how to find a ring in the sand Tag | Page 41 of 41 | The Ring Finders

Lost iPhone .. Venice Beach, CA. .. Found in Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Tuesday  April 28, 2015  .. 8am

Maria called me Tuesday morning asking for help to find her iphone that she lost in the sand Monday evening. She is from the Ukraine studying at Santa Monica college. Her phone contains a lot of information that is not backed up. She had been playing with her 2 sons very close to the Venice pier when the phone was lost. It is a high pedestrian traffic area making it possible that somebody had found it.
When I met Maria she told me that the phone had been found and turned into to main lifeguard headquarters. She was on her way to pick it up. I was glad that she would soon have it and all the important information it contained. She thanked me for coming. It is a beautiful day so I decided to do some detecting on this tourist beach before the sunbathers came out on the beach.
After about 30 minutes, Maria came walking up to me with a disappointing look on her face. The iphone at the lost and found was not her’s. We looked at the location that she thought it was lost. She pointed out an area about the size of basketball court. Part of it had been leveled out with a small beach tractor. I started at the lower end of where the tractor moved the sand. After two 30 foot passes with my CTX 3030 .. I got a signal that didn’t sound like anything very large, but that is normal for the CTX. I put my scoop into the dry sand gently as not to damage it. The first signal was Maria’s phone. You can see she was happy to have it back.
A bonus for the day was about two hours later when a older lady came up to me on the beach. She could not speak very good english, but I realized that she was Maria’s mother when she thanked me for finding her daughter’s iphone. Every search is different with different challenges. I love it.
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Silver Ring Possibly lost in Sand .. Spring Break .. Newport Beach, CA. .. Recovered

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

 

Thursday April8, 2015

Jessie’s family is visiting Newport Beach from Texas. They have been staying in a condo on the beach with several friends and their kids hanging out enjoying our awesome sunny weather.
When Jessie called me she told me she had lost her ring the day before, but she was not sure when or where she lost it. The beachfront house they are staying in has sand right up to their front patio. She had spent most of the day in the sand with the younger kids. There was a time during the day that Jessie put sunscreen on the kids. She could not remember for sure if that was when it went missing.
When I got there I was lucky enough to get a parking space within 25 ft. of the sand. That is the first miracle. You have to know 43st. Newport Beach. As I returned a call to Jessie to let her know I was here, about four or five little girls started yelling Metal Detector Man.. They were part of the vacationers family. I only had to walk around the corner to meet Jessie. I set my detector answering a few questions of how it works. They asked how deep it would detect because they had spent several hours sifting through the sand yesterday and today. Because she wasn’t quite sure where or when it was lost, I said we can start out about 4 feet from the wall to eliminate that area. With about 15 people watching my every move, I started my grid search. First target one penny ( not a silver sound), then a piece of tinfoil ( closer to a gold tone) , the last sound could have been a quarter. It was not a quarter, but it was Jessie’s silver ring. Found within the first five feet probably 5 minutes. It surprised everybody including me. It took longer to get pictures of the ring and Jessie with the ring for this blog and our book of smiles. It is a good feeling for me to know that their vacation was not spoiled by the loss of a sentimental keepsake.
They had called a friend of mine who told them to look me up in TheRingFinders.com. I was on the beach in Laguna when she called but it’s less than ten miles and it took about 45 minutes to drive to their place. It’s only about three miles from my home.

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I Found Chris Turner’s Platinum Diamond Ring .. Huntington Beach, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Hyatt Regency Resort  … Huntington Beach, Calif. … Monday ..  April 6, 2015

I received a call from a lady who said they had lost her husband’s ring Easter Sunday in the sand while staying at the Hyatt Regency Resort in Huntington Beach. She told me her husband’s name is Chris Turner and he was in a meeting. He would contact me soon. For a second I thought the call was some sort of prank, because the founder and CEO of TheRingFinders is also Chris Turner. It was just a coincidence. I told her I would not wait for him to get out of the meeting, because this is one of the most heavily hunted areas of Huntington Beach by recreational metal detectorists, especially the day after spring break. I would go to the general area and wait for Chris’s phone call.
After arriving I walked out on the beach to the towel line. I could see that the beach sifting machines had already passed through this part of the beach. They are very thorough, but sometimes they set up their machines for surface cleaning allowing them to travel faster covering more area.
Chris called saying he was on his way to show me the exact location. When he walked on the beach I was gridding about 50 feet away from where they had set up yesterday. He directed me over to the location and told me that he had given his wedding band to his wife to put in her coin purse. On the way back to their car he asked her for the ring. It was not in the purse. They went back spending 2 hours searching the sand. Possibly they moved enough sand that the ring sunk deep enough that it was missed by the sifter. I made about three or four 25 ft. passes and got the beautiful solid sound of precious metal. Scooped up Chris’s beautiful ring that he has worn for 16 years of marriage. Smiles and high fives from the other people on the beach. Then a big man hug from Chris. It was hard to keep a positive attitude in this search because I know this beach well. Just as we were taking a few photos for this blog, here comes one of the regular Detectorist that work this beach. I was surprised we didn’t see more. Chris got on the phone to give his wife the good news. Then on his way back to work.

