I had the opportunity to be part of an extremely special and exciting recovery this past weekend in Wildwood, NJ. Holden and Carley are high school sweethearts from the Hershey, PA area who were in town helping with their local color guard who competed at the Tournament of Bands Indoor Championship at the Wildwoods Convention Center. Carley enjoys looking for seashells, so Holden’s plan was to propose to her on the beach the night before they were leaving to go home.
Holden put the engagement ring in his shirt pocket before they left for the beach, so he could pull it out easily when it was time to propose. They were out on the beach for a while collecting shells, but when it was time to take the ring out of his pocket, he realized it wasn’t there. He figured it fell out while bending over to pick up a shell and thought it was lost forever. His mother Christi’s friend suggested they give me a call to help find the ring, so she texted me a little after 10 PM on Saturday night. We met at the entrance to the beach a few minutes after I responded to their text, and he gave me more information about the sequence of events from earlier that day and landmarks he remembered.
The search area was quite large, and it was close to 11 PM before I got started. It was dark, chilly and windy on the beach that night, but we were determined to find the ring. After gridding for roughly 25 minutes, I stopped to ask Holden a few more questions which quickly led me to where the ring was buried. A few swings with the metal detector in a more precise area, and the ring was found!
The events that unfolded next were truly awesome to watch. Holden went back to meet Carley and was able to propose with the engagement ring. It is a memory that will not be forgotten.
On Sunday, June 11, my wife and I we out riding our road bikes. I saw my phone going off and a voicemail was left. We rode another 10 minutes and stopped at Camp Ellis beach, so I could check the voicemail. The voicemail was from Tom and his wife had just lost her engagement ring. Molly had lost her engagement ring, in the surf, in Ocean Park, Maine. Luckily, Ocean Park is only about 3 miles from where we were and just 15 minutes away on our bikes. I called Tom back immediately and told him we would be right there. When we arrived, Tom and his wife Molly were still visually searching for the ring, in the now wet sand, as the tide was going out.
Molly explained how she was putting the ring on her hand and it had fallen into the surf she was standing in. She immediately looked up and looked at the house on the shore and used it as a landmark as to where she was located when the ring fell into the waves. A very smart move as knowing the exact location where it was lost is crucial to finding the ring before the tide comes back in.
After Tom and Molly explained what happened and where the ring most likely was, we rode our bikes back home, in about 20 minutes and I got my equipment together. I was back in Ocean Park with in 45 minutes of leaving there on my bike.
I started a grid search, parallel to the beach, working my way in, from the water to the shore, trying to beat the incoming high tide. Tom and some friends continued the visual search while I continued detecting with my CTX-3030, with a 17 in coil. Finally, after approximately a hour and 15 minutes, I received a very strong signal with a great sound low tone. I knew this was most likely the ring. Scoop went in the sand and when I dumped the sand, I could see the gold band. I picked it up, cleaned it off and saw the diamond and two sapphires. We had the ring. I looked over to Tom, gave him a nod of the head and thumbs up. The smile on his face was priceless and I will always remember it.
Tom explained that the Diamond was his Great Grandmother’s diamond from her engagement ring and was passed down to Tom’s mother and used as his mother’s diamond engagement ring. Now, Tom’s wife is using the diamond in her engagement ring, making this a truly sentimental ring, for 4 generations .
I received a call from Chad requesting my services again, to locate his wife engagement ring, Chad called me a week ago while I was out of town and I had given Chad a few pointers to locate the ring and he had success in finding it.
This time he was not able to find the ring. His 2 ½ old son had a temper tantrum, picked up the ring off the table and walked over to the window and threw the ring out! Chad spent a couple of hours looking for it but had no luck. I meet Chad outside his apartment building and he showed me the area and the window from which his son had thrown the ring. I spent approximately 40 minutes searching the area and finally found the ring about 30’ from the window. I told Chad that his son must have been really upset to be able to throw the ring that far!
