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

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Monday .. 6-22-15

Early Monday morning Kayley met with some friends for about an hour on the beach. She set her ring on her sandals when they walked to the water. On the way back to her house she realized her ring must have fallen into the sand. Returning to the place she was sitting, she could not find the ring.
Kayley called me and I was able to meet her about 12 noon. When I walked out on the beach I could see that the beach rake had passed over the area where she said she was sitting. My expectations for a easy recovery were not very positive until she told me that the rake machine had already passed before sitting on the beach.
I set up a grid search. After about a half hour with no success I started to cross grid the location. Kayley was sitting on the sand watching with hope that the next time I dug a target it would be her ring.
Then a young guy, that was part of a surfing school, walked up to Kayley. He wanted to know what we were looking for? She told him about her lost ring and to her surprise he had found it. He returned it to her. I believe that because we set up the search area, we attracted the attention of people around us. The most important thing was that Kayley’s ring was back on he finger where it belongs. She was also able to get to a 2pm yoga class that she was teaching. I call that « Good timing Luck »

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BMW Key Lost in Sand .. Newport Beach, CA. .. Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Thursday .. 6-18-15

I was just leaving my home to search for a ring lost near the Balboa Pier, when Tim called. He said that he was at The Wedge searching for his BMW car key. The Wedge is a popular body surfing beach about a mile south of the Balboa Pier. I told him that I would be right there, figuring it would be a simple recovery.
When I got there, Tim was shuffling his feet through the sand as he had been doing for 4 or 5 hours including the night before. He told me that he had placed his key that had a metal fob under his shoes when he went into to the water last night.
After an hour, I had cross gridded the area with no luck. I had set my detector in what I thought was all metal, but could not get a signal. I gave up till I could get my PI detector. Returning the next day with my Whites PI Surfmaster, I found the Key with a huge triangle shaped metallic bottle opener.
My other machine has a factory set Relic and Beach settings. I could not get a signal in open screen mode. The large metallic fob was masking the signal. I’ve had time to check this again and I did get a null which I may have missed, it’s a lesson to be learned with my CTX 3030. I will remember this in the future.
I called Tim and he was surprised that I went back to give it a second try.. We will meet up in a few days to return his key.

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Wedding Ring Found and Returned .. Newport Beach, CA.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Thursday .. June 18, 2015

Jenifer and her children were visiting her mother. They all went to Balboa Beach for the day. She took her wedding ring off putting it into the cup holder of her beach chair to put sunscreen on the kids. Later that afternoon they picked up their beach things to eat at a nearby restaurant. That’s when she realized that her ring was lost, most likely back where they were on the beach. They returned spending several hours searching by hand. Everybody was upset even the kids. They gave up the search believing the the ring was lost foreveer.
Returning home in the San Diego area, three days after the loss Jenifer’s mother called her, telling her that a police officer friend told her about TheRingFinders.com. Jenifer found me in the directory calling me to ask if I could help her. She was 60 miles away so it would be difficult for her to meet me at the location. She was able to tell me where she was sitting.  I know that part of the beach well and exactly where she had been. She sent me 4 photos that had been taken that day which really helped me zero in. Everything was good except they beach was full of people laid out with all their beach gear. I spent a couple hours searching the open areas. Then I went back to the car waiting two hours for people to leave.
It was close to 6 pm and people were not leaving where I needed to search. Then I saw another detectorist working a grid towards this spot. I grabbed my detector, heading towards the location I needed to work. One of the places that was now clear, earlier had a tent, a plastic kids swim pool and all sorts toys spread over a 20ft x 20ft area. Fifteen feet in a straight line and the sweet sound of gold in my earphones. Jenifer’s beautiful wedding ring ended up I my scoop.
I sent her a surprise text picture of her ring. Jenifer returned a call to me and I told her about how I found the ring. She told me that she had given up hope. Also, yesterday was their wedding anniversary she was felt terrible about not having her ring. Now, she can’t believe that it has been found.
We talked about how to get it back to her. Her mother could meet me as she lived closer to me. That would have to take place Sunday. I wanted return it directly to Jenifer as soon possible. We met Friday at a location half way between where we live. My bonus was to be able to return the ring to its owner. Jenifer was truly grateful. It was a pleasure to meet her. This is one of the ring search and returns that I will always remember.

