5 September 2026.

Andy and his wife were on the interstate headed back to Pennsylvania when he called me.  Their vacation on Cape Cod had ended, and tomorrow they would be celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary at home.  Sadly, Andy’s wedding ring would not be part of the celebration.  It had been left behind somewhere in the sand of Old Silver Beach about 24 hours ago.

As Andy described the situation, he had placed his ring in a small side pocket of his chair at the beach,  He’d forgotten about it when they packed up and left in mid-afternoon, only later to discover that the ring was gone.  So the ring most likely was left in the dry sand where they’d been sitting, or possibly in sand along the route they’d taken back to the parking lot.  He described the ring as white and yellow gold with 4 small pavé diamonds.

I asked Andy to text me a map indicating his best guess of where they’d been sitting and told him I’d leave for the beach right away.  Old Silver Beach is popular with detectorists and I was concerned that his ring was a ‘sitting duck’ that might already have been found or could soon be found, so time was of the essence.

When I arrived at the beach I grabbed my gear and headed for the spot marked on Andy’s map.  On the way I passed a man and his son who had a detector.  I stopped and told him that if they found a white and yellow gold ring with 4 small pavé diamonds, I had the name and contact information for the man who lost it.  Dan, the father, said ‘we found it’!  I outlined the situation to the point that Dan seemed satisfied that I was not ‘scamming’ him (unfortunately you can’t be too careful these days!).  He provided his phone number which I sent on with a message to Andy so that they could talk directly with one another.

While Dan and Andy were conversing and arranging a return, I learned from Dan’s wife that their daughter had found the ring using their son Ben’s detector, so there was some sibling rivalry as to who deserved the credit.  In any case, she had some cute pictures that had been taken of a gleeful Ben with the ring.

Dan and his family left shortly after his conversation with Andy ended, so the serendipitous timing of my arriving at the beach and meeting Dan was a real stroke of luck.  There now of course was disappointment, especially on the part of Ben, but there was also an honorable ending with the ring in the process of being returned to its rightful owner.

And a 29th wedding anniversary will be celebrated with joy and not with a modicum of regret!

UPDATE, 9/11: Andy received his ring a week to the day from when it was lost.  A big thank you to Dan and his son Ben!

26 August 2026.

On the evening of the 24th I received a call from Aidan, who had lost his ring at Old Silver Beach during the weekend.  As I queried him about the loss I learned that he lived off-Cape and wasn’t available to meet me at the beach, but his friend Max would be able to meet me the next day and at least show me the general location of where he had been.  Aidan described the ring as heavy, platinum, and sporting a claddagh design.

When I met Max, he showed me the area where their group had been sitting and indicated a very broad area in the water where Aidan might have been.  Unfortunately, Aidan had no specific idea as to where he’d lost the ring, whether in the dry sand, in the water, or even during a stroll down the beach to adjacent hotel property.  The good news was that the loss was not on the public beach, which much reduced the chance that the ring had already been found by another person or detectorist.  I searched several swaths in the dry sand but then had to leave for an appointment, with a plan to return the next day around low tide to continue the search.

August 26 was ideal, with sun, a slight breeze, and a good low tide.  Rather than starting the search in the dry sand I opted to take advantage of the low tide and calm conditions and hunt in the water.  When it’s not known where a ring came off, the water is a high-probability location and it’s usually worthwhile to start there when search conditions are favorable.

I began my search at the shoreline south of the presumed beach-chair position, doing swaths going directly offshore to chin-deep water, back to the shoreline, and then repeating the process while I worked slowly northward past the chair location.  The sand was remarkably barren of targets.  Only a single aluminum pop-top, which creates a signal just like a ring, provided some momentary excitement.  Finally, after a little more than 3 hours I had a good strong signal that ‘woke’ me from my reverie of monotonous swinging.  It was Aidan’s ring, in knee-deep water and only about 40′ offshore.  I was surprised, but very pleased because there was still a huge area that I might have had to cover!

Aidan was in disbelief when I called and told him I’d found his ring, even when I confirmed that it was platinum and had a claddagh design.  We’ll meet when he comes to the Cape for the Labor Day weekend, and the ring will be returned.  It was a huge relief to have a successful conclusion to what initially appeared to be an almost hopeless task!

4 September Update.  Aidan’s ring has been returned!