Received an e-mail from Curt yesterday afternoon requesting my service to locate his lost house keys and car fob while he was walking his dogs at the park. Yesterday Edmonton was under heavy snow fall warning around 8 inches had fallen which made locating his keys very difficult to find for Curt.
Curt had to walked home, he googled to rent a metal detector and found my Blog page, I called Curt I told him I would meet him at the park within the hour. Meet up with Curt at the park I asked him when he noticed the keys where missing he told me he had walked approximetly 1/2 a mile into the park he took his gloves out of his pocket and that’s when he realised the keys where gone, I told Curt that would be a good place to start searching with in ten minutes I found his Keys Curt was very happy to have them back in his hand, We all know how expensive those Key Fob are to replace! Thank you Curt.
I received a call from Rod regarding his fiancee’s lost engagement ring. After asking Rod a few questions I agreed to drive out to Edson which is a 2 hrs drive west of Edmonton. I told Rod to have his fiancee call me.
Tamara called me and explained that she was walking on the trails in Willmore park and noticed that her ring was missing from her finger. Tamara told me that she had a metal detector and had spent a few hours retracing her foot path but had not found the ring. I asked her if she had checked her car and the clothing she was wearing that day and she told me she had gone through everything and everywhere and that her kids had also checked.
When I meet up with Tamara in Edson I again asked her if she had checked her car and jacket pockets and she said yes, then as we drove to the area where she thought she had lost her ring, and as I get out of my car at the park, I heard Tamara screaming « I found my ring ». She had found her ring in the inside pocket of her Jacket!
Thank you Tamara for calling me to help you find your Ring.
Blue Sapphire Encircled with Diamonds Engagement Ring
Not all searches are outside! This story is about an IN HOUSE search! They are not as common, but I do get calls to come out and search for missing items inside homes where people have looked and looked and nothing would come out of their « hours into days » searches. What a fantastic story this is!
I got a text and call from Megan who sounded frantic about the disappearance of her irreplaceable engagement ring! This ring was handed down from her grandparents and Megan and her fiancé’ designed a new ring setting for the beautiful blue sapphire stone and diamonds surrounding the large stone. She checked out The Ring Finders directory and then contacted me immediately. I asked a billion questions about where she and her fiance’ Danny looked in their apartment. I asked if toilets were flushed, if the garbage and litter box were searched and then thrown away. I asked about the garbage disposal, checking clothes, looking in the washing machine and searching the dryer. So many more questions were asked. Megan and Danny reviewed their own in-house checklist and the ring strangely never surfaced. This went on for a very long time and then they started getting worried that the ring would never turn up.
Megan shared the disappearance story like this: Most nights, she comes home and begins cooking dinner. She takes off her engagement ring and places it in her pants pocket. She hovers over the kitchen sink and does all of the food preparations. The night of the disappearance, Megan remembered putting the ring in her pocket in order to slice and dice vegetables. She finished making dinner and the engaged couple enjoyed their meal together. It was sometime later that evening, after all of the dishes were washed and all of the pots and pans were put away, that Megan remembered that she had not placed her ring back on her finger. She reached into her pants pocket to retrieve the ring and it had vanished! She checked again and again and again! Danny would get in on the search and he too checked her pockets several times before searching the rest of the apartment.
On the phone with Megan, I continued to give suggestions as to additional places to search following a very extensive interview with her to gain the entire story of what she was doing prior to the disappearance of her beloved engagement ring. I then went back to asking questions, and finally we had exhausted every angle to this mystery. I gave Megan a list of places to re-check and check again and again! Many a times people are so close to finding the object but their eye or hands are just not in tight enough focus or not connected enough with their touch to realize the item is really right in front of them! I asked Megan to spend another few hours dedicated to searching the apartment one more time with Danny and then to call me if nothing turns up.
Several hours later that same day, Megan and Danny called me once again and shared that they had come to the place of exhaustion. They needed another pair of eyes! This is exactly what I bring to the « scene of the crime » – another vantage point, another angle, another way of looking at the same things that others have already observed and searched. So, I headed to Washington D.C. after coming from Annapolis, MD, and met the young, frustrated couple outside their lovely apartment complex just north of Georgetown.
