We may not always get a call and we don’t limit our search to rings. On this occasion I found a pair of prescription glasses and started asking people in the area if anyone lost their glasses. I found a guy that said his dad had lost his not long ago. They were his! He was very grateful and was wondering how he was going to drive back home without his glasses!
Hi, my name is Steve Thomas and I have just joined theringfinders.com. I have been metal detecting off and on for over 40 years. I have recently retired from the Myrtle Beach SC area where I have much beach detecting experience. The joy of reuniting people with valuables once thought gone forever is why have I chosen to use my hobby to help others. Please contact me as soon as possible if you need any assistance locating a lost possession.
Matt contacted me about his lost wedding band near Ithaca NY. He had lost it during a kayak mishap while duck hunting at a secluded beaver pond.
He thought that the ring had came off his finger when the kayak rolled and his hand went down into the mud of the pond bottom. Matt and his friends planned a trip back to the site to see if they could see the ring. That evening Matt contacted me again and told me as soon as he stepped into the water it became too murky to see anything. Two days later My wife Traci and I set off on our long drive to meet Matt. When we arrived Matt told us it was about a 20 minute hike back to the pond. By this time the temperature was in the forties and it was raining. I assembled my gear and we set off toward the pond. When we arrived at the pond, Matt showed me where he thought he had launched the kayak and pointed out a 15′ by 30′ area the ring should be in. I tuned on my White’s MX Sport metal detector and stepped into the water. Immediately my feet sunk almost a foot into the mud, sticks and leaves of the pond bottom. I was thinking to myself I hope Matt did not step on his ring while he was here searching. I waded further out and swung my coil over the area where the kayak was launched. I had absolutely no signals so after 15 minutes I expanded my search. I soon had a signal, but it was a nickel signal and it was about 10 inches deep in the pond bottom. The pond water was so murky that once my search coil entered the water it disappeared from sight. I asked Matt what his ring was made of because I was not getting a gold signal. He told me it was only gold plated for durability. Immediately I felt I had located the resting place of the ring. Now to get the target to the surface. The water I was standing was almost waist deep so I could not search with my hands without submerging my upper body and face into the frigid water. I started using my sand scoop to scoop up mud, sticks and leaves. Inch by inch I was working the target closer to the surface. When the target was at about two inches I located it with my pin pointer and lowered my scoop until I felt my scoop touch the pin pointer. I scooped up as much debris as I could get in the scoop. As I sorted through the leaves and sticks I spotted the familiar shine of white gold. As I pulled the ring out of the scoop and held it up for Matt to see. Immediately he exclaimed » No Way « ! I waded out of the pond and handed Matt his wedding band. He immediately texted a photo of the ring to his wife, smiling the whole time. Even though I was soaked to the bone and shivering I felt warm having been successful in returning smiles to this young couple!
Tom Watkins
New Albany PA
570-916-2617
Studland Beach in Dorset is a popular destination for holiday makers and day visitors just like Richard Meredith from Hampton Court, London.
As with many people visiting beaches, the combination of Sand Castle making, throwing Frisbees and sun tan oiled fingers- the risk of losing a ring is rife. We all know how hard it is to find anything dropped in the sand and the more you search the deeper it falls.
This is just what happened to Richard when he felt his ring slip off. The more he dug, the deeper it sank. He waited patiently for me to arrive but was reunited with his ring in a matter of seconds.
Richard kindly made a donation to the Margret Green Animal Charity.
July 4, 2015 three in the afternoon, I was getting ready to start the Bar-BQ and had the fireworks on display so all the neighborhood kids could see what was going to happen at dark. We throw a 4th July party in our cul-de-sac, it has become a very big party and yearly tradition, this was no exception.
The phone rang and a soft hesitant voice asked, « Is this the ring finder? » to which I replied « yes, how may I help you? » Then it all came out, her name was Trisha and she with her family had been on the beach south of the Pismo Beach pier where she had lost her wedding ring. She had looked for it in vain, even took pictures of the area’s land marks with her cell phone so they could come back and search if they did not fine it that afternoon. When Trisha informed her father-in-law of her loss a light went off…he had remembered seeing my Isuzu trooper that I advertize « The Ring Finders » on while at the beach and gave her my number, that is how she found me and my services.
I explained to her there was no way I could go right then due to the 4th of July block party I was in charge of and on top of that Pismo Beach would be imposable to get on to that afternoon due to the big fireworks show Pismo shoots off the pier every 4th of July evening. There were traffic jams for miles in every direction on all the roads into and out of Pismo Beach, plus there would be no place to even park even if I could get there. I try and stay away until the 5th then I hunt the beach for the lost treasures.
Trisha told me the general area where she thought the 1.3 ct diamond ring was lost and I knew there would be no one in that particular area hunting during the night. The 4th of July is a big deal for many of the local detectors who come out on that night and hunt around the pier area where the most people are located during the show. Pismo Beach has anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 people show up for their great fireworks show. Since Trisha had lost her ring more than a mile from the area of the most people I felt it would be safe for the night and that I would meet her and her husband Nate at 6 am the next morning to see if I could locate the lost ring.
It was a cool, wet, foggy morning as I pulled up to the arranged meeting area and donned my hunting gear, Trisha and Nate showed up right on time and after explaining how I work we set out. Walking down the stairs off the wooden boardwalk and on to the dry sand of the beach, Nate told me they had walked a few hundred yards up the beach north of the lifeguard station in the dry sand, then put up a sun shade for the day. Trisha explained she had not gone into the water and basically just walked to the area then back with one trip on the wet sand to the surf in a straight line, but did not get her hands wet and had not been doing any strenuous activities like Frisbee that afternoon. By mid afternoon they decide to leave the beach, it was when they had gotten back their car that Trisha discovered her wedding ring was missing, she immediately retraced her steps from the parking lot to the board walk to no avail, then back to the beach to search the area where they had been, taking pictures for later reference.
I started the search at the stairs while having them walk the same rout they had traveled to the area where they had been, I walked behind them, all the while searching. Once we matched up the picture to the exact area I had Nate mark out the perimeter of general area that they had been in, then I drew out a 3X larger area and started my grid search. About 15 minutes later I was seven steps from the center of the area Nate had marked and had a hit that screamed in my headphones, I knew that had to be it and yep a 1.3 round diamond solitaire in a fat platinum setting was sparkling in the bottom of my scoop. I yelled at Trisha with a smile on my face and while holding it up asked her if this was her ring….all she could do was cry and smile while shaking her head yes, I think Nate might have gotten a few grains of sand in his eyes too.
Chalk up another one for the « The Ring Finders »
1.3 ct. diamond Platinum setting recovered on Pismo Beach
Trisha & Nate