Received a call from Kathy who advised her husband had lost his wedding ring in the backyard of their residence. Kathy said her husband was shooting some hoops when the ring had come off his finger and disappeared in the grass. Kathy said they were unsuccessful at finding the ring and later found www.theringfinders.com on an internet search..
The photograph tells the rest of the story.
Equipment used on this search CTX3030
John
Sunday, Sept. 13, 2013
I checked my emails about 9:30 pm Sunday night. Jordin had emailed me about 6 pm. Inquiring about how « The RingfFinders » service works. I wrote a reply with a short explanation, asking her to call me at any hour. She called me about 7am. Giving me directions to where she lost her rings two days before. Again I raced to the beach trying to beat the beach cleaning machine or possible another hobby detectorist that doesn’t know how to return a sentimental piece of jewelry.
Jordin is from Bakersfield, CA.,visiting her father in Newport Beach and will be returning tomorrow. Saturday, she took her children to the beach and had put her rings in her backpack with the kids toys. When she got to the beach she dumped the toys on the sand. She did not realize till Sunday morning that her rings were lost.. She spent several hours Sunday sifting through the sand and went that night with a flashlight hoping to see a reflection from the diamonds. Her search was not successful and she did not want to tell her father. The larger of the two rings was her mother’s wedding ring and her mother had past away when she was 3 years old. The ring was given to her when she turned 18 years old. How could that ring ever be replaced ?
After following the directions that Jordin gave me over the phone. I was at the beach within 30 minutes and both the rings were in my scoop after grid searching about 20 square feet. I took a photo and sent it to Jordin with a message. Just after I sent the message she came walking towards me from across the beach. When she got to me I asked her if she got my message. She said she had not recieved it. Then I held up her two rings.. That turned on her tears of joy..
The next day, I came to the same beach area and I could see where the beach sifting machine had passed over the same area on the beach where I had recovered the rings. It feels so good to be able to use my years of using a metal detector to help Jordin and others..
I’m happy to say that the 100% success rate is still going strong!!!!! With that said, I was fairly confident on this occasion that we would find the lost wedding band simply because of the conviction the owner had. As you have probably seen mentioned many times here at the Ring Finders, being able to describe in detail how, where and when you lost your valuable is the biggest factor when it comes to a successful recovery. Jeff had two of those three things going for him. He was able to describe in great detail exactly where and what he was doing when his wedding band slipped off his finger. Unfortunately Jeff did not hear of The Ring Finders until recently and despite losing the ring almost a YEAR ago, I was able to get it back where it belongs! Jeff was fortunate that this happened in a secluded, wooded area and not a community park, playground or ball field as the result could have been quite different. With that said, if you are reading this and think too much time has passed since you lost your valuable, keep in mind that might not be the case! Here is how things went down in Jeff’s own words…..
It was around a year or so ago when I went hunting near Wye Mills, MD (across the bay bridge). It was getting late in the day when I shot a deer, then had to field dress the deer in the dark. I walked into the woods and threw away the insides of the deer, and then wiped my hands with some old hickory tree leaves. After getting the deer back to my Jeep and driving for a while I noticed my wedding ring was missing! I sadly had to tell my wife that I lost my ring. We both were pretty disappointed, but I had hope because I was going to go back the next day to search for it….on my hands and knees for hundreds of yards. No luck finding the ring, but I still would not lose hope. I knew in my heart it was there in the woods, or somewhere in the field where I was hunting. Every time I would go hunting in that spot, I would always look in the direction of where I thought the ring was.
A year goes by, always thinking what if? I was reading an article on Yahoo about a woman who lost her ring, and how she used « TheRingFinders.com » to find her ring. I immediately thought to myself, this is my chance….no way! I contacted several members and Jim Wagner (who had a 100% success rate) was the first to call. I gave Jim my story, and I said I know it’s there or that’s what my heart tells me. Jim said, « If it’s there, I will find it »!! Wow, was he right! Lance and Jim started their search, and BAM… Jim says to me, your search is over! He found the ring!! I was in tears and so thankful that I never lost hope. I was also very happy that their 100% success streak is alive and well!
Both me and my wife are so thankful for Jim and Lance! We will always be thankful to both of them for returning the ring in style. I have been telling everyone about these guys. What a awesome end to a search that was going on in my heart! They are simply the BEST, and two of the kindest people I have met. Jim and Lance, you guys are definitely classified as « Lord of the Rings »! Wow……
Sincerely,
Jeff and Senayit
It’s always a great feeling to return a lost item to anyone, but it was a little extra special with Jeff because you could see how much his marriage and the symbol of the marriage really means to him!
