it with the hope of recovering it later, and he would not reveal its location.

That night, two young men from the neighborhood found bracelets and necklaces in shallow water along the shore by shining lights into the river, but not much was recovered.   A few days later, the homeowner found Tom Caldie’s Ringfinder information through a Google search and called him.  She couldn’t believe such a service existed, especially in water.  Tom packed his wet suit, Garrett AT Pro, and Titanic water scoop and arrived at the site within an hour.    He followed the burglar’s track precisely, detecting under plants and brush, and found a few pieces of jewelry on the hillside leading down to the water.   Once in the river, he discovered a trail leading downstream of pearl necklaces and bracelets,  and some silver turquoise pieces.  They were mixed with weeds, between rocks, and in the muddy river bottom.  A   Then, a sudden tornado-like squall arrived with lightning, heavy rain, and high winds, and the search was cut short.

The next day, the river was only four inches higher because of the storm, and the water, which is normally a root beer color, was muddy, so Tom brought a compost rake to move debris.  Resuming his sweep, he followed the trail of dropped pieces to a loud signal submerged three feet under the surface and tangled under a large fallen willow tree.  Reaching in with the rake, he found laundry!   The third pair of shorts had two gold chains on it, so he knew he  was close.  Then, the rake pulled out a large purse with an assortment of necklaces and earrings in it, and some appeared to be gold.   A few more tries and the laundry bag was recovered as well, with watches, necklaces, and more clothes mixed in.  (Later, the police estimated the theft at $40,000.)IMG_0752[1]

After cleaning up more loose pieces off the river bottom, Tom brought the two bags to the homeowner, who was ecstatic to recover her platinum engagement band, wedding band, and ten-year anniversary rings!   She was quite happy to retrieve the other items as well, but those three rings brought tears and smiles.   It would have been a shame if they would have been lost forever on the muddy river bottom.IMG_0753[1]IMG_0751[1] IMG_0757[1]

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Found wedding ring lost on the side of the road for over a month.

  • from Holland (Michigan, United States)
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ok2 GetAttachmentThumbnailJasmine H. from Okemos, Mi. lost her wedding ring (3 rings soldered together) about a month ago.  Driving down the road, she tossed a cigarette out the car window and the ring went with it.  Since it was at night, she searched the road with a light but came up empty handed.  After over 20 years of marriage she and her husband replaced the ring with a new one, assuming the original was gone forever.  In one last chance she searched Facebook and found the RingFinders site and called Gregg Larabel who is registered for the Lansing area.

Today, Gregg and I met Jasmine at 10:00AM in the area where she lost her ring.  The sides of this rural, two-lane road had been mowed recently which concerned us initially, but it turned out the short grass made hunting for her ring a lot easier.  After about an hour of searching I got the signal of her ring about 5 ft. off the blacktop under some sand and pebbles.  We called Jasmine over and had her check in the sand right at that spot.  She was overcome with emotion when she uncovered her ring.  After a month of being lost and being run over by mowers, the ring had come thru with no damage.  With hugs and high fives it was a sight to be seen.  And you wonder why we love this job!

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My 50th! Lost White Gold Wedding Band at McGrew Point Officer Housing…FOUND!!!

  • from O‘ahu (Hawaii, United States)
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How fitting that my 50th ring find service is to a fellow US Navy Limited Duty Officer such as I retired in 2003. This started with a phone call from Todd who was looking to buy an inexpensive metal detector. I asked him if he lost something and just needed someone to metal detect for it. He told me his 4 year old daughter took his wife Jennifer’s White Gold Wedding Band and threw it out in the front yard from the front lanai. He didn’t get to her in time before she threw the ring he only heard a « tink » of the ring hitting the concrete sidewalk. The front lawn is Hawaiian Crab Grass and it can hide a ring with ease. To make matters worse the lawn crew was coming in two days and if we didn’t find the ring heaven only knows where a weed wacker or lawn mower could send that ring. I started my search closest to the house thinking a 4 year old couldn’t throw a ring very far. I had to deal with the side walk re-bar but other than that the grass was sterile. First target was a Lincoln cent. Working away from the house I found two more underground targets using my pin-pointer so I moved on. I was beginning to think this ring took a weird bounce and might be in the bushes close to the house. That was going to be a pain. I decided to do one more arc of the search and near an irrigation pipe I got a nice tone. I put the pin-pointer into the grass and got a signal. Even with the pin-point it was hard to see the ring in the grass. Todd and I joked it was time to get his daughter into baseball because she had quite the arm. The ring was a good 20+ feet from where she threw it. Todd said he would have never thought to look that far away. With a handshake and a Mahalo the ring wasn’t going to be launched by the lawn crew. Aloha to Todd & Jennifer!

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Platinum Diamond Wedding Rings Lost .. Laguna Beach, CA. .. Found Next Day

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Friday morning I had to pick up something across town when Brad called me. His wife Megan had lost her wedding ring set. I was two hours away and asked them if the could guard the area. I kept them updated on my arrival time assuring them that my metal detector could find the rings as long as they knew the general location.
I’ll let Megan tell how it happened.

Laguna Bch.. Megan and Brad’s 17yr. Wedding ring set. Authored by Megan
Yesterday, at the beach, our vacation took a downturn. I took off my wedding rings to apply sunscreen …. They were not seen again. Our site looked like an archeological dig to no avail. Today Brad googled « metal detector Laguna Beach » (we were thinking about renting one) and found a group called The Ring Finders – metal detecting specialists. We called one of them and he came out this afternoon. We showed him the area we had been and within 5 minutes both were found. UNBELIEVABLE!!! Vacation saved. So I have to give a shoutout to our guy- Stan Ross! They don’t charge a fee, so while I gave him a huge hug, Brad gave him a wad of cash. #wishweknewaboutthemyesterday www.theringfinders.com

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Lost Ring in Beverly and McConnelsville Ohio

  • from Marietta (Ohio, United States)
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I have a friend who was at a local park festival.  While doing a kids activity she lost her wedding band.  She mentioned it to me and I knew my cousin had a metal detector.  He wasn’t available so he let me borrow it.  I searched for about a half hour and because she knew the area where it was lost, it didn’t take long.  She was so relieved and thankful.  That event started my interest in metal detecting.  Sometime later, the same friend knew someone who lost her wedding ring at a Relay for Life event.  She called me and I took my metal detector and after about an hour I was able to find her ring also.  Since then I have purchased better equipment and have found several rings and other items since.  It’s a great hobby that I really enjoy.

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Gold Wedding Ring Lost at Santa Monica Beach, CA…Found and Returned with Joy.

  • from Redondo Beach (California, United States)
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Just one week ago I received a call from Bianca about her husband’s lost wedding ring. I told her I would come right away, and she told me that the loss took place near where they had set up their beach towels, which encouraged me. I haven’t been able to post until now because my hard drive failed and needed to be replaced.

When I got to the beach Bianca and her husband met me and showed me to the spot of the loss. She told me that her husband wanted to go swimming, and realizing going in the water might cause the ring to come off and be lost, he gave it to his wife for safekeeping.  She in turn put the ring on her thumb, so she would know exactly where it was. While he was swimming, and she was laying on her towel watching, a ball made a perfect trajectory in her direction, which caused he to swat at it with, of course, the hand that had the ring on the thumb. Bianca soon realized that after the ball was gone, that the ring was gone also.

I began my search in the direction the ball went when Bianca hit it. I did a thorough search, and cross grid, pulling up just a few coins, and no ring. I then went back to them, pulled my headphones off so I could discuss more options. As I was walking back, I believe Bianca and her husband anticipated my next action, and removed their towels, so I could look in the area where they were laying and behind them. I got back to them, and rested my detector so I could explain how hitting the ball could have cause the ring to actually bounce off of the ball, and go behind them. After my little talk, I put my headphones back on, and picked my detector up, when I heard that unmistakable sound. I had put my detector’s coil right on top of the ring when we were talking, but had not heard it because I had removed the headphones, and because of all the other ambient beach noise. I put my scoop in and pulled out this nice looking wedding ring to great joy all around. Bianca and her husband had only been married a few months, and she would have felt horrible for being the one to have lost her husband’s ring. It was a great pleasure to restore their joy.

If you lose your ring or other metal item of value, call as soon as possible. I will work hard, using the most up to date metal detectors, to help you find what you thought might never be found again. I search,  Beverly Hills, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Venice Beach, and all parks, yards, gardens, and ponds (to 5 foot depths) in all of Orange County, all of Los Angeles County, and Ventura County.

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Lost wedding ring in Powers Lake, Genoa City, WI 8/7/2016

  • from Trevor (Wisconsin, United States)
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I was contacted by a guy who lost his ring while swimming in Powers Lake near a floating trampoline.  He had a pretty good idea of where it was and the water was only about 6ft deep but with all of the weeds and the muck in the area it made it hard to see clearly to the bottom.  The floating trampoline was his landmark however the trampoline could moved close to 10ft in any direction.  After an hour and a half of searching with scuba gear, the ring was located right by the trampoline.  

 

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Lost Diamond Wedding Band Recovered in Baltimore, Maryland!

  • from Baltimore (Maryland, United States)
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My detecting partner had a really nice « lunch » this past Wednesday. I’m not talking about what he had to eat that day, but what he was able to accomplish for Andrea. Just goes to show what talent, high end equipment and a lot of dedication and experience can accomplish. Here’s the story in Andrea’s own words…

On Saturday, July 30, 2016, my family and I were looking forward to a wonderful day at the MD Zoo in Baltimore.  My sister-in-law was visiting from upstate NY and my husband and I, along with our two kids, Natalie (age 6) and Jack (age 3) were excited to spend the day with her exploring the zoo.  Natalie hadn’t been to the zoo since she was 2 years old and this was Jack’s first time to the MD zoo.  Like many families with young kids, we had a bit of a rough time getting our family moving in the right direction to get to the zoo for its opening hour and felt a little behind the 8 ball by the time we arrived and parked around 11:30 am.  In an effort to move us along, as soon as we parked I got out of the car and immediately started making efforts to apply sunscreen to the kids who weren’t too happy about the process, but complied just the same!  I set my daughter’s hat down on the ground next to our vehicle in the grass and grabbed the sunscreen out of our backpack.  Before spraying it on my hands, I made the unfortunate mistake of taking off my diamond engagement ring and my diamond wedding band and placing it in my daughter’s hat on the ground so I wouldn’t get sunscreen all over my rings.  I went on to apply sunscreen to my daughter and then moved on to my son.  While I was putting sunscreen on my son, I heard my husband say to my daughter, « do you want to wear your hat today? »  Again, distracted with putting sunscreen on my squirmy 3 year old, I didn’t even think to say anything about my rings.  I heard my daughter say « no » and what happened after that changed the course of the day for us.  Once my daughter said no about wearing the hat, my husband who had already scooped the hat off of the ground, turned the hat over, folded it in on itself to make it smaller and shoved it into our drawstring backpack to take it into the zoo with us.  I realized not too long after that what had happened and made a beeline for the backpack.  Miraculously, my diamond engagement ring was still in the hat, but my diamond wedding band was no where to be found.  

 

The next 7 hours were agonizing.  That’s how long we stayed at the parking site looking for the ring.  Thank goodness my sister-in-law was with us and agreed to take our very excited children into the zoo so their day wouldn’t be spoiled.  My husband was in and out of the zoo that day trying to assist with the kids, but also trying to assist me with the ring search.  He even drove to the local Home Depot to see about purchasing a metal detector, but found out they didn’t have any in stock.  We ended up finding 2 individuals online who agreed to come out that evening and look with their metal detectors, but, unfortunately couldn’t locate the ring.  We stuck around for a couple of hours after the zoo closed for the day, and the kids were hungry and tired, plus there was an impending thunderstorm about to hit, so we decided to pack it up and return to our home in Harford County saddened, shocked, dumbfounded…..you name it!

 

The weekend passed and I had heard back from one of the metal detectorists who had been helping us the day this happened.  He graciously went to the zoo on Monday, 8/1/16 with 2 buddies, searched for over 2 hours even expanding their search area in the parking lot.  They didn’t find the ring.  Before I had heard this news from him, I had searched the internet for other metal detector experts in the area.  I had found The Ring Finders website and found the contact information for the Baltimore area rep.  I reached out to him and he got back to me immediately, but, unfortunately, told me that he wasn’t in the local area at the time.  He told me he was in Ocean City conducting several ring searches.  He agreed, however, to provide me with a referral.  He gave me Lance Griffin’s phone number.  I called Lance and arranged to meet him at the zoo on Wednesday, 8/3/16 @ 11:30 am during his lunch break from work.  When I arrived at the zoo, it was packed!  In fact, it was more crowded than it had been the previous Saturday when the ring went missing.  At that moment, I didn’t have much hope to find the ring especially knowing that we had searched for so long on Saturday and that a search was done on Monday as well.  To make matters worse, when I arrived at the zoo, I immediately noticed that there was a car parked in the parking space that we had been in when the ring went missing.  When I met Lance, he was so professional and calm.  We walked to the parking space, he asked me to describe what happened, and the approximate location of everything.  He said he would give it a try even though there was a car taking up the majority of the parking space.  I’m so elated to report that Lance found my ring within the first 10 minutes of meeting him in the small strip of grass next to where that car was parked!!

 

The last several days have been an array of emotions.  The emotion that I struggled with the most was guilt.  Guilt for praying for a material object to return to my life knowing very well that there are so many people in the world facing problems much bigger than the loss of a ring.  Still, I sent up prayers that my ring, which means so much to me, would be returned safely to my finger; the same finger my husband placed it on during our wedding day close to 12 years ago.  As I sit here now, I have so many other emotions running through me.  I am absolutely amazed that a man, Lance Griffin, who is essentially a total stranger to me, out of the goodness of his heart, listened to my story, responded to my plea for help, delivered on his promise to meet me, and came through with what resulted in an unbelievably beautiful outcome.  I have so much gratitude for him and all of the individuals that make miracles like this happen.  Lance, for me, exemplifies the goodness and the positivity that exists in humanity!

Andrea and her husband relieved and appreciative!

Andrea and her husband relieved and appreciative!

Back where it belongs!

Back where it belongs!

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Lost Gold Wedding Band at Four Seasons Resort Ko Olina…FOUND

  • from O‘ahu (Hawaii, United States)
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Andy aul shaka.jpg
Andy aul ring
This ring find started in the middle of July when I got a call from Andy from Alamo, California. While playing catch with his son in the Four Season’s lagoon his Gold Wedding Band came off in chest deep water. I arrived around noon and started my search. The lagoons are fairly easy to detect in with pure white sand and the rings normally stay within a few inches of the surface for days. Andy stood in the water where he thought he was when the ring came off and I started my search working out and away from his position. I searched for nearly an hour with no luck finding the ring. I found a different ring and a few coins. I was frustrated not being able to find Andy’s ring which should have been a cinch. I told Andy I would come back that weekend and search the deeper water with scuba in case his ring came off when he was throwing the ball and it might have went deep. Unfortunately Andy had to leave later that day without his ring. I hate when that happens. I came back the next weekend and did a grid search on scuba in deeper water and again another ring and bracelet but not Andy’s ring. That takes me to today I was doing a shallow to neck deep search for some Oakley prescription glasses when I got a nice low tone in thigh deep water. Two scoops and there was a Gold Wedding Band. Sure enough it was engraved and dated as Andy told me it would be. But why in the shallow water? I guess third time is a charm! Aloha to Andy!

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