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Lost White Gold Wedding Band.. Corona Del Mar, CA. .. Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Monday .. 5/25/15 .. 6:15pm

Kristin called me after somebody at Corona Del Mar Beach told her about TheRingFinders website. It was the end of Memorial Day, she and her husband were going to enjoy the evening with a fire at the beach. When they arrived Kristin cleaned a little of the trash out of the fire pit, taking the trash to a garbage can 15 ft away. After throwing the trash in the can she walked back to the fire pit. She took a second to shake the sand off here hands. That’s where she thought her ring flew off her finger. Her and her husband thought it could be anywhere within a 20 foot radius of the fire pit.
As usual they had a lot of help from other people on the beach. This could be disastrous for a small ring like Kristin described.
I was able to get to her location within 20 minutes. After asking a few questions I started to worry that the ring could be hiding in the fire pit or the trash can. My experience has been that shaking her hands might be where it was lost. I started there first and I got a great gold signal from the thin white gold ring surrounded with small diamonds.
Smiles and hugs with all the other beach goers congratulating Kristin. It was definitely a community affair. I stayed around for a few minutes telling everybody about www.TheRingFinders.com and passing out cards. Summer is here, I hope we can help more people find their lost valuables.
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Engagement Ring Found .. San Clemente State Beach, CA. .. In Sand

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Cori and Drew’s Story … 4/18/15 … Califia St., San Clemente State Beach

So, Drew and I decided we would take a night to go watch the sunset at Calafia state beach in San Clemente (about 5 min drive from our house ) as a way to celebrate our engagement and get some time for just the two of us -kid-free woo hoo! Like always though, we are scrambling to gather a few items to bring (champagne, blanket, etc.) and rushing out the door to make it before the sun goes down while trying to say bye to the kids etc. We make it out the door and I even remembered my camera! When we get there I decided to put the self-timer on my camera, lay out the blanket and snap a few pics of us. I notice their is a lot of seaweed obnoxiously photo bombing us and to avoid having to Photoshop it later, I quickly start to brush it away with my hands far from our blanket where we are sitting. I continuously run to and from the camera to try to get a good shot with the self-timer.

As we are taking pictures, I suddenly notice the engagement ring is no longer on my finger!! Drew and I both panicked, retracing our steps frantically everywhere . Here we are, 15 minutes before the sun goes down , crowds of people on the beach, and we are searching for my ring. I start thinking hard , “Did I have it on before we left the house? Did it fall off in the sand? Did it fall off when I took off my sandals in the sand? “ etc. I start hearing my mother-in-laws nagging voice in my head “you should have worn it on your middle finger until you got it re-sized!” The ring was loose and too big and we hadn’t had a chance to get it resized yet.
Anyways, we searched the car, the camera bag , go back to the house , retraced all steps in the sand- NOTHING.
At this point its pitch black outside and we are freezing our butts off losing all hope that we will find it , the tide is starting to roll in and any sign of society has vanished, ha. Drew and I are both wearing helmets with lights on our heads , we rush to Big 5 to purchase a $140 metal detector , go back and pace back n forth with this little machine we have no idea how to use. Still- NOTHING
OKAY- Well, the look on Drews face- I mean seriously -I lost the ring – I also knew this was practically the same chances of finding a needle in a haystack. It is starting to set in and we are sitting in an empty beach parking lot losing hope, thinking we are just going to have to accept this as a loss .
I start to Google on my phone and discover that their are literally professional ring finders, I mean what? TheRingfinders.com , yes! I start to think “What are the chances they will even find it though? And how much are they going to charge, practically the price of the ring I bet . . “ It’s worth a shot though , I think to myself. I give a call to the one we found in our area, this sweet man is willing to drive 1.5 hours to us from his ‘Riverside Metal Detecting Contest.’ Ha. Yes, apparently there is such thing.
He arrives, this sweet man, with his $3,000 metal detecting equipment. Drew is looking at me like “ c’mon really? You think this guy is going to find it? “ All odds are against us at this point because its past beach curfew, hitting 11pm, the tide is rolling in strong and we are pooped. An officer comes and tells us we will need to leave shortly but that he can give us a little bit of time to look , he chuckles “Good luck!” while walking away.
Moments later, I hear his detector, my heart sinks, “Oh just tinfoil” he says . Still no luck. Suddenly, out of nowhere- he starts skimming an area and HE FINDS MY RING!!!! I swear- I never in a million years -thought it was possible AND if we had waited till morning to go back again and look- it would have washed away with the tide !
I am so beyond grateful! I jumped up and hugged him with tears down my face asking him over and over “HOW DID YOU FIND IT?!! I CANT BELIEVE YOU FOUND IT! OH. MY .GOSH!”
So I say to him , “OK- we now owe you big time! What do you charge for something like this?“ (Yes, you would think we would have asked him before but I guess it didn’t cross our minds because 1. We were frantic and desperate for any help 2. We couldn’t put a price on something this sentimental to us -not just materialistic)
He replies, “Well, I work on a reward system. You pay me what you can afford to give and what its worth to you for me to find it. And I give 15% of the proceeds to the children’s hospital”.
I mean seriously? Is this real? Drew and I look at each other – wow this is definitely a pay-it-forward experience.
And yes, we compensated him well for his incredible gift and generosity We are FOREVER grateful . 😉

 

PS.. I had started my grid in the area they had set up their blanket. I made about 5 passes from the rocks to the water about 30ft. in each direction. Asking Cori questions when she remembered moving the dried seaweed away from the photo background. I changed my grid pattern and made one pass along the top of the waterline where the seaweed was and dug the ring with a piece of tin foil in the scoop.