Danny and Megan were sitting out front on a ledge waiting patiently for my arrival. I felt so bad for them because they had given it everything they had to find the ring, but still nothing turned up. We greeted one another and then the three of us headed to their apartment to conduct the search.
The first order of business was to check the garbage disposal. Nothing! Next, I had them bring all of the garbage in house to me (trash from the kitchen, bathrooms, office and bedrooms). I checked with my metal detectors and only trash metals were discovered – no jewelry. Before searching each room, I took off my gloves and called for Danny’s attention who was getting additional trash from one of the rooms. I essentially said, ‘Hey Danny, do you mind if I metal detect your fiance’s pants?’ (refer to the video account for the exact quote). It sounded quite odd at the time, but I wasn’t intending there to be anything weird sounding about it, but we all laughed! Danny answered back something like, ‘If Megan is o.k. with it, I am good.’ (again, refer to the video for accuracy on this). I proceeded to declare, « Bring me the pants! »
Megan brought the pants and I instructed her to lay the pants over a wooden chair for me to use my detectors to analyze the garment. There were two zippers on this very petite pair of pants, but no other metals were sewn on the garment. The couple swore by their multiple attempts in searching to find the ring in the pants but they said they both kept coming up empty handed. I explained to them at some point in their apartment and on the phone earlier that day that by them checking all of those times really didn’t mean a thing anymore! Why? Because they came up empty handed and because I find items all the time where people have checked over and over again but came up with nothing! That’s why I was called to come over and conduct a search myself as if one had never been conducted previously!
You’ve got to watch the video for the conclusion to this story! See below!
Spoiler Alert!
I worked my way into Megan’s pants pockets and placed my finger in the very petite spaces right down into the crevices of where the seams met. I finished checking the first one and proceeded to check the second one. I recall hearing the couple share that both of them had checked over and over and both of them concluded that the ring was definitely not in Megan’s pockets because that was the whole reason that they invited me in on the search! Well, as we were all talking, I made my way deep into her second pocket (remember the pants were draped over a wooden chair). I recall spending a good amount of time making sure my finger didn’t miss a thing in there. And it was a good thing that I took my time, because as we were all talking, my finger felt something hard deep into the tiny pocket! I mean tiny! It was wedged all the way into the deepest space where the seam closes up. I dug the object out and my finger naturally slipped into the center of the object and that’s when I knew that I had found what this beloved couple was looking for! I found the gorgeous sapphire and diamonds engagement ring! I brought it out of the pocket, kept it between my fingers and shared the awesome reveal! I didn’t have the positioning to do a fake-out because the couple was looking on and I thought it best for Megan and Danny to just get the pure pleasure out of seeing the ring reappear out of the very place that Megan had remembered tucking it in her pants pocket all along! They were so happy! I could not have been more excited and relieved for them after the panic that they experienced for th elast couple of days!
I am beyond thrilled for this lovely engaged couple, that I could be a part of finding something so precious as this family heirloom engagement ring that had gone missing (I believe the ring gets modified with additional diamonds each time the next generation in the family receives the ring)!
I found out later that the ring may never have been recovered or that it could have been permanently damaged with the precious stones lost forever, because the pants may have ended up at the dry cleaners or in the washing machine / dryer soon thereafter! So glad we found the ring before anything unfortunate could have happened to such an « endless story of love »!
YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO OF BRIAN RUDOLPH’S IN-HOUSE SEARCH!
CALL BRIAN RUDOLPH WITH THE RING FINDERS AT (301) 466-8644 AND HE WILL RETURN TO YOU WHAT HAS BEEN LOST!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEO YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO RECEIVE NOTIFICATIONS WHEN THIS LATEST SEARCH VIDEOIS UPLOADED! BRIAN’S SEARCH VIDEOS ARE FOUND ON HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL – THE RING RETURNER.