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Engagement Ring Lost in Sand .. Newport Beach, CA. .. Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

March 26, 2015 … Thursday

I had a ring search earlier in the day at a park. When I got home to rest up I got a call from the same people telling me that they found the 2 platinum and diamond rings in their sofa. Five minutes later I got a call from Jessica who was at Newport Beach which is 4 miles away from my location. Jessica sounded very distressed that her rose gold engagement ring was lost in the sand. She had placed it in her beach bag for safe keeping. When she went to take towel out of the bag the ring went into the super soft fine sand.
Traffic and parking was a bit of a problem but I was able to meet her within a half hour. I asked them to stay in the area they lost the ring. They had the whole area staked out with towels and other beach items. I asked her what type of metal it was and if it was small or large. It took a few minutes to find it. I was surprised that it was such a broken signal. Rose Gold is an alloy and it was very petite which made it harder to detect. I know that this part of the beach will be sifted first thing every morning by the dreaded beach cleaning machines. If she waited a day to call me the ring would have been lost forever.
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Wedding Ring Lost in Sand .. Belmont Shores, CA. .. Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

March 25, 2015

Eric called about 1pm asking to rent a metal detector. I explained to him about the cost of renting and how far away the nearest detector shop is located.
He told me that he was sure where the titanium ring was located. He was in Belmont Shores Penensula at the beach. After talking to him about how I could help him find his ring and show him how the metal detector works. I actually thought I would let him use my detector while I stood by. When I arrived he told me that he had been arguing with his wife of three months , Josselyn. In the heat of the moment he tossed his wedding band over the 4 ft. block wall into the sand on the other side. He said, as he was doing it he thought it would be easy to find. After three hours of searching the sand he went to his smart phone locating TheRingFinders.com .
When I got to the location he showed me an area of approximately 50×50 ft. where he thought it to be. Then he said they had to be somewhere by 3 pm. It was going to be a little more difficult than I expected. This was not a situation where we could do a detector demonstration. I decided not to waste time. So I set up close to the wall in the center, planning to do a spiral grid. I started swinging and within 3 ft. got a good signal 3 inches deep. I called Eric over to let him hear the signal before retrieving the metal under my search coil. When I dug into the sand with my scoop there was Eric’s ring.
Both Eric and Josselyn were elated and thankful. It was a pleasure to help them.

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Diamond Engagement and Wedding Rings found in Sand … Laguna Beach, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Sunday … February 15, 2015

imageSarah and her husband had spent the day at Laguna Beach. The weather has been awesome, sunny and temperatures in the mid 80’s. They left about 2pm to get on the road before traffic got too bad. Thirty minutes down the road Sarah realizimageed she did not have her wedding ring set. Two very special rings that she has worn for over 25 years. Her and her husband had recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last week. She knew that she had put the rings in the cup holder of her beach chair while putting on sunscreen. There was a possibility that the rings were in the sand where they had been sitting. Returning to the beach and sifting through the sand with their fingers with no success . Sarah Google searched « how to find a ring in the sand » . Up popped a link to TheRingFinders with my contact information. I was in my car about 8 miles away, but it took about 20 – 25 minutes to get to her location. Just as I pulled up Sarah’s husband found the larger ring. I was able to locate the smaller ring after a few swings of my CTX3030 minelab metal detector. It was a weak signal which may have been because it was in a vertical position. It may have been buried a little deeper because they had been moving around a lot of sand doing their search. What’s most important is Sarah has both of her very special rings back on her finger, hopefully for another 25 years. Sarah commented how her smart phone and the internet worked to bring us together. I agree, I have the metal detecting equipment and know how to use them, but the smart phones and internet makes these recoveries happen.