We got call from the gentleman above who said he had lost his ring in the backyard while playing with the dog at friends home. The challenge on this hunt was the it was 102 degrees in Dallas that day, it was miserable. My wife and I arrived and began the search with our Garrett ATPro’s and we began in the area where the customer said he thought it was.
We searched for about 2 hours, gridding out the yard, going through the flower beds we were having no luck. I ask the ring owners wife if he could come home from work and show us exactly where he was and exactly what he did with the dog. He arrived about 20 minutes later. He stood in the yard and said I did this and my son & I looked at each other and knew what had happened, the ring was slung back to the other side of the yard when the man threw the toy for the dog. My son found the ring in about 10 minutes.
The customer and his wife were thrilled, we were soaked, and sunburned, but happy!
Another successful hunt for « The Dallas Ring Finders »
Don & Ellen with help from our son Tripp
We got a call about 5:30pm from a customer that we had help several months ago, her daughter had lost daddy’s very special knife in the high grass. We were able to find it and created a happy customer.
This same lady’s neighbor’s daughter grabbed her mom’s car keys and ran through the yards of about 5 homes chasing a dog and then ran back to her house. Now you need to understand these are hugh yards, 100-200 ft across per yard. All the neighbors and family had been looking for 1 key and key fob that had fallen off.
Our previous client came home and heard about the keys and immediately said « I know who to call, lets call « The Ring Finders », she gave us a call and explained what happened and we said let a us grab a quick dinner and we would head that way.
We arrived and chatted with the owner of the keys, the little girls dad, the little girl was in bed being punished for losing mom’s keys. He explained where she had run and told us we had permission to scan all 5 of his neighbors yards. Ellen & I got our Garrett ATPro’s and began to search, some areas were very thick grass. About 5 minutes after we started my son and his girlfriend arrived to assist. Sometimes just more eyes in a situation helps, it was starting to get dark.
We all spread out and it 5 minutes I hear my son say « Found It » we all ran to him, including the owner and all his neighbors, my son was not even using a detector, just walking and looking. As I told him, son we do not care how it gets found only that it gets found.
Everyone was happy the father said it would have cost him $300-$400 per replace the key fob for his wife’s car.
So from a referral comes another successful hunt for « The Dallas Ring Finders »
Don & Ellen with assistance from Tripp & Shannon
We received an email from Crystal after she did a exhaustive google search to find someone to help her husband find his wedding ring. Her husband Aaron had been tube fishing on Lake Lavon in Texas all day long. He had no idea where he lost the ring and I think really did not expect us to find it.
Trying to coordinate schedules for us to make the hour drive out to the lake took several days, so today when we all arrived at the lake the ring had been lost for 9 days. We arrived about 9am and met Aaron & Crystal, remember he was very unsure where he lost the ring, in fact he thought it was probably out in 20-25 ft deep water where he had been tube fishing.
Aaron showed us the area where he and his buddy cleaned the fish in a picnic area. Ellen & I got out both of our Garrett ATPro’s and began the search. Aaron and Crystal took a walk down the beach while we were detecting. We had only been there 20 minutes when we spotted the Silver Carbonite Wedding Band. We could not believe we found it, this was one of those searches you go on almost knowing its going to be a long shot at best.
BUT, it turned into a awesome day. Ellen & I walked down the beach and Aaron & his wife spotted us and began walking back our way. As we got close to them I said « Boy the lake is really low » instantly you could see their faces get a little sad thinking we had not found the ring and already given up.
THEN, I said, « Aaron let me ask you a question, would you like to have this back » and I held up his ring. As you can see in the pictures, they were ecstatic and could not thank us enough.
What a wonderful hobby we have and the joy we get to bring to people when we find their lost item.
Another successful hunt for « The Dallas Ring Finders »
Don & Ellen
As I was finishing up the story of my last ring recovery, I received a call from Scott who was attending a wedding at the Hotel Del Coronado. You my remember this hotel if you’ve seen the movie, Some Like it Hot, with Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis. Anyway, he was seated with his family at some tables outside on the sand when he decided to let his young daughter handle his wedding ring. Even though he impressed upon her the importance of a wedding ring, she had no problem burying it in the sand! After an attempt to sift through the sand with fingers without success, he searched online for help and contacted me through the Ring Finders site. As luck would have it, I was able to come right over and do a search before dinner figuring it should be a fairly easy recovery since they hadn’t left the search area and it was a very small area to search. If course, I’ve thought that in the past at times, and had long, difficult ones instead.
This time we were in luck and it took maybe two swings of the loop before I had a nice gold sound in my sites. About 3 inches under the sand I pulled out Scott’s nice wedding band. It had taken me 100 time longer to find a parking spot at the beach that day than the ring! All turned out well and no major delays in the after-wedding festivities. As Scott found out, save your money buying or renting a metal detector to use yourself, and get not only a detector, but, someone who has some experience using one too. It can save a lot of time and frustration. It was a pleasure to meet you Scott, and thanks for the reward to help keep this service going.
Sunday, Sept. 01, 2013
Chrisy’s mother called me excited that I had answered the phone. Her daughter had lost her diamond wedding ring in ankle to knee deep water while throwing a football. While searching the internet Christy’s mom some how called DeMarco Detector Sales in New Jersey. Joe DeMarco helped her to locate my phone number (Thanks Joe) . She contacted me. It was 4pm and the tide was coming in, but I made the trip to talk to Christy and her husband Ryan. It’s half the battle to get the location and all the information that will help make the search successful. They showed me the area and she explained that she was sure it was on her finger before playing ball, but she did not exactly feel when she lost the ring. I told them I would return at 1 am in the morning. I was worried because the sand was very soft, mushy and there was no shell or rock base. After searching for 2 hours the ring showed up in my scoop. Actually it was less than 4 inches deep. What a beauty !! King Neptune doesn’t get to keep this ring. Christy and Ryan walked out onto the beach 10 minutes after I found the ring. It was like a new years celebration at 2:30 am with 3 people.
This was one of 17 rings found and returned using My Minelab CTX 3030 metal detector sense January, 2013.
On 08/05/13, I received a phone call from a gentleman who said that his wife had lost her engagement ring on the beach in Dewey Beach, Del. The gentleman requested my assistance in finding the ring so I responded to the area of the lost ring and contacted the young lady who had lost the ring. The young lady stated that she had placed her rings in the side pocket of a cart that they had taken with them on the beach. What she did not know was that the pocket on the cart had a hole in it and when she went to get her rings, she only was able to find the wedding band. We walked down to the are on the beach where the cart had been sitting. The beach was still crowded so I only had a small area to search and this area was where the cart had been sitting and was marked by a beach chair. I began my search and I new failure was not an option as all eyes on the beach were upon me. I made my first pass, there was nothing and then on my second pass there it was just waiting to be found. The young lady sat patiently in the beach chair watching as I searched. I scooped up the ring, grabbed it with my fingers and revealed it to the young lady and I asked « Is this it? » Tears welled up in her eyes as I handed her the ring, she was very grateful for the return of her ring. The beach crowd around the search site, cheered and clapped. What a rush! The husband of the young lady arrived before I departed, he thanked me and said « I really had no desire to learn how to use a metal detector tonight! »
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Chunky – White Gold – with 1 ct. Square Cut Diamond
I had just finished doing some recreational detecting of 27 fire pits at Corona Delmar Beach. I like to practice detecting around the fire pits because it’s a challenge to find a good targets amongst all the trash. That’s how I entertain myself. I call it practicing my hobby. Driving home with my detectors ready to go, I got a ringfinders call out from Emily.. She lost a gold ring yesterday afternoon while trying to catch a football. Her and her friends spent hours crawling around on the beach running their fingers thought the sand to no avail.
In the morning Emily and her friend got online and found a link that brought up The RingFinders. I always carry my cell phone and pulled to the side of the road to get the directions and ask a few questions. I did ask her what type material was it made of and was it small or large. She told me it was gold and it was « Chunky ». I had to drive about 10 miles and walk down about 150 steps. By the time I got to the location I Emily had text message a google map and other information. The best help was they were near a group of 3 trash cans and about 20 ft. from the rocks . I started in a straight line swinging slow and low. Only 30 ft. into the search I got a signal that almost overloaded my detector. It was that beautiful unique ring and I now know what « Chunky » is. I sent her a text photo of her ring on my finger, saying Guess What.
What’s special about this is, we did this all with our smart phones and it wasn’t necessary for Emily to drive 40 miles to show me the location. It was less than an hour from the first call. We arranged to meet back in Newport Beach and she had her ring in about 2 hours from the time she called. It was all smiles and a big thank you. She promised me that she was never taking the ring to the beach. Also promised me to send me a message with the weight of her ring. It was definity unique and would have been a heart breaker to lose it.
