The Ring Finders Blog | Page 928 of 996

I received notice of a missing ring. Wes told me that he was in Cape May with his mom the other day. When they got home, 3 hours away, she noticed that her 5 year anniversary ring with 5 diamonds was gone. I told him I would look for it, but it would be in a day or two because of my work schedule. He said that would be great. He asked me what I thought the chances of finding the ring would be. I just responded saying that I would give it my best shot.

Before I could get to the beach, Wes sent me a picture from Google Maps. He marked up the map with the area they were sitting on the beach with approximate distances from objects. This would be a big help since I have never been to this beach before.

I left my house at 4am to catch the low tide. Almost hit a deer standing in the middle of Rt 55. I got to the spot at 5:30. There was already someone there detecting the beach. He came right over to me and stated that I would only be finding trash. I asked why and he said that the beach was hunting every day by multiple people. I got a bad feeling. I was thinking to myself that this was going to be a wasted trip.

I searched anyway. I started finding tinfoil and bottle caps. Damn that guy was right, TRASH! I continued on. I found a quarter and a dime, giving me a sliver of hope. Next was a soda can that was buried. At least the sun was coming up and I have a great view of the hight house.

After about 30 minutes I got a nice tone in my headphones. I scooped up the sand and BINGO! I had the ring. I looked around for the other guy so I could show him that it wasn’t all junk, but he was gone.

I stayed an searched for about an hour finding more coins and a camera lense. No jewelry. I even found a geocache before returning home. It was still to early to give Wes a call.

After I got home I gave Wes a call. I started telling him about the other guy that was detecting and what he said. Then I told him I spent about 30 minutes on the beach & found the ring. He was so excited. He said his mom didn’t know that he contacted me. He said he had to hang up and he would call me back. He had to go tell his mom. He called back in 15 minutes. We made arrangements to meet 1 week later to return the ring.

My wife came along with me. We were meeting in King of Prussia PA. Wes & Karen were waiting for us. Wes is a lot yonger than I thought. Once Karen saw the ring the tears started to flow and so did the hugs. She said she didn’t tell her husband that the ring was found, because she wanted to make sure that it was her ring. She also told us that today was their 23rd wedding anniversary. You just can’t make this stuff up. Wes informed us that he recently got a good metal detector to search for old coins. But it was to long of a drive to get back to the beach.

I loved returning lost items…

Below is Karen’s version of the story…

Who knew a fun time at Cape May N.J. beach would end in not being able to find your ring when you got home. The anxiety of not knowing if I would ever find it. And how to tell your husband you lost the ring he got you for your fifth anniversary.

The best part is who knew your 17 year old son would take action. He posted on Craigslist a lost ring and a reward to who ever found it. The first response from add was Dave.

Like an angle from God he took action without any reservation, he talked to my son and off to Cape May to find my ring. Then out of the blue I received a phone call from my son while I was at work reporting to me the story of how he posted the add and how someone responded and found my ring. In disbelief I told my son to have the guy send him a picture of the ring. He did ! There it was. My ring. Now how were we going to get it. This guy I didn’t know had my ring. My son talked to Dave and set it up to meet 45 min from our home and 45 min from Dave’s home. Again anxiety how could we meet with a stranger in the parking lot of Costco and get this ring. Maybe we would get to the parking lot and he would want 500 dollars for the ring. Then what would we do! Sunday morning came and off we went to try to get this ring.

Entering the parking lot lots of ideas of how this would play out entered my mind. Then he called he was in the parking lot. Here we go! Butterflies fluttering while walking to his truck. Him and his wife got out of  his truck and to my surprise there was my ring. He had not expectations on getting anything for finding it. When I saw the ring all I could do was cry and thank him!! After receiving the ring I told him how it was my 23rd anniversary. And what a great gift.

I received a call from a young man named Eric on Wednesday. He said he lost his

wedding band the holiday weekend before. He said he was in the water at a lake and throwing a football when he felt his ring come off.

Some of the problems were he was in 5 feet of water and he was in another state 190 miles away. So on this Saturday I made the 3 hour drive with a map showing the general location of his ring.

I searched for around two hours going from the deep water to shallow. I finally got a perfect solid gold hit on the CTX3030, it showed 12-14 at zero inches  in waist deep water.

It was his ring! So glad I could find his ring for this young couple.

Good luck to all of the ring finders out there.

Norm Slaymaker

Lost Diamond Wedding Ring Marble Falls, Texas

Recently traveled 3 1.2 hours up to Marble Falls, Texas  for an underwater recovery job to find my Excalibur was non-operational (busted)

I prepared as always carrying two of everything, batteries, pin pointers, masks, tools, you get the picture. The fact is a lot of work goes into preparing for an underwater recovery, everything I am sure you already understand.