 

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Platinum Diamond Wedding Band Recovered … Malibu, Calif.

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Pt. Dume State Beach, Malibu, CA. #1    ……  Saturday April 4, 2015

Rachel’s husband Joel contacted me Saturday morning asking for help to find a wedding ring set that was lost by his wife in the sand Friday at Pt. Dume State Beach, Malibu, CA. I asked them to get to the location to secure the area that the rings were lost. It is spring break and with the great weather the beaches have been crowded. I was on the road soon after the phone call but it would be about 11am before we could meet up.
After arriving I met Rachel and she explained that she had taken off her wedding ring set off, setting them on her towel while applying sunscreen. Later in the day she picked up her towel shaking the sand off. It wasn’t until after they got back home that she realized that her rings had to be in the sand at the beach.
I started to grid search the immediate location where they had spread their beach gear. I was racing to search the part of the beach not claimed by other beach goers. Twenty feet away from them I found the platinum wedding band. Normally the larger engagement ring would be very close by, but it did not show up. We were right at the most used part of the beach the towel line, next to the lifeguard tower and close to the restrooms. I still could not get to all the sand area it could have been thrown when she shook the towel. After waiting 3 hours for people to leave the un searched sand, I could not find the larger diamond ring. It was hard to tell Rachel it was not there, but I know that I covered the area thoroughly and it was not there. It is very likely that somebody had found it, there are many people that work these beaches with detectors everyday this time of year. Especially the towel line. Rachel did tell me that the ring I found was very sentimental to her because it had diamonds from both her mother and grandmothers rings. She had worn these rings over sixteen years.
Normally I could search that type location in about one hour. I stayed more than 4-1/2 hours till I felt I had gridded the whole area in more than three directions in all metal mode with the highest sensitivity I could set my detector. Later I called a local detectorist to asked if he knows of any recent find from this beach. We also posted a lost ring add on Craiglist in hopes that someone has found the other ring.
This was a disappointing search for me, because I’m used to finding both rings when a set has been lost. I guess this is what they call a bitter – sweet type feeling. Rachel’s 11 year old daughter was so happy after finding the wedding band, she said that she made two wishes that morning. One wish was that we could find the wedding ring .. She said she couldn’t tell us the other wish, because it would ruin the wish.

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Lost Gold Medallion in the water … Belmont Shores, CA. … Found

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Friday   May  2, 2014

Ami had called me about an hour after her boyfriend , Nick had lost his gold medallion in the water at Belmont Shores Dog Beach.  She had found my phone number on TheRingFinders website. I asked her a few quick questions. What time of day, Where , dry sand or water and would they be able to wait for an hour to direct me in the general location.  I checked the tides and realized that the tide was coming in which will hamper the search. More important was that I meet Nick to hear his story and see where he was when it was lost.   The normal drive would be about 30 minutes but there was a major traffic problem and it took three times as long to get there.  Nick was able to wait but the tide did not, it was already nearly high tide.  Nick told me that he had been in about 3 or 4 feet of water when his dog swam up to him. The dog’s paw got entangled in the necklace and Nick felt the chain break. After hearing the story I had to give it a try even though I felt it was out in the deeper water. I searched for about 30 minutes in waist deep water with small waves, not one signal. Nick had told me the medallion was a sentimental family heirloom. I was confident I had a better chance to search for it early the next morning which was a minus .3 ft low tide. As it worked out, I was able to find the medallion and the chain within 30 minutes at 6:30 am Saturday morning.  Ani was able to meet me so she could pass it off to Nick. I also learned that this medallion had belonged to Nick’s dad which made it so very special.  It was a pleasure to help Nick, his Mother and Ani find this heirloom and to hear how happy they were. I was told they didn’t have very much faith that the metal detector would be able to find it. I get that « I don’t believe that thing will find my ring »  « LOOK » quite often, but it just makes it more exciting when I find the lost item.

Nick's Pendant

Nick’sPendant

Ani came to get the pendant for Nick

Ani came to get the pendant for Nick

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Keys Lost At Blackmud Creek Ravine Edmonton

  • from Edmonton (Alberta, Canada)
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matt VW KeyVW Fob

Received a call from Matt last night around 7:30 to see if I was able to come out and try and find his key fob for his Volkswagen  that he lost on Saturday on a toboggan hill while he was sledding down the hill with his family. I told him if the keys are on the ground I will find them for him. I told Matt I would be there in 30 minutes I meet up with Matt at his house and walked over to the hill with my trusty V3i, Matt told me that he spent some time on Saturday evening looking for the keys but it was too dark to see also he was out early Sunday morning with no luck. Matt showed me where he was sledding on the hill and he had a spare set of keys on him, I tested his key fob and was getting a visual display of 37! Within 5 minutes I received a clear loud 37! on my unit Bingo!!! Key fob was located buried in about 4 inches of snow, another happy client Thanks Matt.

