Finding lost jewelry Tag | The Ring Finders

Lost gold pendant – Fairhope, AL

  • from Mobile (Alabama, United States)
Contact:

I got a call from Brad earlier this week about a small pendant that was lost in his yard a couple days prior. He was in Fairhope which is only about 20 miles away from me on Dauphin Island as the crow flies, but is over an hour drive because it’s “across the bay” as we like to say here. Because of the distance, we mutually agreed that an afternoon later in the week would work best for both of us.
The day finally arrived and I talked my hubby into a nice little afternoon drive. After running into an unmarked detour and a street that was so new it wasn’t on my car’s GPS, we finally found his house. After carefully listening to the details of how it was lost, we both sectioned off a portion of the yard and started gridding. Almost an hour later just as we were almost about to give up, I heard a shallow target with a promising tone on my Nox 800. I simultaneously looked down and there was the tiny 18K gold pendant with a stone nestled in the grass ! Yay !! I happily knocked on the door and dropped the little pendant into Brad’s hand. I always love the surprised look I get. Brad stepped out and quickly pulled a very generous monetary reward out of his pocket which, as always, I just as quickly turned down. Karma is always my best reward ! Brad declined my request for a picture of him, but he did let me take a picture of his two adorable little girls who looked very happy that Mommy and Daddy were happy.

Tags:
Category:

Marine’s shrapnel necklace Slidell, Louisiana – Found

  • from Lafayette (Louisiana, United States)
Contact:

Before Necklace 1 IMG_1914 IMG_1915 IMG_1917Randy is a Marine infantryman combat veteran, having served two tours in Iraq, in 2003 and 2004. His job was anti-armor operations and explosives. On September 6, 2004 he received a traumatic brain injury due to a road side bomb or IED (Improvised Explosive Device). He had a piece of shrapnel from a 155 millimeter mortar shell penetrate his face directly under his right eye. He had two brain surgeries and a facial reconstructive surgery. He now has three plates, titanium mesh, a bracket for a cheek bone and over twenty screws in his skull.

His initial brain surgery was done in Lundstuhl, Germany. The neurologist gave him the piece of shrapnel that entered his skull. Once he got home to Louisiana, a local jeweler mounted the shrapnel on a necklace. The shrapnel is held by an eagle’s claw, the piece then white gold plated.

Randy began working for a professional fireworks company near his home in Covington, LA. Since he had experience with explosives, the transition to fireworks was easy. He also attends school at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette working on a degree in Computer Science. On July 3, 2014 while working at the company’s remote storage facility, he removed the necklace and put it on a pack of papers, then placed the stack in his truck. A co-worker grabbed the stack of papers with the necklace. Later they discovered the necklace was missing.

Randy had worn that necklace for a decade. He expressed the emotions he felt. “I felt like a piece of me died. As you can imagine, this shrapnel meant a lot to me even though it is hard to explain being connected to something that almost ended my life.” He and others hunted the area extensively. Even though friends advised him to “let it go”, he could not. He continued to look for ways to locate the necklace.

We began communicating with Randy in April of this year. We finally were able to meet him on site July 16, just a few days after the one year anniversary of the loss. The site was limestone and grass with several forty-foot long steel containers, separated from each other by two to four feet. Staking out the area of highest probability, Sid started a search within the boundaries. Carrie, with her detector set on “Zero Discrimination”, decided to search outside the lines. She detected a strong iron signal within 2 minutes of her starting the search. Looking down, Carrie saw a tiny chain extending from a patch of grass. The rest of the necklace was hidden in the grass. Needless to say, we were all excited. A few pictures and we were on our way home.

Carrie and I are both proud of the service this brave young man has given to his country and saddened by the injuries he has suffered. We are happy that we were able to help him reclaim a piece of his history.

Tags:
Category:

Ring Found … Muscle Beach .. Venice, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
Contact:

Sunday 1/25/15

imageimage

 

Helen is visiting Venice Beach here in Southern California from Brazil . After walking the Venice Oceanfront walkway with her son William. They stopped to watch all the people working out at the area known as Muscle Beach. Then they decided to walk out through a small walkway to the beach and watch the waves. When they got to the beach, that’s when Helen noticed her favorite ring was not on her finger. This ring was special because her husband gave it to her 15 years ago and she wears it all the time.

Helen went to a tourist information center there at the beach near the lifeguard station. She didn’t have a working cell phone, so the man at the desk helped her find TheRingFinders directory and he called me. I didn’t asked for any details but I told them I could be there in about an hour if she could meet me. She agreed to meet me at 3pm.