 

Ring found in sand … Hyatt Regency Hotel … Huntington Beach, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

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Tuesday  February 3, 2015

Jim is staying at the Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency Hotel on a business conference. He is visiting from Denver. When he called me at 5:45pm , it was moments after he had dropped his tungsten wedding ring in the sand while brushing sand off his pants. He had a pretty good idea of the location. He and his two friends even put the location on their smart phone with GPS co-ordinates. It was only seven miles from my location to where Jim was, but he told me he had a meeting to attend in one hour. I told him I was in my car with my detecting equipment and it was important that I have a few minutes with him before his meeting.

The traffic was not too bad coming from Newport Beach. The trip only took 15 minutes. It was also nice, not to pay $15 for parking. I have a yearly parking passes for most beaches around the Orange County area.  Calling Jim as I pulled up, he saw my car and waved me over to the location on the beach. It was a little nerve racking because of the up coming meeting. I set up a grid right away, starting at the center of a 50 foot square area. Walking straight through the center rotating in a spiral. It’s not good push myself, because that’s inviting mistakes that can be time consuming. After the first pass I turned to start the second pass, the first two targets that I retrieved turned out to be trash metal, but the third was Jim’s ring. We rushed to take photos for this blog.. Jim called home to report the good news to his wife. They still had time to make it to his business meeting. He did have a big smile but my camera would only let me take one photo. We did have a nice sunset in the background. It was a pleasure to meet Jim and his friends, but it was sort of like.. « Wam Bam, Thank You Stan »

 

Ring Found … Muscle Beach .. Venice, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

Sunday 1/25/15

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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.

 

Wedding Rings found on Oceanside Beach, Calif.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)

 

I got home the other night about 5:30pm. I sat down at the computer to write a post for my RingFinder blog. Before starting my post I checked my emails. There was an email from Katie that had been sent about 8:30 am. She was desperate and had asked if I could help her find her lost rings, the most important thing that she owns. I was upset that I had not checked my mails in the morning. She had been at the public beach in Oceanside, Calif. watching a surfing event. Even though it was starting to get dark and it was a 45 mile drive I wrote her quick email telling her I could meet her tonight if she had not found anyone to help her. Within 10 minutes she called me and I jumped in my little Mini Cooper  » Calif. RING FDR  » and headed down Pacific Coast Hwy.. My favorite drive.

At 7:00 pm,  I pulled up in front of the vacation rentals where Katie and her husband Brian were staying. They walked over to the area where Katie said she had walked out to the water the day before. She rinsed the sand off her ring and walked back up to the dry sand playing with their small dog. In that 20 or 30 minutes she realized that her ring was not on her finger. I am always competing with the sand sifting machines on these popular public beaches, but we were fortunate that after summer has past they don’t sift everyday. It was dark and I was trying to be careful to grid overlapping my swings. I did have the advantage that there was two rings, so if I missed one there was a chance to get one of the two. Then I could hone in on the other ring.  I covered about 7 or 8 passes about 60 feet in each direction before the larger of the ring gave me 12-03 reading on my CTX3030 .  I called Katie and Brian over to show them. It was an exciting time for all, even Brian who had mostly given up that the rings could be found. A couple more swings and the smaller ring gave me a 12-02 reading on my detector screen.  Another happy couple and a special beginning to their marriage of 45 days. Brian is a Marine and will be leaving the county next month. Look at those smiles.
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Lost Titanium Wedding Band at English Bay Beach…Found

  • from Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada)

I got a call the other night from a young man who was on his honeymoon from Cleveland Ohio.  He told me that he lost his titanium wedding band well paddle boarding at English Bay Beach, he knew the area where the ring came off because it was when he fell of the board.

We discussed the search and because it was going on a high tide there was nothing i could do until morning. The young man was able to tell me where the ring was lost because it marked off the area and had land marks for me to line up with.

I wanted to be on the beach by 7:30 but I couldn’t find parking because there was a huge marathon going on early in the morning , it took me over an hour to get near the beach where I could park.

After setting up my grid I began to search and only 20 minutes into the search I got a good signal and I looked into the sand scoop to see his titanium wedding band…

 

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What a great feeling knowing that I get to call the young man and give him the good news. They were on their honeymoon and you can imagine how horrible that would feel to lose a ring that was the one your wife gave you…

 

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I love my job!!! Lost something and need it found…Call me ASAP

 

Watch the video of the recovery here.