I powered on the Excalibur and immediately noticed something was wrong. I immediately thought, how could the battery be dead, I charged both the primary and secondary battery prior to making the trip to Marble Falls. I thought to myself that’s really weird, and climbed out of the water to retrieve my back-up battery. I mounted the second battery and the presence of silence through the head phones was a shattering disappointment.

I spent a few minutes trying to identify what was wrong when I bumped the battery wire and heard tones through the head phones. A closer examination revealed I was up a creek with no paddle.

I immediately realized that the battery power cable had come loose from its internal coupler and was shorting out. I must admit, I became very upset seeing that the wire was not really held into the coupler with anything more than a mere crimping of the coupler. It seemed improbable that a machine this well
built and designed for underwater operations could have this type of manufacturing design

It’s interesting that all the other cable ends have cable guards/protectors but the most exposed wire on the machine uses a simple crimp to hold it in place?

Excalibur is back at Minelab, while my client is awaiting my return.

Working on a solution, may end up transition the Excalibur to an Anderson Shaft.

If you operate an Excalibur check this cable frequently.

I was searching in a quarry on snorkel as I was not allowed to dive there on scuba.

I found 2 pennies, 2 nails, 2 can pop tops & 1 ring.

Juan called me around 5pm as I was driving home and asked for help finding his fiancee’s engagement ring. It seems she was talked into going in the surf against her better judgement, and her ring slipped from her finger in thigh deep water. When I arrived, I met the couple and they showed me the approximate search area. At that point the tide had been coming in for about an hour since it’s loss but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. After searching for a couple of hours and high tide approaching, I called it a day but told them I’d be back the next afternoon at low tide. They are to be married soon so failure was not an option. Added to that was the fact that they were leaving town and heading back to Houston in two days! I made it back to the site about an hour before low tide and after contacting Juan, began my grid pattern in the wet sand and out into the shallow surf. I thought I had found it a couple of times but the signals turned out to be other targets mimicing her ring. After about 45 minutes to an hour another strong « gold » sound hit my headphones and sure enough, it was this beautiful ring you see here. Juan got to make the fun phone call to his fiancee and we both enjoyed the moment. Now that we got the ring back, you’re officially engaged again! It was a pleasure to meet you both and thank you for the reward.

Three weeks ago Melissa W. and her husband Dan were visiting her dad in Williamston, MI. His home has a pond on some acreage where the dogs run and play and the family gathers for a warm summer time swim. While swimming in the half acre pond, Melissa was in the deep part of the pond (about 7 to 8 feet deep) when her dog swam by and knocked her rings off her finger. She has swam in Jamaica, in lakes in the Carolina’s and in the river where she lives in Maryland and has never had a problem with her rings coming loose but this was just a freak accident.

Melissa and Dan searched for the rings in the clay bottom pond to no avail. When she went back to Maryland she located the ring finders web page and found my name in the directory. Three weeks have past and Melissa and Dan are about to come back to Michigan from their home in Maryland for the holiday, she gave me a call Thursday Aug 29th and asked for my help. I arranged with my friend who has a Hookah and told her we would be there Saturday morning. There are times when a ring finder needs a little help from his friends and that was now. Chuck R. and Dave B. came to my aid to help dive in the pond. After about an hour of searching the area where Melissa thought it was lost Dave got a hit and found a ring, he knew there were connecting rings so he got another hit about a foot away and recovered the other one. With a raised hand and rings on his pinky finger he walked out of the pond. Melissa put her hands to her mouth in happy amazement and put the rings on her finger. The engagement ring was given to her by her grandmother and the two wedding rings were connected together and interlocked into the engagement ring. So the holiday weekend began with a very happy couple and the family can again go swimming in the pond and the dogs can run on the acreage but this time Melissa’s ring will stay in the house.

It was my pleasure to serve you and thank you for the generous reward. By the way the HOOKAH is an under water breathing apparatus.

Joel H. emailed me Thursday Aug 29 to find out if I could look for a ring that he lost while playing in the water with his 7 year old daughter. Millennium Park is usually off limits for metal detecting so I told him we would have to get permission from the park ranger. Joel made a few calls and Friday morning 8am we were at the park ready to search for his ring. He had pretty much narrowed the search area after loosing his ring he counted the swim buoys and looked back at the beach so he knew where it should be.

I set up some grid markers and began the  search after going from shore to about chest deep a couple of times I got a good signal and took a big scoop of sand and as it was coming to the top I could see a glint of gold as the sand was sifting through my scoop. I picked out the size 13 gold wedding band and asked Joel if that was it. The smile on his face explained it all.

I want to thank Roger and his rangers for allowing us to search the water. As I detect I also pick out any trash from the water and recovered a few pull tabs, bobby pins, a battery and a couple pairs of sunglasses.