While I was traveling across town Helen was doing a little research. She did not know exactly when the ring fell off her finger. They had walked quite a few hours taking many photos. It was a sunny 80 degree day and some areas were full of people waking the beachfront tourist sites. Helen and her son William had taken hundreds of pictures so they went through the photos. They eliminated the first part of the day and remembered stopping to put on sunscreen in the sandy passage way to the beach. While waiting for me somebody on the beach loaned them a metal detector. They could not find the ring before I arrived.  When I met her I decided to try that passage way first.  It was only 12 feet wide and 30 feet long, full of small metallic trash. The wall along one side was reinforced with rebar making it hard to get a signal next to the wall. People were also passing through in family groups. I’ll bet probably a couple hundred people walked through this area from the time the ring was dropped. Just before going to the beach side of the bicycle path I saw an edge of the ring sticking out of the sand, just before swinging my coil over it. It had to be stepped on and kick up again, maybe a couple of times.

The most important thing was Helen was so happy to have her favorite ring back. I told her that we have a member of TheRingFinders in Brazil and other countries also. I need to thank Steve Smith another member of TheRingFinders for referring me to the people who called. It was a good search and I stayed on the beach till sunset doing more detecting for fun and exercise. I can remember at least  6 or 7 times that I’ve found other nice rings after doing a ring search. I would like to return them all but it is not possible sometimes. After all these years I look at rings I find in a whole new perspective. The sentimental value is much more important to the person that possessed it for years and the real story of the ring is only known to that person that lost it. It is important that we can help some people keep the story of their ring and all the memories that go along with it to keep going.

 

Tags:
Category:

Lost Platinum Wedding Band … Encinitas, Calif. … Found in the Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
Contact:

Sunday,  April 13, 2014

Dave called me Sunday evening about 7pm. He had lost his platinum wedding band in the sand at a beach in Encinitas, Calif.  I told him that I could meet him in one hour depending on traffic.  When I met him it was dark, that’s not a problem because I have a head lamp and several flashlights. Dave was with his son, Jake and as we walked to the beach Dave told me how he lost his ring.  As Dave and his family were leaving the beach he picked up his towel and brushed off some sand with his hand. The ring slipped off into the sand. The whole family searched through the sand with no success.  After returning to their vacation condo they, googled metal detector and my name came as member of TheRingFinders. These can be very easy searches, but strange things happen so I try not to be over confident.. The most important factor that helped me find this ring was that Dave marked the location. My CTX 3030 made short work of finding this platinum ring before the high tide could move the sand around..  It was a pleasure to meet Dave and his son Jake.  I hope Dave, Jake and the rest of the family enjoy their vacation on a beautiful California beach before returning to Las Vegas.

 

IMG_3196 IMG_3193

Tags:
Category:

Lost Ring .. Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, CA. .. Found in Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
Contact:

Sunday  March 16, 2014

It was just before sunset and I was detecting at Pacific Beach, CA.  Actually I was talking to a couple guys that were also detecting the same beach, when I received a call from Dalya. She sounded desperate as she had lost her ring in the sand and had spent quite sometime trying to find a way to get some help trying to locate her ring. After asking her a few questions I told her I could meet her and Kile at Moonlight Beach within 45 minutes. It was only about 18 miles, but I had to walk back to my car and I wasn’t sure about the traffic.

When I arrived at the Moonlight Beach I met Dalya and Kile. They told me that they had put their cell phone, keys and her ring in Kile’s shoe.  When Kile came back to put on his shoes he removed the larger items not realizing the ring was in the shoe. He shook the sand out of his shoe and the ring.  They located me on line when they tried to see if they could rent a metal detector. It was beginning to get dark as we walked about a couple blocks to the general area. Kile said he had dumped the sand out of the shoe near the rocks pointing to a location of about 30 feet next to the rocks. I was told that the ring was silver which helps to identify the sound I will hear. My machine has a screen that will show me a number of 12-46 for a silver item. This all helps when there is a lot of trash in the search area. I made three passes along the rocks out towards the cleaner sand. Kile had thought the ring may be close to the rocks and I knew that would be a difficult search. I was 10 feet out from the rocks when I got that silver tone and a 12-46 reading on my screen. I scooped into the sand telling them, this is your ring. Held the scoop up to Dalya asking her to pick the ring out of the sand. I was awesome to see how happy she was to have her ring in her hand. You can see the smiles on the photo I was able to take of them.

Dalya told me that the ring was a gift to her from her mother when they had visited Jeusalem, Israel. I’m still amazed that we can make all this happen using the new technology that did not exist several years ago, Cell phones, Ditial Cameras, Internet, Moble maps, GPS and Modern Metal Metectors. I used a MInelab CTX 3030 metal detector to make this find.

IMG_3101

Tags:
Category: