metal detector bay of islands Tag | The Ring Finders

John had lost his white gold wedding ring in the sea a few days before I heard of it.
At this time of year, the popular tourist beach concerned is heavily patrolled by holiday detectorists, so time was of the essence – more so as the detailed location had unfortunately been posted on Facebook.
Even though I was in the throes of a major lung infection (Thanks very much, Santa!) I had to try and recover this one as soon as possible.

I met John on the beach in the evening, he indicated the highest probability area before settling down on the sand to watch, and I set to work.

First priority was to clear the heavily trafficked area in the shallows and on the beach – these areas would almost certainly see a detector overnight.
Digging an ancient corroded iPhone suggested that no-one had searched here recently, so there was a high chance of recovery, however the beach was gaining sand with each tide and I suspected I’d need to return at the next days dawn low with the 15″ coil.

I discussed this with John, and now the tide had receded somewhat, had another go at establishing where he was in relation to the low/high water marks and thus the theoretical position he was in before I decided to go another 30 minutes through to dead low before calling it a night.
Changing the sweep pattern to perpendicular to the beach, I headed out far enough to ensure I was well overshooting the likely area in order to eliminate any ‘memory drift’ as to what depth he was in, before sweeping back into the beach.
It was on the third pass that I heard that solid, repeatable gold tone and caught the ring in the scoop on the second dig, lying on the eroding edge of an offshore sandbar – I suspect he had been standing on this sand bar, hence the perception he had been in shallow water.
Holding the ring in the classic victors thumb/forefinger pose, I turned to show John it was a happy ending, only to see the rest of the family had arrived – Perfect timing.

Happy faces all round, and a pose for the cameras before I headed home to crawl back into bed…

Was asked to locate a couples’ buried investment recently, due to the delicate nature of the job I have to keep most of it in confidence – I have however been given permission to publish the following though. A tale of a modern pot of gold…

Let’s call him “Bob”.
Bob contacted me asking for help locating a cache of 1oz gold coins he’d buried many years ago…and now was unable to remember exactly where!

Oh dear.

After some background checks to ensure it was all legitimate, I met up with Bob and his wife and they showed me a patch of pasture with several excavations. Looking at the scene, I could almost sense the growing panic with the turfs transitioning from neat squares to less organized lumps and becoming more scattered around the holes…

I switched on the detector, tuned it up, and started to work the pre-dug holes to ensure it wasn’t just a case of not going deep enough. As each was cleared I moved further along the line, eliminating a few false hits which turned out to be flakes of scrap. I reached the end of the last excavation and just past the far edge, got that “Dig Me!” solid tone.

Bob went in with the spade and quickly exposed a flash of red plastic – just under the grass! I’m sure everybodies voices went up a notch as it was progressively unearthed.

Now, the fundamental rule of detecting is to always check the hole, and to ensure no coins had been lost from the now damaged jar I stuck the pinpointer into the hole. It twittered away excitedly, so I scraped the soil with the pointer and exposed more plastic!

Turns out there were two containers, not just one as first thought.

Jan 14th, 2018
I came across a plea on social media about a gold ring lost in the surf at Ruakaka. The beach is open to the ocean, has a reasonable longshore current and while conditions had been calm, sand is always moving… and rings are always sinking.
While it was outside my normal maximum travel range, the backstory to the ring put a successful recovery and return at the top of my priorities. Even if I took a financial loss, I was going to do my utmost to find and return this ring!
The ring had been lost for just over two days by the time I got there. Family efforts with a borrowed metal detector the previous day had drawn a blank.

The gentleman concerned turned up, and after a brief discussion, he duly marked out the boundaries in the sand, I waded in and got to work. It was hard graft with a big coil, although after digging a fishing weight from over a foot down, I knew if the ring could be found, it would be found.
Two hours later, I got a nice solid tone. It was so beautifully clear and smooth, it could only be gold. I listened to it again and again, knowing what it was. I had to pause as a largish wave passed, then went after it.

In the scoop was a whole heap of smiles 🙂

Some rings are worth far, far more than their weight in gold.