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Lost Ring playing soccer… Cherry Park – Lake Forest, Calif. .. Found in Grass

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Saturday  Sept. 28, 2013

I had just parked at a beach in Laguna and was getting ready to do a little metal detecting.  I got a call from Daniel, he was in a park in Lake Forest which is about 10 miles inland.  He told me he had just lost his ring while playing soccer. This sounded like an easy search so I asked him if he could stay in the location and I would be there in 45 minutes. When I arrived Daniel showed me the exact place he was standing when he blocked a ball that came at him.  This really sounded like it was going to be a quick recovery.  I started about 20 ft.  back from that location to begin my grid search. Daniel was familiar with metal detectors because he had used them while in the military. I started showing him how good my detector could separate different targets and identify quarters from pennies, etc. Also I could tell how deep things were eliminating a lot of work stopping and checking deep signals. Even with all this advantage I was unable to find Daniel’s  tungsten wedding band.  He was super positive that the ring flew off his finger in this 10 ft. square area. I probably cross gridded it 4 or 5 times.  I spent a total of 2 hrs. searching the rest of that end I’d the field till dark. Then  I had to admit I could not find it.  Parks are not the easiest searches because there is a lot of trash metal. If you want to make yourself crazy rent a metal detector and go try to use it in a park.

I went back to try the search for a second time after about 12 days.  I had thought about Daniel’s lost ring several times wondering what I had done wrong. Chris Turner often says it’s a game of inches and I agree. This time I took a another tungsten ring to get an accurate ID reading from my Minelab CTX 3030 metal detector. I had planned to set up my grid to cover the whole soccer goalie  area and places he may have chased the ball.  After the first 15 minutes it started to rain, the first rain in So. Calif. that we have had for 7 months. I went to my truck to get rain gear because I wanted to give this my last try.  It took about an hour and a half then I found the ring. It was more than 20 ft. from where Daniel had blocked the ball. Here’s the best part of the story. It was actually within the first couple feet where I started the search the week before. I believe that I probably wasn’t paying attention to my detector when I was bragging to Daniel about how good my expensive detector was.  

I had not told Daniel that I would return to search for his ring. After finding his ring I sent him  a photo of his ring and he called me back excited. He and his wife had already been researching the purchase of a new ring. We made arrangements to meet up the next weekend when he gets back in the area. Besides being able to return the ring, this was definitely a humbling experience and I’m learning more with each search.

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Lost Weddding Ring … Tourmaline Beach, San Diego, CA. .. Recovered Ring

  • from Newport Beach (California, United States)
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Friday, Sept. 27, 2013

I live in San Diego, CA. part of the year .  I go to my club meetings of Coinshooters of San Diego on the 4th Friday of the month. Thursday night I checked Craig’s List .. Lost and Found. Just out of curiosity. I usually don’t reply to Craig’s List postings, but I sent a message to Becca who had ask for help finding a ring that she had lost a week before. She and her husband had been surfing at Tourmaline beach Saturday 9/21/13.. They both put their rings in a backpack with cell phones and car keys. At one time during their stay at the beach, they took the car keys out to get something from the car. Later, when they were at the car getting ready to leave they went to put the rings on. His ring was there but Becca’s small platinum w/ 3 clear diamonds was not in the back pack. They assumed that the ring had been pulled out of the backpack when removing the keys earier on the beach.

The next day they sifted through the sand and Monday they rented a metal detector ($60 ).. They could not find the ring.. A week pasted and Becca took a chance and posted on Craig’s List.  After I contacted her, I told her I was a member of TheRingFinders metal detecting service. She could research my blog to see if she could trust me. She gave me a general location and said she could meet me after I got there. Sometimes when people assume the ring was lost at a certain time or place it just turns into a time consuming, failed search. I just had to give it a try. If I couldn’t find it I had a nice beach and a beautiful day to go metal detecting. I got there at 10am and found the ring within 30 minutes. Becca was still on her way to the beach. I texted her a photo of the ring and told her to drve careful. It will be waiting here for her. It stayed under the sand for a whole week evading other metal detectorists and the high tides of this week.

This ring was given to Becca by her husbsnd when they worked in South Africa several years ago. It ment the world to her. It also made my day. All these recoverieso are important to me and I often get caught up in retelling these stories to other people.

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